Ribbon (Bleach AU, Original Character)

[Azura]

Reading through I noticed chapter 6 is unthreadmarked

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 19: Bone White

There was a resounding boom as Uyu's fist met the Hollow's, both seemingly equal in force. I didn't let the opportunity go to waste, and I slunk forward quickly, trying to keep myself as inconspicuous as possible. I finessed my way underneath the gargantuan arm and planted a fist solidly in its side.

The Hollow screeched again, more anger than pain and lashed out with its tail like appendage, forcing me to take a few steps back while Suzumi approached from a different angle, leaping towards the thing and planting a bone shattering blow directly into its collarbone. Though, unfortunately, aside from a screech of pain, it didn't seem to impair the Hollow at all, taking a swipe at Suzumi as she also danced just out of its reach.

So far so good.

Now that I had actually touched the Hollow, I could kind of make out its spiritual energy, or maybe its signature, but I still couldn't visualize a ribbon, which meant that I couldn't just steal its ribbon and summarily beat it to death. Maybe that would've been too easy.

The Hollow lumbered forwards, using its fists to rush towards us, the thumping against the solid concrete able to be felt through the sandals that came with the new uniform.

"Go in!" I yelled, mostly to Uyu, who still had the largest amount of pure firepower of us but had to give her gauntlet some time to power up to full. Luckily, she had been hanging back and recharging since that first punch.

She leapt again, seeking to punch the Hollow in its face, but the Hollow leaned on one arm and swiped, hand open, trying to slap the little girl away, but I was ready for that.

With quick and precise movements, I positioned myself behind the swinging hand and jumped to grab the Hollow's fingers, using all my weight plus a good deal of enhancement to my muscles using spiritual energy. I managed to wrestle the thing's hand to the ground, allowing me to straddle its wrist and let Uyu's fist fly into the Hollow's face.

The fist that was swinging towards me, trying to get me to release its other hand from my hold, suddenly redirected towards it's face as it screamed bloody murder.

"I-I got it!" Uyu cheered, but I wasn't so quick to celebrate. There was a pitter patter of what almost sounded like shattered ceramics on the ground, but all was soon drowned out as an overwhelming scream rang out, the world suddenly becoming heavier with the spiritual pressure the this was releasing.

"It was toying with us!" I screamed as I unhanded the straining wrist, just before it was going to break free and send me flying.

"What do we do?" Suzumi yelled back as the Hollow used its tail for the first time. It shot out like a bullet, catching the Uyu in the chest as she tried to retreat behind us. Suzumi, only seeing the blur of Uyu's form as she flew past into a brick wall, immediately turned to make sure that Uyu was alright.

However, as Suzumi did so, I saw one of the Hollow's fists rocketing towards Suzumi, hoping to catch her off guard while she worried more about Uyu than herself.

"Suzumi, eye on the Hollow!" I yelled at her, trying to be as commanding as possible. I raced towards the incoming fist and, using as much force as I could muster on short notice, slammed my fist into its wrist. With a sickening crack, whatever it was that held the thing together broke, and with a scream it pulled its injured hand back, leaning mostly on its other arm.

"You little–" Suzumi began but was interrupted with the Hollow screeching out it's pain, the air around us becoming even denser than before, forcing Suzumi to readjust her footing to stay stable.

Seeing its chance, the Hollow's tail lashed forwards again, it's clawed end seeking her flesh. However, Suzumi was a smart cookie.

Knowing that the Hollow was more animalistic than anything, she made sure to emphasise her moment of weakness as she 'stumbled' forward. Really, she'd put herself at the perfect angle to enhance her leg muscles and effectively kick against the ground, making the ground shatter slightly underneath he forces, launching herself forward, grabbing onto the Hollow's tail and dashing underneath it's torso.

When she reached the other side, with a scream of exertion and enhancing herself to such a degree that I could see her ribbon glow with power, she pulled on the tail with all her might, forcing the Hollow to strike at the ground, planting its fingers into the earth to hold back against the might of Suzumi.

Of course, I wasn't going to let my sorta-girlfriend's awesome moment fail. Running forwards to where the Hollow's hand was planted, I took a deep breath in, making sure that my hand was entirely coated in spiritual energy and enhancing my right arm with as much as I could spare, I brought my fist down on the Hollow's other wrist.

This time, it didn't simply break, it tore. My hand passed through the strange flesh of the Hollow, its skin giving a token resistance to the force of my fist, then travelling through the strange not-flesh and, with a small bang, reaching the other side. Thankfully, my fist did more damage than just allowing me to sink my arm deep into the Hollow and having me be flung around, but it created a wide hole that didn't quite sever the arm from the hand.

Though, Suzumi's forceful pulling did the job for me, as the flesh stretched past it's limits and eventually tore apart. The Hollow then went flying overhead, and in less than a second, slammed bodily into the concrete on the other side of Suzumi, a stilted screech the only thing that it could muster.

I wasn't panting with the exertion of the past few moments now, and I'm sure that Suzumi was doing similarly, but I had greater things to worry about.

"Uyu! Are you alright?" I yelled, making sure to not take my eye away from the hollow, who, unable to stand on its arms anymore, could only resort to flailing with its tail, which Suzumi was only semi-successfully pinning down, exhausted by her earlier heroics.

"J-just fine!" I head as a dark shape flew overhead. With a single glance I could see both Uyu's ribbon and her gauntlet glowing with a powerful white energy. I couldn't help myself and grinned madly.

With a massive boom, and the sound of shattering ceramic, the fight was over, the weight in the air died as the Hollow's mask shattered in its death, though the body stayed there, fully formed. Tessai had told me that Soul Reapers were capable of purifying the soul and sending to Soul Society or Hell, depending on the crimes of the soul, but I guess just breaking its mask with brute force won't necessarily purify it and may just disable it depending on the Hollow.

Quickly recovering from the fight, I made my way towards the Hollow's body, tentative at first, making sure that there wasn't going to be any surprises. But after a long moment of waiting, the body didn't do so much as twitch.

I reached out my hand, placing it on the body of the Hollow and feeling its unnaturally cool skin, just below a comfortable temperature to touch but not so much that you'd pull your hand away. The spiritual energy of it was still all there, keeping the Hollow's body corporeal, but I was having difficulty making sense of the thing's ribbon.

It was there, it definitely had one, but I just couldn't get it all together. It was different with human souls and Soul Reaper souls, they were basically the same, just varying levels of powerful, but this thing was alien in its essence. An inversion.

"An inversion!" I mumbled excitedly as I looked towards the hole in the Hollow's chest, and then looked towards the destroyed mask, one large piece of the thing's mask still whole. It was a part of the mask's mouth and tusk, laying on the ground. I couldn't see what was underneath the Hollow's mask. But it just seemed like incomplete spiritual energy, not really anything other than a fountain of black spiritual energy, unformed and taking on a similar guise to blood. Interesting.

I walked over to the largest share of the mask and picked it up. I could hear Uyu and Suzumi talking in the background, mostly Suzumi fussing over the smaller girl, but I ignored them for a moment just allowing myself to think about the mask shard in my hand.

"What are you looking for?" Kisuke's voice questioned lightly from beside me, but I didn't respond, my mind only just registering the man's voice in the first place, but other things taking priority.

As I held the mask, the convoluted mass of spiritual energy started to align itself, able to be traced back further, like untangling a mess of yarn. I picked apart the stings from each other, slowly learning more and more about what it was that the Hollow actually was, not just was it had become.

I already knew that it was once a human soul, but now it was painfully obvious. After the death other soul, the clock begun to tick. The soul's unsettled grief and pain slowly compounded, warping the mind of the soul, no corporeal body to keep the soul's mind healthy and regulated.

Then, when the chain begins to die, and the soul inevitably succumbs to it, the heart of their soul, everything that was once that allowed them to feel, to love, to empathise and dream is torn from them, and warped horribly.

The worst part is that they are the same, deep down. Nothing has changed but their heart, the ultimate corruption of how they feel. Their mind is the same, still loves the same people, still feels the same emotions, but their heart tells them the opposite.

Rage at those that they love, feelings of betrayal, grief in excess. It clouds their minds, slowly corrupting it as well. Only the most mentally strong could possibly stand against that force, and even still, it threatens to strip away everything that you once were, forcing the newly formed hollow to sacrifice parts of itself to its now corrupted heart.

The mask.

And now, it made sense. Not total sense, but enough. I could see the thing's ribbon now, a thick, extremely pale white affair with a gaping hole in its tip, the edge of the hole was lined in a pure darkness.

"Grayson?" Kisuke's voice prodded, no worry inherent in his voice, but a quiet curiosity that the man seemed to hold with him everywhere.

"I can see the ribbons of Hollows now." I said plainly. The man's ribbon nodded thoughtfully.

"I had assumed that you'd be able to do as such at some point. I was readying myself to teach you the difference in Hollow spiritual signatures, but it seemed that you are ahead of me." He chuckled to himself before tapping his cane against the concrete underneath out feet, "How about you give it a whirl? See if you can pick out any nearby Hollows."

I nodded and closed my eyes. I hadn't encountered difficulty in trying to sense someone's ribbon before, but I also have to keep in mind that I had never encountered a living Hollow before today and I've spent my entire life surrounded by humans. Sensing human souls and derivatives of, like Soul Reapers, was hardly difficult.

Now, however, as I spread out the range of what I was sensing, I could only get faint ideas of locations and forms. It was far less precise, but the closer the Hollow was, the better idea I got of its ribbon.

"Wait, I've got something weird." I said, as I felt a strange jolt in my mind. I searched around for it within the mess of strange and garbled ribbons in front of me, but no matter how far I pushed my senses out the feeling didn't subside. I was missing something.

I could feel my face pull itself into a look of consternation as I drew in my range again, focusing my sensing strength into a closer and closer area around me. Soon enough it was only a kilometre or two, then nine-hundred metres, seven-hundred, four hundred. Now it was like I was having the worst migraine of my life, but I pushed further. There was something here, and I needed to know what it was.

I pulled the range in further, three-hundred, two-hundred, now my mind was on fire, as if my hair was alight and was eating away at my flesh with reckless abandon.

"Grayson!" Kisuke yelled, "Stop! You're hurting yourself." Kisuke's voice rang out, but I didn't register it. One-hundred and fifty, one-hundred…

Then I could see it. While my mind was exploding with a pain far surpassing anything I had ever felt before, I could see the ribbon I had been seeking.

It was thin, only the width of a few fingers in contrast to the usual three or four. It's pale white was qualitatively different than that of the meagre Hollow we had just fought, a totally different shade altogether.

The shade of bone white screamed of desolation, death and an empty hunger. My eyes trailed up its long length as it reached the neat little hole in its end, out of the small hole a long black strip of blood leaked, pulsing slowly but ever determined.

My body began to shake violently as I fell to my knees. I could feel the blood rushing out of my nose, forcing me to cough violently, blood splattering my clothes and the ground below me. I heard a chorus of worried voices and Suzumi's shrill scream.

But when I looked up, I could see it. Standing there upon the rooftop. Watching, waiting.

"T-there." I stammered out, pointing weakly towards the roof before my mind swam, and with a brutal spike of pain, my world went dark.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 20: An Apparition

As Grayson's body fell to the concrete Kisuke Urahara's spiritual pressure roared to life—defensively whipping around to stare at the point on the rooftop that Grayson had been pointing at as he fell unconscious.

On top of the rooftop there was a figure, small and extremely humanoid, but not at all human.

Without a second thought, Kisuke's cane became a wicked sharp Zanpakutō, screaming with the energy leeching from its surface. With a single step, he was beside the figure, swinging his blade at a speed most would barely be able to see at all.

Kisuke, however, sent his mind into overdrive. This was a testing attack, something not intended to necessarily kill the target, to allow him to gain information instead. First was it's form. It was indeed a Hollow, though even as he stood directly in front of the Hollow, it was as if it didn't exist at all. It was distinctly humanoid, short even. Kisuke was hardly tall, but the Hollow was a few inches shorter than he.

It's mask was oddly featureless, covering the face and smoothing out features that are barely impressed upon the mask. It fell into a teardrop shape as the mask made it's way towards the chin, two simple holes cut out for dark recesses where eyes would be, and large defined teeth low down on the mask. Apart from those standard features, there was no colouring, no patterns and no edges or hard lines.

The Hollow, instead of letting itself get hit by the blade, simply vanished and appeared behind Kisuke. Urahara had expected as such, and let it happen, waiting for a blow to arrive in short order… but nothing came. Instead, as he whirled around to face the Hollow, it simply stood there almost as if it were analysing him.

The Hollow's body itself was covered in a bone white shawl, covering up anything that may be lying underneath, except for it's arms that protruded from underneath folds in it's robes. They weren't the typical black skin and flesh of a low-level Hollow.

An Adjuchas? How? There should be no way for a Hollow of that level to sustain itself, even in Karakura town. And to travel from Hueco Mundo without any of my sensors detecting it? Kisuke thought, his mind awhirl with possibilities.

Kisuke struck out with his blade, quicker and harder this time, intending to do at least a little damage. But just like before, the Hollow simply disappeared, even leaving behind an after image which was sliced apart by Kisuke's blade.

Again, when he turned towards his back, the Hollow was there, silent and waiting.

"So you have a hunting instinct, then." He spoke dryly, giving the Hollow a questioning glance. The Hollo remained entirely silent.

"Why do you not attack, little Hollow?" Kisuke asked, voice dropping dangerously, his haori billowing with the undulations of his spiritual pressure spewing forth from his body, wrapping itself around the Hollow.

They stood like that, staring into each other's eyes, or eye holes, for a long time. Kisuke kept pushing up his spiritual pressure, far past what Grayson had taken during his training, and substantially stronger than he was capable of enduring even now after a month of training, even with how quickly he had progressed.

"An Adjuchas would be able to converse with me easily, even some low-level Hollow are capable of a such. What are you, exactly?" The spiritual pressure that Kisuke was unleashing was far too much for even Jinta to reliable stand against, however the Hollow stood as silently as it had before, without even a slight expression of difficulty.

There was the tell-tale displacement of air as Tessai made his own way into the small area of highly condensed spiritual pressure.

"A Hollow?" Tessai exclaimed warily, raising a hand, palm facing towards the Hollow and, with a small grunt of exertion, a barrier appeared around the it. Chains quickly rose from the concrete roof, wrapping each of the Hollow's limbs, and then a larger chain wrapping the entire body in a thick layer of pure spiritual energy.

This seal was extremely impressive, an original creation of Tessai's, one he knew so well that he could easily perform the bakudō without an incantation at full power, a feat only few could possibly claim to have reached in even the simplest of kidō.

However, even under both spiritual pressure and sealing bakudō, the Hollow didn't even do so much as move, let alone struggle against it's bindings.

"What is this thing. It's as if I am not even binding it at all!" Tessai called to Kisuke, eyebrows furrowing underneath his rectangular glasses, a concern in the man that he hadn't seen in years. A concern that his kidō wasn't sufficient.

"I don't know…" Kisuke spoke softly. The Hollow didn't even seem dangerous, it was easily the most docile Hollow he'd ever encountered, barring it's habit of using sonido to get behind it's targets, a clear holdover for some hunting instinct that it has retained.

"I haven't seen a non-hostile Hollow like this, not one to this degree. It isn't even an Arrancar. You could almost convince me that it was a Dragon, like the Europeans have, if I didn't know better." Kisuke said, humming and hawing.

Honestly, Kisuke was reluctant to kill the Hollow. It had caused even Grayson, a living spiritual sensor that was only becoming more and more precise, an inordinate amount of difficulty to actually detect at all. For it to also be non-hostile to such lengths as not even struggling against both spiritual pressure and sealing bakudō was possibly the rarest type of Hollow you could encounter, maybe even entirely unique to itself.

"Hollow, are you capable of understanding speech?" Kisuke probed. There was no response, however, the Hollow standing entirely still, looking more like a statue than anything, staring into Kisuke's eyes.

Kisuke wasn't a fool, he was more than ready to release his Bankai and exterminate the Hollow with impunity, and he was entirely sure that he'd be capable of it, but it was a goldmine of information on Hollows, that was so difficult to procure due to the inherently obscure nature of souls.

That was, however, before the Hollow moved.

It wasn't the small shift that any normal Adjuchas would be barely capable of under the circumstances, no. The Hollow entirely disregarded the chains and spiritual pressure altogether, walking through the chains as if they were mere apparitions hanging in mid-air. Kisuke thought himself dreaming when he saw that sight, and before any other instinct made it's way to his mind, he had only one thought.

How interesting.

And then the Hollow disappeared, totally untraceable.

---​

Waking up was terrible, I realised.

Maybe it was the total, utter feeling of lethargy, or the dry mouth, or the lingering taste of blood covering my tongue.

But it was probably the massive headache, like someone was driving a spike through my skull, one heartbeat at a time. Each pulse of pain made me regret waking up at all, destroying any possible coherent thought I could have potentially conjured from the black pit of pain that was my mind.

At some point I had a cup of water forced into my hand, letting me absentmindedly sip on the cool cup of revitalizing liquid. Sometimes water truly tasted like a god created drink, personally crafted for you, to bring your body back to it's perfect state. At least, that's what it tasted like after the first few swigs, those just tasted like blood and gunk from a dry mouth.

"Grayson?" A soft voice whispered, in a concerted effort to be quiet. It still sent a tingle of pain down my spine as my head lit on fire with pain again.

"Suzumi." I replied softly to the voice, feeling her hands clasp around my own gently.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked, and I definitively responded my exact physical state with one simple grunt. She gave me a forced chuckle, "You just love to make me worry about you, doofus."

I almost laughed, until I realised what a terrible, terrible idea that would be. Just thinking of laughing sent my brain into backflips, so I settled for a forced smile.

"I think that's where half my worth comes from." I could feel her roll her eyes just from the mood.

"Twenty-five cents tops." She jibed.

"Sold, to the lovely lady who's kinda my girlfriend!" I exclaimed with a lack of enthusiasm, only due to my lack of actual energy to put in. Though, if I had to guess by her barely restrained laugh, she didn't mind all that much.

What came next was a soft sensation against my cheek and a gentle hug that lasted a few minutes, simply enjoying each other's presence and warmth.

"Well, since I now own you, we may as well be officially together, then?" She whispered, a smile on her lips before she kissed my own gently.

It wasn't an overindulgent kiss, simply a confirmation of what we already knew. This small, little thing that had grown spontaneously from a chance meeting on a plane, to staying at her apartment and listening to her talk about her father, to finding a 'job', to becoming involved in a mysterious spiritual world, all culminating in that one confirmatory kiss.

It was a simple, no frills thing that we had unconsciously cultivated for no other reason than we enjoyed each other's company. Maybe it wasn't some star-crossed lovers situation, as I'm sure that Suzumi would be perfectly fine simply working as a flight attendant, never finding out what was hidden in the world at my side. But maybe that just made the simplicity of it even more special.

A chance in a chance.

We hugged each-other for a good while afterwards, enjoying the warm silence as my headache slowly, slowly receded, becoming a humming pain in the back of my mind that complained whenever I tried to reach out my ribbon sensing field. I could still see Suzumi, as well as Kisuke and Tessai, but I couldn't even force myself beyond that.

"What happened out there, Suzumi?" I asked after a long time. She just sighed.

"Truthfully, I didn't catch it all and we were all in a bit of a rush when you collapsed, but you pointed out a Hollow on the rooftop and Urahara went to investigate. After that he released more spiritual pressure than I'd ever felt before condensed right on top of this Hollow. Tessai went up and," she waved her hand around emphatically, "did something and chains came out of nowhere and wrapped around it."

"What happened to the Hollow?" I asked, unsure if I really wanted to know what happened to the Hollow that blew my mind, almost literally.

"Well, after that, the Hollow just kind of… walked out and disappeared." I furrowed my brow intensely.

"Walked out?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yup, just went straight through it all like it was an illusion." She said, her voice frivolous, but body tense with concern. Yet again we have encountered something that 'shouldn't be possible', and yet it was possible. First me, with my interacting with souls and 'ribbon stealing' and then Suzumi becoming significantly more spiritually sensitive as quickly as she has, then this new Hollow.

I sighed heavily, I'm sure that Kisuke has ideas, though getting the out of the man was a difficult talk. I got the distinct impression that he has been oddly forthcoming with me, despite our spats, and even then, the information is vague and generalized. I hadn't ever seen one of his labs, though we both knew that he had them, and multiple at that. But I imagine he didn't want me in there.

I struggled against gravity as I sat myself up, preparing myself to get up properly as Suzumi helped. My body, however, was not having it, determined to stay as immobile as possible.

With a few minutes of struggle, I got placed in a large, comfortable chair, and Suzumi promised that she'd go harass Kisuke into coming to meet with me.

I let time blur after she left, my mind sinking back into a power saving mode to help me recover from my headache, though unfortunately a new one walked into the room just as I reached a proper relaxing state.

"Ah, it seems you are doing better than I thought you would be." Kisuke said jovially, scratching at his chin and waving his cane around playfully.

"I make it look good." I grumbled, eliciting a small chuckle from the man.

"I have to say, I'm quite impressed with you right now, Grayson." I quirked an eyebrow at him, an unspoken question. "You managed to sense that Hollow we saw, something even I wasn't capable of. It is simply called Phantom, which is surprisingly accurate in contrast to the usual naming scheme that Soul Society uses for Hollows." He laughed at his own joke. I didn't even know they gave Hollows names, though I had heard about Phantom before.

"Is it dangerous?" I asked.

"Is it dangerous?" He repeated, "Extremely! If it wanted to be, it could probably kill any Soul Reaper sent to Karakura town to investigate until Third Seats and Vice Captains. A Captain could easily kill it." He said dismissively.

"So dangerous, but not that dangerous?" I queried.

"I think you may have a skewed idea of what is dangerous. I am a Captain level combatant and even with the help of someone else who is quite a bit more impressive in battle than I, we were unable to restrain it with regular means. There is no way for any but the top fifty to one-hundred Soul Reapers to feasibly kill it, let alone contain it." He paused dramatically.

"Effectively, being sent to contain or defeat this Hollow is a nigh death-wish!"


A/N: Hey there guys, Sarius here.

So, this is a relatively big milestone! Twenty whole chapters up, over three different stories no less. It's a pretty wild feat, in my opinion. It's something I've been working towards for months now, and I'm glad that I've finally delivered.

But that brings me to a little announcement. I'll be opening a Patreon where you could potentially gain advanced access to 30 chapters of each of my stories. At the highest tier, that's a total of 90 chapters covering all of my serialising stories. If the service were available right now, you'd be able to read Chapter 50 of Ribbon and Fixture of Fate!

It's a pretty big deal, and it's not ready yet, but it will be soon. If you want to get in on this, I urge you towards my little discord server!

Hope you all have a great day, either way!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 21: Perfect

With the help of a spiritually enhanced body and the blessing of certain tonics that Kisuke had me imbibe, I managed to get myself back to full health in no time at all.

Honestly, it was a bit ridiculous how quickly I ended up back on my feet. I went from experiencing the worst mental pain in my short life, to being entirely fine and actually feeling energised again in the grand total of three or four hours. Though, Kisuke and Tessai both warned me against using my ribbon sense again for the day, citing a supposed 'repetitive stress' situation.

Which, along with granting Suzumi a day off, meant that we were both free to do whatever the hell we wanted to for the rest of the day. Originally, I was content to just stay inside and relax the day away, like I had on so many other days in my past. But Suzumi started to pout at me and before I knew it, we were out and about. Of course, I wasn't made privy to exactly where we were going, much to Suzumi's delight.

Now, after jumping into the store's little car and driving for a good forty minutes, Suzumi excitedly jumped out of the car. She then came around to help me out as well, not that I needed all that much help. I had become significantly more mobile for whatever reason, maybe it was the improvement in my senses in general.

"Alright, alright. Guess where we are!" Suzumi said giddily, punctuated with an excitable giggle. I pulled my face into a hesitant grin, eyebrows furrowed in a mix of bewilderment and anticipation.

"Uh, a restaurant?" I asked tentatively. Suzumi giggled again, her ribbon dancing along with her emotions. Thank god I could at least see the important ribbons, though I'm too far away for my weakened field to pick up Tessai and Kisuke's.

"Close!" She said happily and started to push me away from the car gently. I followed along, being careful where I placed my feet, and finding myself on a footpath, then towards a very floral scent wafting towards me atop a cool breeze, contrasting the mild temperature. I realised pretty quickly, as the cool breeze and powerful floral scent increased in their strengths, that I was being pushed into a store.

"A florist?" I questioned, puzzled.

"That it is!" An older, matronly voice responded. There was an initial shock to being answered by someone other than Suzumi, but then something felt familiar about the voice in a distant way. My eyebrows creased in earnest now, my brain whizzing through scenarios, trying to understand what was going on.

Evidence piece number one; we were in a flower shop, yet Suzumi said that it was 'close' to a restaurant.

Evidence piece number two; Suzumi was overly excited about all this. This had meaning to her.

Evidence piece number three; there was something distinct within the other woman's voice that was familiar to me in a powerful way. I could almost taste a specific flavour from the way that they talked. I thought on those evidence pieces for only a few seconds, for that was all that it really took.

Suzumi's excitement, the familiarity in the voice, a 'restaurant'.

"Good evening Mrs Hamari. It's great to finally meet you." I smiled pleasantly, dramatically shifting to a more formal form of Japanese.

Behind me, I could practically feel Suzumi deflate, the wind taken out of her sails. Mrs Hamari herself just laughed pleasantly, and in a few short steps she walked close to me and embraced me in a gentle hug.

"No need for that, just call me Yua."

I got a lot of information from that hug. I was hardly a tall man, but Yua was significantly shorter than me, maybe five foot at best. She smelled like the warmth of summer, and her skin was soft but wrinkled with age. I couldn't be sure of her age, but likely in her late sixties, from her voice and general feel. Though watch me be wrong about that.

"Yua it is then," I chuckled as I released her from my embrace and backed off a step, "I'm Grayson, in case you didn't know."

"Oh, I know alright. Suzumi has mentioned you at least once a day since she took you home from your flight." I could just about feel the grin in her voice and a flabbergasted splutter from the woman in question.

"I hope all good things?" Yua snorted in a dignified way.

"All good things, I can assure you. Though Takahashi was the same…" She trailed off, smile on her lips.

"Mum! Shush!" Suzumi drew out the words like a petulant child would, eliciting a laugh out of both Yua and I.

"I have to say, for a hafu from outside of Japan, you speak perfect Japanese. Did your family speak it?" She enquired gently. My brain kicked into overdrive, trying to think. I was half Japanese, but I never saw any benefit from that, other than some basic Asiatic features, skin and hair. Other than that, my face is far too European to believably pass as fully Asian.

It was a difficult thing to account for, and I don't know if Suzumi had spoken with Yua about my inability to speak Japanese. Though, Suzumi squeezed my arm afterwards in affirmation and I picked a believable lie. Sorry, Yua. Hope this won't have to be a recurring theme.

"Uh, well, unfortunately not." I stammered out, "I was adopted very young, and I suspect that my biological parents wouldn't have been equipped to give that gift to me anyhow. I studied Japanese independently, online and with other Japanese speakers." I shot a wide smile towards Suzumi, "Though learning here has been incredibly helpful." Yua made a sound of acknowledgement, her murky form bobbing its head along with.

"There are very few that can speak as precisely as yourself. My husband was very much the same. I swear I learned more Japanese while talking to that man that speaking with my own grandmother!" She chuckled in remembrance and I couldn't help but smile in concert. It still made me feel bad, even if it was a pretty harmless lie in the end. There would be a point where Yua would need to be made aware of the spiritual nonsense that goes on in the Human world, no doubt. When was a different question altogether.

"I have to say," I spoke sombrely, "Suzumi has told me a little about her father. He seemed like an excellent man, and I wish that I had the chance to meet him." Yua made a soft sound as she moved forward and pulled me into another hug.

"Desmond was a protective father, so he would likely be interrogating you right now, but thank you dear."

With the initial greeting having gone over well, the next few hours were devoted to talking about life in general. It was a treat in itself, that I found myself in Yua's presence. Just from her voice alone I could tell that she was a beautiful woman, not necessarily in the physical sense, but a deeply spiritual sense.

The way that she helped me to a place to sit, knowing that I was as close to blind as you could be for someone with spiritual powers. The way that she listened and regarded each of my actions and words with thoughtfulness.

I realised quickly that Suzumi was her mother's daughter in the truest sense of the word. She was warm and welcoming to the utmost degree. I swear that she could bring a group of people together in the morning and make them great friends at the end of the night.

I ended up talking more about my past than I would have expected, and Yua was understanding, though I think it affected her more deeply than I expected.

"Honestly," I began again after a long pause in conversation, "you are a lot like my mother. That gentleness that you and Suzumi share… it's something that I've been missing for a long time now."

There was a moment of warm silence that we all shared, quietly sipping on our various drinks around the table Yua had brought us to. Once you had moved past the front room, the shop opened up into more living areas that Yua could entertain in. I suspect that Yua uses it extremely often. The pillows that we were sitting on were plush and comfortable and the squat table was made of heavy wood and had a glass centre, surrounded with the wood it was sitting in.

It was a pleasant atmosphere, with the potent smell of flowers and the warmth of the early summertime. It was relaxing all by itself.

Though, it wasn't for much longer that I'd be allowed to sit on my butt and do nothing. Apparently, Yua had been cooking dinner beforehand and had left the stew to cook whilst we talked. She decided, abruptly, that I was the one to help her.

"But he's blind, ma!" Suzumi protested weakly.

"Well, you don't need to see to keep an old lady company, do you Grayson?" Yua asked slyly. I just rose from my place on the floor, wry grin firmly in place, and moved to follow Suzumi's mother—summarily ignoring Suzumi's childish protesting.

I knew that what I was going to face was somewhat of a rite of passage when it came to a new boyfriend. Yua was the matriarch, probably of every social circle she could find herself in. I think it wasn't too much to ask that she have a moment alone with me, or to let her put me through the ringer a bit.

The woman led me through the conjoining house with ease, finally making our way to a tile floored room that smelt of the food of gods. People forget how great a simple stew can be when done right.

"Sit." The matron said gently, though more commanding than in front of her daughter. I nodded in response, easily following the woman's order.

"I understand that you have only been in Japan for… less than a month?" I nodded, not particular enough to correct her. I believe is somewhere in the realm of thirty-five to forty days. Though I could easily be just as wrong about that, I haven't exactly been keeping count.

"What are your plans from here on out?" Though it was a question, it was a demand in truth. I quietly thought on it for a while, even though I had a knee-jerk response, just to make sure that I wouldn't be lying to my girlfriend's mother. If I could help it.

"If I'm to be totally honest, I'm not totally sure." I felt the presence of the room stiffen a little, but I continued, "My life changed rapidly after my adoptive parents died. I spent a long time mourning, and I still am, to be truthful—but moving to Japan was totally of the cuff. I absolutely never could have expected to have my world changed so rapidly around me." Yua seemed content to let me monologue, and I jumped at the chance to explain myself fully.

"Meeting Suzumi was something of a fluke. There was an immediate connection there that just doesn't happen often, and then that was only reinforced by my sponsor going bankrupt, her to take me back to hers, both getting a little tipsy and sending out job applications together." I ran my hand over my leg, feeling the texture of the denim and letting myself think.

"I got a job, and a lot happened that drew us together extremely quickly. Far faster than I've had even a friendship could evolve. Honestly, this very sentence will be the first time that I say, out loud, that Suzumi is pretty much my girlfriend." I smiled towards Yua's form, who I could only guess was looking towards me. She snorted gently and turned around to the stew.

"I can understand." She began, though it took her a long time to get around to the but, "But, my daughter has fallen hard for men in the past. She clings desperately to the beginnings of a relationship and hopes it will bloom into something more, though she leaves herself no alternative." She shifted around some things, idly reorganising her kitchen bench.

"What do you intend with my daughter?" She said, with a light smile on her lips. I guess the cliché line was too tempting not to use.

"I don't know. I wish I could see into the future and understand what we will become, but I just can't. What I can say, as of now, is that Suzumi has been invaluable to me for this past month and I just hope that I can be the same for her. I don't think I'll be going anywhere soon."

The quite reigned in the kitchen after that, though it was a warm, comfortable silence, rather than the cold and exclusionary one I had feared I would face. Yua moved towards me, giving me a warm hug, though I couldn't help but feel something a little off about it. It wasn't the mood, or even the action itself, but something that I knew I was missing and overlooking right now, that I should be cluing into.

Regardless of the odd feeling, we ate. Dinner was as nice as you'd expect. Tasty with great conversation to wash it down. Though apparently Yua's MO had become to embarrass Suzumi in any way possible. Including the time where Yua had to stop Suzumi's father from going in and chewing out a toddler because Suzumi said that they were going to marry.

Other than that, I think it was about as perfect as you could get.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 22: A Bottleneck

"To your left!" I called, as a Hollow sprung forward towards Uyu. I could see it's ribbon move through the air in almost slow motion. That was, before Uyu's gauntleted fist connected with it's face, blasting it through the nearby concrete wall.

"Why are there so many?" I heard Suzumi groan as a another Hollow's ribbon went flying into the air, along with it's body.

We had gone hunting again, for the fifth or sixth time this week, waging war on the seemingly horde or Hollows that Karakura town seems to have in endless supply. This particular group of Hollows were all weak, made of tissue paper in comparison to the one we had taken out on out first hunt. Thought they made up with their weakness with numbers. Or tried to at least.

"Hollows can conglomerate if they think it'll get them more chance of a feed." I said dryly, regurgitating Kisuke's nugget of wisdom. With a grunt of exertion, I pushed off from the ground and rocketed towards one of the larger hollows in the group and slamming a leg into it's unprotected midsection, making it fall over.

"I know that, it's just–" the crack of a fist against mask sounded out from Suzumi's direction, "it's just so gross!" I laughed as I danced out of the way of a wild punch from the Hollow I'd kicked. I kneed the originating point of the Hollow's ribbon, it's mask.

"T-they aren't gross!" Uyu said defensively.

"Are so!" Suzumi called back as another Hollow went flying.

They had been having an argument about whether Hollows were, or were not gross for the entire week. I could only sigh as I pummelled the last of the bigger Hollow's fight out of it and moved on to another.

"Is this really important enough to be arguing about it while fighting a small horde of Hollows?"

"O-of course! Hollows aren't gross, t-they need to be purified is all!"

Suzumi made to reply, but it the argument ground to a halt when the air began to rumble with spiritual pressure. Instinctively I upped my own enhancement and cloaking with a burst of spiritual energy, readying myself for a fight.

Interestingly enough, going on regular Hollow hunts and fighting against opponents that have a vested interest in actually trying to kill me had done wonders for my advancement. I hadn't managed to get an entire coat over my body with spiritual energy, but I was probably within five or ten percent of doing so. In short, I had a hell of a lot more artificial weight to swing around, along with the strength to roughly match.

I widened my ribbon sense and taking count of fifteen Hollows that I already knew were there, plus one ribbon that was just a little wider than the rest. It seemed that the wider or more complex a ribbon was, the more powerful the being it alluded to. Tessai and Kisuke were good examples, even going to far as having a pattern in their crimson ribbons. Though, the exception was that Hollow, Phantom.

"Right at the back, just around the corner. Probably the leader." I said, keeping it short. Both of my teammates nodded, mirroring onto their ribbons. We had started to fall into some semblance of a pattern as a team.

Typically Suzumi worked on taking out the chaff, due to her general speed and precision. Uyu was great at taking down the bigger brutes in one blow but could only do that every so often. When her brute busting attacks were down for recovery, I came into play.

Cat and mouse had become my game. I wasn't particularly nimble, or even all that fast. Suzumi would win nine out of ten battles if I relied on just speed. No, I was simply good at keeping track of things.

You'd think that me being effectively blind would relegate me to the back lines, and you'd probably be right in any other context. But the ribbons changed everything.

I could see three different Hollows racing towards me, revenge for their fallen superior. Or just their unending hunger. Even in the gloomy light of the evening sun I could see a faint outline of the approaching Hollows. Though, if I was relying on my sight I'd be dead by now.

I used the sound of their terrible screams, the slight change in the air, the every so tiny sensation of their spiritual pressure interacting with mine, and I spun underneath the leftmost Hollow, plunging a fist deep into it's gut.

The other Hollows quickly changed course to follow me, but as the Hollow I had punched flew higher into the air, I smacked another in the face. That hollow was launched backwards into it's other little friend.

In the brief moment of pause before the Hollow I'd sent flying came back down, I checked in on my teammates. Suzumi was doing as she did best, taking on six Hollows at once, hitting them so hard and fast that they didn't have much recourse.

Uyu was waiting patiently just behind the both of us, using us to protect her from the tide of Hollow. Her target was still playing shy, waiting behind their own defences.

Abruptly, the Hollow I'd launched earlier fell at my feet and I punted it in the mask, receiving a satisfying crack in response. The other hollow, who'd been pushed over by his friend came rushing towards me.

"Making a push!" I yelled out to the team and, not waiting for a response, I reached out and grabbed the mask of the human sized Hollow and, with my other hand, stole it's ribbon.

There was a moment of adjustment as the spiritual energy transferred into me. Infusing more of that spiritual energy into my own muscles, I crushed the Hollow's mask with my fingers and spun towards the rest of the dwindling group.

In tandem, Suzumi managed to finish with her own group, leaving us with six Hollows, barring the leader. With a burst of speed, I closed in on the first of the group, leaving it with a cracked mask, which Suzumi shattered with a follow up blow behind me.

The energy of the Hollow that I'd stolen wasn't much, but it got me through shattering an extra two masks before my next blow exhausted the rest.

"I'm out!" I called, and without a second thought Suzumi jumped over my head to crush the Hollow I had injured. I fell back a few paces, taking a supporting role, readying myself to sneak in a blow between Suzumi's strikes.

In only another ten seconds, Suzumi had fought her way down the street, taking out the rest of the weaklings.

"Uyu!" I commanded pre-emptively. Just on cue, the hulking form of the leader jumped out from behind the corner of the street. Using its multitude of legs, it crawled up from the asphalt surface of the street and pulling itself up onto the side of the abandoned industrial building. With a howl, the massive hollow raced across the building's side, blowing out windows with it's legs.

Though, it's furious charge was short lived.

As Suzumi and I stood and watched, Uyu's compact form flew overhead, directly towards the raging thing. It lunged forward, but was only met with her fist, and an ear-piercing bang that blew out any of the windows that had survived.

The Hollow, now sporting an extra hole through it's body, fell to the ground with a tremendous thud and remained there.

"Good work guys," I said, grin growing wide on my face, "that has to be the cleanest run we've done." Uyu tapped onto the ground beside both me and Suzumi, her ribbon twisting with excitement.

"I-I know right!" The young girl punched the air with enthusiasm, "We were even faster than daddy's teams!" I raised an eyebrow.

"Aren't they all high-spec humans, though?"

"Me and Uyu are both high-spec, so it counts." Suzumi said imperiously. I could only laugh.

"I'm pretty sure you two are a little more that high-spec now."

"He's right about that much!" Kisuke called from a nearby roof, promptly dropping down and beginning the clean-up.

"Hey!" Suzumi complained weakly. There was a multitude of shining lights coming from where the Hollows laid defeated.

"You are perfectly impressive, Suzumi." I said consolingly. I could hear my girlfriend pout with an exaggerated humph.

"Impressive indeed." Tessai's deep, resonant voice said from atop the rooftop Kisuke had dropped from. It was their new favourite pastime to watch us hunt Hollows, apparently.

"So, do we want to go find another fight?" I asked idly, reaching out my ribbon senses and finding a vague smattering of ribbons I couldn't quite sense. I was getting better at sensing the general location of Hollow ribbons, but I still wasn't able to sense them all clearly like other human or Soul Reaper ribbons.

"U-uhm, I need to go home, I think… My daddy will worry."

Oh well. I probably had a few more fights in me, but I'll just redirect it all to training instead.

From there we split ways, Tessai taking Uyu home after Suzumi hugged her goodbye. Suzumi and I just decided to take the walk home, leaving Kisuke to the dirty work of purifying the Hollows.

"So, how're things?" I asked with a smile, earning a light punch from Suzumi. She still allowed me to grab her hand and weave my fingers through hers, though.

"I don't know." She said after a moment, a thoughtful tone in her voice.

"Why's that?" I prodded gently, enjoying the feeling of her soft hand in mine. We were roughly the same height, her being maybe an inch or two shorter, so out hands comfortably fell next to each other.

"My mother likes you, y'know?" There was a seriousness to her voice that I wasn't expecting, but the good news made me smile anyway.

"I like her too." There was a little burst of warmth in my chest as Suzumi squeezed my hand. We walked in silence for a while, bathing in the moment, the rapidly cooling breeze of the late evening surrounding us.

"There's more, isn't there?" I asked, making Suzumi jolt ever so slightly. The tension that I could feel building in her released in a moment.

"Yeah. She knows there's something up." I quirked an eyebrow at that.

"About me?"

"I quit my job ages ago, Grayson. I cashed my sick leave and quit. I really liked that job."

"So, she knows something had to happen to make you quit." I continued for her. She nodded slowly beside me.

"She's worried that I won't tell her what happened, or where I'm living, or what I'm doing." Suzumi stopped beside me and I swung around to face her.

"I've never not told my mother things, Grayson." I could feel the emotions in her voice now. She hadn't told me about this, maybe just due to our life being full of training and fighting, but now I could remember moments where she seemed a little sombre. Moment's I hadn't acted on.

I pulled Suzumi close to me, embracing her fully, letting my head rest just beside hers and she pulled herself into the crook of my neck.

"I'm sorry, Suzumi. I just don't know if we can tell her." I heard a little sniffle, and I swear that it hurt more than any punch I'd received over the past week.

"I know…" She trailed off, her voice too laden with emotion to continue.

"One day, I swear." I said, my voice steely. "But, as accepting as your mother is, there is no way she'd accept this so soon. We barely understand what's going on as it is. I don't want to bring anyone else in without knowing the actual risks."

"How long?" She asked tentatively, "How long do I need to hold that from her?"

"I don't know, Suzumi." I said softly, thinking back to the older woman with a torn heart, "I don't know."

---​

Working with spiritual energy was an almost meditative experience now that I'd figured it out.

Sitting on the rocky landscape of the study room, I simultaneously pulled in spiritual energy from the atmosphere, circulating it through my body at thoroughly as possible and then slowly adding that to the coating of spiritual energy that sat over my skin.

It was a complex process. To create a good coating of spiritual energy took a lot of time and patience, but once you did it once, you could reproduce it again. It was a big effort to continually add to the coating, as I did.

Suzumi did it a bit differently, relying on the shielding and muscle enhancement and only focussing on the parts that mattered for fighting, namely the fists and arms. She had double coated her fists and arms up to her elbow now, though I had pushed her into at least coating her head once.

I decided on a more wholistic approach, covering the entire body at least once, and then going for the double coat after. I had asked Kisuke about it on multiple occasions now, asking about optimal methods but I'd never got anything more than a shrug.

"We're human—or were human, I guess. Most of us, anyway. There is no optimal method. Do it in whichever way you can think of, whichever way feels right. That's what spiritual power is, at its core. Do what feels correct."

Not words I'd hoped to hear, or thought I'd hear from a man like Kisuke.

"What feels right, huh?" I mused to myself, feeling the spiritual energy course through me.

It felt… good. But not right. I knew, somewhere deep inside, that it wasn't the right way, not quite. Maybe it was from the same place I had once found that shielding technique from. Maybe not, but I knew it wasn't quite there.

I let out a long breath. What was I missing? Somewhere in the process I was lacking something vital. What was the bottleneck for me?

I ground my teeth in thought but came up blank. I was pushing everything through my body as best as I could, taking the most comprehensive path through the body, then adding it to the coating. The only real bottleneck would be the…

Amount of energy I could take in. I screwed up my nose at that. I've been taking in a consistent amount of spiritual energy since I started, way back when I didn't even know what to do with the energy at all.

I wonder if…

---​

Kisuke, having temporarily abandoned his soul sensitivity device, was working on a piece of metal. His hand was hovering over the blue coloured metal with a small tool, poised and ready to begin his work. The tool was little more than a tiny razor blade attached to a stick, yet Kisuke Urahara stared at the metal a determination.

Just as his blade lowered to touch the metal, an odd feeling washed over the man.

"Wha–" Kisuke said in surprise as he jolted out of his seat. But in only a second, the strange sensation became almost painful.

It was as if all of the oxygen was being pulled out of the air, all at once. No… it wasn't oxygen, it was spiritual energy. It was all gone.

"Grayson." Urahara growled.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 23: Dark Waters

It all started with a little question. The question grew and grew, pervading my thoughts, forcing me to act on it—the curiosity a piece of searing metal in my mind.

Kisuke had told me that I had a strong soul, repeatedly. As prideful as the man was, he had admitted to me that I was something worthy of being worried about. My soul had destroyed or interfered with his devices for almost as long as I've been alive.

But what did that mean.

What did having a powerful soul actually entail, what benefit did it provide? So far, I've seen no substantial difference between myself and Suzumi. Both of us had progressed at a fairly even pace, both of us focusing on our own path forwards.

She was faster than me, capable of more powerful punches, flurries of devastating blows. Aside from my spiritual shielding, I was mostly on par with Suzumi in combat and all other practical measures. Or, physical ones.

Maybe I was looking at this all wrong. I've been thrusted into a world of ancient Japanese death gods, capable of fighting off all the souls that get a little overripe and go really bad. Nothing makes any sense at all, all of it just a little too kooky to be considered logical, at all.

Like, why are there so many different 'Soul Societies'? Why haven't they all just banded together, create a ratified structure, open the knowledge of an afterlife up to the common person, educate and teach those capable of interacting with spiritual energy to become protectors, rather than leave it all up to a bunch of extremely powerful Soul Reapers, or whatever the equivalent is.

There are so many 'why's to this new and fantastic world. So many that there could only truly be a few answers.

Spiritualism, tradition, ignorance.

Maybe those with an almost blinding amount of power believe so strongly in the tradition of their Soul Society, their afterlife, that they must protect it from others. Protect their ways and understanding of the soul from every other afterlife instead of sharing knowledge and watching it all change.

And then I realised that was me.

Maybe I wasn't that ultrapowerful Soul Reaper, sitting up on high and enjoying their enforced status quo, content to let those who have always suffered suffer longer at the hands of conserving the normality of their centuries long life.

But I was trying to conserve something. I was trying to conserve my understanding of myself and the world I thought I knew. The understanding that I was just a visually impaired half Japanese, half Caucasian kid whose most interesting quality was that he could see ribbons, for some reason. That I wasn't someone that, for unknown reasons, possessed a wildly powerful soul, the ability to empower other souls, and the ability to rip the spiritual energy straight out of someone else's.

I was still too focused on the physical. How hard could I punch, how fast could I run, how long until I couldn't do either any longer? Important, yes. But only one dimension of a greater whole. I only interacted with my spiritual energy because it gave those results, like an office worker who uses a computer two decades out of date with software just as archaic, unwilling to learn the new software that could do his job in a few button presses, muttering, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Yet, where does that line begin and end? Where something archaic becomes just as inefficient as using a broken tool?

Well, it begins with me. I took a deep breath and reconceptualised myself, searching my own psyche for answers to who I actually was.

Who was I now? An idiot kid, raised by a family that taught him to lean on others just as much as himself. The same idiot kid who relied on a pair of thick, high-prescription lensed glasses so little that he'd lost them on his first day in a new country and hadn't thought about them for more than a moment. An idiot kid who'd seen ribbons most of his childhood, and only understood that it meant something more when someone told him so.

Now, we were at baseline. The beginning of who I was before everything changed.

I had changed from being that idiot kid, now, finding myself with power that outstripped anything I could have imagined. Attained mobility that was, frankly, impossibly for someone with a visual disability as severe as mine, the only explanation being my newfound power. I could survive under a weight most would be crushed under, the force of the spiritual pressure being deadly enough to make any normal human instantly pass out.

But no, those were all physical things.

I looked deep inside, far further than the flesh that I had relied on, had pushed energy through for hours and hours, slowly building strength in rote. Now, I let myself venture deeper, past the flesh and muscle, past the bone and marrow. Deeper and deeper into the dark I let my conscious plunge, feeling the haziness fall over me as the desolate darkness consumed my mind, tearing it away from the reality around me.

I felt as if I'd pushed a boat out to sea, jumped in, and let the waves take me. Time drew out, the endless horizon, devoid of anything to see, barring the faint shadow of the land I had once tied myself to. Yet, before long, that had faded into nothing, the ties cut with no way back.

It might've made me panic, if I wasn't so sure of my safety. Even as the proverbial ocean stretched on and on, into infinity, my mind sat safely aboard the boat, observing as the unchanging scenery remained that way. Unchanged.

Even as the boat picked up speed, gliding across the water, threatening to lift from the infinite waters and take to the sky instead. I could feel my eyebrow furrow as the boat's bow angled upwards, I felt a distinct sense of incompleteness.

No, this isn't what I wanted. I looked up towards the sky and felt safety, surety, confidence. I knew it would be so easy to let the boat drift into it and venture ever onwards, at peace and in safety.

But that's what I had always done, let myself be taken on a boat to wherever it would take me. As I looked upwards into that sky, I could feel it tempt me with that very same emotion that lead me everywhere in life. The very same that brought me here, to Japan.

The need to go, to ignore what lay deeper, under the skin of it. The need to run away from it all.

I stood from my spot on the boat, tearing my eyes from the sky above, and looking to the depths below, the dark and murky beneath the thin veneer of a glistening surface.

That's when I first felt the fear, like a drop in the stomach you'd feel when you jumped from something a little too high. The boat took to the skies, lifting it from the surface of the water at an unstable pace, as if it was desperately trying to stop me from looking further, from letting the idea fester any longer. But it was far too late, now. I allowed myself one terrified gasp before I coiled the muscles in my leg and jumped.

The wave of regret was immediate but was washed away as soon as my feet touched the waters, my mind fixated on those depths as I sunk into them deeper and deeper. The shock of cold I had expected never came, left with a warmth, even in the complete darkness as the magnitude of water overhead drowned the light with its density. When the complete dark surrounded me, a comfort came to me, different than the one I had possessed before.

Instead of the order I had once found comfort in, sailing on the surface of it all, I now found myself embroiled in the chaos that the order disguised, hidden beneath the illusion of understanding. Now that I was swimming in its waters, the ties cut, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, able to see the definition in it all without the distraction of the light.

Still, without a defined destination I moved forwards with a purpose I had crafted for myself the moment I leapt from that boat. The deeper I moved in the inky black, only barely able to see ahead of myself, the scarier it got, but so did my will, my drive, my purpose.

I would find what was down here, deep within myself somewhere. No matter how deep I had to go, no matter the time it took, or the energy it sapped, or the pain it might cause.

I pushed myself deeper into the depths, unquestioning of the direction despite being devoid of the sight I had above the surface. My purpose was true, and that was all that I needed, even without sight—

Wait, when had I ever needed sight? I scoffed at my own idiocy. With barely a thought I opened myself to the sense I knew better than maybe anyone, and in front of my eyes, one single ribbon appeared.

It was frail and weak, its length dropping away into the darkness and almost disappearing. I began to follow it with all my might, adding a direction to my purpose. As I followed it, the faint little ribbon that had greeted me in the darkness grew brighter, the light it propagated in the dull of the darkness. The frailness never truly disappeared, but my conception of it changed.

Instead of the skinny little dog I had once thought it was, in actually, a starved lion, its fur falling out in clumps. The skin beneath pulled against the bones underneath. But still a lion, its eyes alive with the power it once possessed.

"Once, yes."

The voice rumbled the water I was in, stopping me in my tracks. The sheer magnitude of voice sending me tumbling through the water with an invisible current.

"We can't be having that." The voice spoke again, the current only becoming more erratic, throwing my body in every direction like a crazed rollercoaster. Yet, even as my body flailed in the water, something grabbed my leg and yanked. The water rushed past me, the force of the water pulling me ramrod straight.

"Once I had power far outstripping a mere lion." The voice intoned, hearable even through the deafening rushing of water. The power of the voice was stronger now, even more so than before. I tried to resist the pulling, but it was entirely futile, it was like being sucked into a black hole…

Except it wasn't so black. In fact, the waters were lightening, the distance at which I could see wasn't necessarily increasing but the light was getting more powerful against the dark. Eventually my murky vision was a blinding cloud of white—and that was when whatever had grabbed my leg released me.

I didn't stop immediately, but over a course of time I drifted, spinning head over heels in the light waters. Slowly coming to a speed where I could stabilize myself upright, whatever direction up may have been. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see the glowing of the ribbon receding ahead of me, its whip-like movements giving me the impression that it had been what was pulling me.

"Very astute." The voice said neutrally, though I sensed some derision to it. The voice, while still just as powerful, didn't send the waters into a flurry. The drifting finally came to a stop, my form slumping slightly as it no longer had the force of the water to push against.

I looked around, hesitantly. The brightness was almost just as overwhelming as the darkness had been, but there was something right near me, I could feel it. Pushed myself towards the presence gently, but that was all it took.

There, in the bright, murky waters, sat a small mote of light, no bigger than a basketball, glowing with a pure golden light.

"Hello?" I spoke, my voice echoing as if I had yelled within a tunnel, repeating the noise gentler and gentler until it faded entirely.

"I've waited down in these depths for many years, Grayson Carter." The voice said, reverberating from the golden ball like a shockwave, but it didn't buffet against me so much as greet me with its embrace.

"How long?" I asked, the question ripping itself from my mind before I could think. The voice hummed gently, slowly gaining definition and identity compared to the almost featurelessness it had assumed before.

"Since you were born, and not for long before. I tried to make you come here as best I could, but you ignored yourself." The voice was distinctly male now, a deep timbre to it that whispered wisdom and gentleness.

"Tried to make me come–" I scrunched my face up in confusion, "How did you do that?"

"I took your eyesight, I believed that without the use of your eyes to see the physical world, you might decide to explore the world within." I suddenly felt as if I'd been struck, the heat of anger flushing into my chest and face, readying my tongue to lash out—but I paused.

"But it didn't work." I said, bitterness laden in my voice.

"Not how I believed it would. Instead, you found the ribbons and saw through them instead. It had me discouraged as I watched you navigate life, disabled by my own hand. I believed you would remain throughout your life just as you were." The powerful voice quieted in mourning before speaking again, "How fitting it was, that you found me with the sight you had unknowingly developed."

I stared at the golden orb, and I could feel it stare back, its focus entirely on me.

"What are you?"

"You. And me." It spoke—I spoke. A slight shock ran through me, making my body twitch.

"You're me? My soul?"

"Yes." The bright waters shuddered with satisfaction at the words. "I am you… but different. I came from far beyond, beyond the veil—guided by nothing more than chance and fate. To the body of a small, dead infant within the womb of a sick mother." I looked at the orb sadly.

"She was addicted." The glow of the orb lessened, holding its silence for a long time.

"…I did not know." I recognised the tone of the voice. It held the same emotion I had when I was told the truth. Though I didn't twist the knife as the foster mother had, gleefully mutilating the dreams of a small child who wanted nothing more than a loving mother.

"What happened after?" The orb brightened again, its focus back on me.

"I discarded what remained of what I was, and nestled myself in the bright waters of your own soul once resided in." I blinked with confusion at the contradictory words.

"Doesn't that mean I am you?"

"Yes." The bright waters shuddered again, a distinct glee of recognition. "We are both you and I. We are we." The waters shook along with my being at the declaration, as confusing as it still was. Then there was a protracted silence as we merely stared at… ourselves. At us? At me and him?

The voice, my soul—both me and someone else too—chuckled.

"It is confusing but is the truth all the same. Though, it would do no harm to differentiate, as no matter the terms, we are still both ourselves and one whole." I nodded tentatively, before letting out a bark of laughter of my own.

"You know, I came here because I thought I would find power, break a bottleneck that I had in my training."

"Who is to say that you wouldn't find that here? I did call you here, after all." I could almost feel the grin on… his lips. I could feel his personality evolving, quickly enough that it was perceptible. It was beginning to both feel like I was talking to myself and talking to someone else entirely.

"You know something?" I asked him.

"Of course, what did you think that memory of a spiritual shield was? It was me, and also you." Now I could feel him being cheeky. I struggled to keep a grin off my face, focusing on the important information.

"You have more memories?"

"Forgotten." He said dismissively, "With a chance of being remembered once again. Someday. No, I speak of the dark waters that drown us." He thought for a moment before correcting himself, "That drown me."

"The dark waters? They aren't meant to be there?"

"They are as much part of me and you soul as the bright waters, but they are dead. The dark waters stifle me, my light unable to force into them. They are parts of us that are lost and discarded, the unravelled soul of the dead child we were, and the parts of who we once were that I removed to allow us to live." I held up a hand, letting myself process the madness of his words for a moment before interjecting.

"What do you want me to do?" The orb glowed a little brighter at that, an excitement in the waters that surrounded us.

"We need to work together as one to reclaim what was once us as individuals and restructure them to become us as we are." I stared at him; eyebrow raised questioningly. With a long, suffering sigh he said, "I want you to pull in the dark waters by compressing it with the spiritual energy from outside us. While you do that, I will revive the dark waters that you can bring to me."

"Compress?" I thought back to the seemingly endless ocean of dark water, "I don't have anywhere near enough spiritual energy for that. That's sort of what I came down here for."

"What you seek, you shall find, if only you ask yourself nicely." I rolled my eyes uncontrollably at that.

"Can I please have the vital method of gaining spiritual energy so I can save our collective ass as well as our wield duo soul?" I snarked. If had a physical, or visible form, I swear he would have bowed mockingly.

"Touch me, and you shall know." And so I did.

The next moments were a blur, before I realised that the limitation I once thought I had never existed in the first place. By reaching here, I had already found the solution. All I needed to do was… condense it all down. I paused for just a moment, looking towards the golden orb once again.

"What… do I call you?"

"Grayhom." He said instantaneously and without hesitation. I furrowed my brow, but nodded, returning to the task ahead of me.

I took a deep breath, and became a vortex, pulling at the spiritual energy that I had merely sipped on before. Now I skulled it, litres at a time, without so much as a break for air between gulps. But even then I was hindering myself.

I did away with the drinking mentality. I didn't merely drink the energy, not did I eat it, or even consume it. No, that was too little. Too small. It didn't touch on the faintest image of what I could do, what I was.

No…

I was the energy. All I needed to do, was take back what was rightfully my own, parts of me that I'd lost accidentally.

So, I called it all back to me.


When I opened my eyes, I saw a man standing in front of me, panting and sweating. His grey eyes wild and filled with a dark promise, even more so than the wickedly sharp blade that sat a hair from my skin, between my eyes.

His pale blonde hair shrouded his face, pushed down by the white and green striped hat he wore—tastefully contrasting the dark colours of the black overcoat with white diamonds patterned at its hem and a dark green shirt and pants underneath.

It took me a moment to recognise the man as the murky figure I'd always been able to see, next to his much larger friend.

"Holy shit, Urahara," I said, ignoring the sword at my throat, "do I have some wild shit to tell you."


A/N: Well, here we are! Time for my first proper Patreon plug!

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[Sarius]

Chapter 24: Malleable Perception

I could see.

Like, actually see. Not much, mind you, only a few meters of clear vision that surrendered to the familiar murky grey past that. My only complaint was that the first person I actually saw was Kisuke Urahara, especially while he was holding a thin, katana-like blade to my throat.

Thankfully, that misunderstanding had been cleared up on short notice, mostly by me ignoring Kisuke's death-glare and offering the man information. Kisuke normally acted with a flippancy that was almost scientifically engineered to be as infuriatingly punch-able as his stupid face, but it was all an act.

Underneath the flippancy held one of two people, depending on the situation. An entirely chill, but serious guy whose probably just a bit depressed—or a cold-blooded psychopath, ready to rip out your throat, if need be. Interestingly, I almost preferred the psychopath to the 'go with the flow' vibes he used as a mask.

Maybe once it wasn't a mask, and now he just desperately clings to it like a child clings to their blanket. I looked at the yellow haired man sitting across from me and furrowed my brow. That was a depressing thought. Wouldn't be surprised if it were true, though.

"So," Kisuke ground out, as if he could hear my internal monologue, "what the hell was that, Grayson?" I shrugged, genuinely not sure what he was referring to.

"What do you mean by 'that'?" I asked, and the infuriated man looked about ready to blow a fuse. He didn't go red or anything, but the muscles in his jaw clenched in anger, squirming underneath the skin of his cheek. Man, sight was awesome.

"I mean," he punctuated the word with another death-glare, "why did you suddenly become a blackhole for spiritual energy? You were tearing the spiritual energy from my own reserves." I grimaced. That would definitely piss off the incredibly neurotic, paranoid, and possibly immortal Soul Reaper.

"Well," I said gently, with as little condescension as I could manage, "I called it all back to me." Which obviously didn't answer anything, but Kisuke needed to be led into wanting a longer explanation, rather than supplying one upfront. That way, he feels like he got it out of you, rather than you just handing it to him on a silver platter. That'd just made him suspicious.

"Back to you?" He growled, but I could see the interest spark behind his eyes. Hook line and sinker, baby.

"Yup, back to me. I went down into my mind to have to see if I have a soul—which is apparently only partly true—and when I got there, I realised I was basically sipping on spiritual energy this whole time." The man's face just about spasmed, but I continued regardless of his personal crisis of reality. Not so nice to be on the other end of the stick, hey?

"So yeah, I worked through a few different mental models. Like drinking, eating, consuming, etcetera. Then I realised I was thinking way too small, so instead I just considered myself the original owner of the spiritual power, and voila. I am a spiritual energy blackhole." I threw my arms wide for a healthy dose of theatrics.

Kisuke, somehow managing to endure the multiple aneurysms concurrently occurring within his brain, scrunched his eyes closed and let himself think. While I let the man chew on the reality breaking bombshell attacking his puny little mind, I reached out my ribbon sense with a natural ease.

In moments I pinpointed exactly who I wanted to see. Tessai's patterned crimson ribbon stood side-by-side with Suzumi's radiant white ribbon, both navigating their way through the deceptively large estate, making a beeline towards this very room. I could see Uyu's ribbon, stretching towards somewhere off in the distance. I idly wondered if they had felt the effects of whatever I'd managed to do.

The door to the sitting room flew open, revealing a massively tall man with tanned skin, his features hard as stone itself. His eyes were hidden behind a set of small, rectangular glasses that sat delicately on his powerful features—giving the almost comically masculine man a distinct scholarly quality. His finely braided hair swung with the movement of the action, as he exploded into the room with gusto.

"Kisuke, Mister Carter, is everything alright? I felt like I–" I nodded quickly.

"Was having the spiritual energy sucked right from your reserves?" I said sardonically. Tessai halted and nodded quickly, "Yeah, that was me. Sorry about that. Looking awesome, by the way. You look as good as the work you do." I said, smile on my lips. The flattery hit the behemoth of a man right in the heart. He went silent, his cheeks warming a cartoonish pink before he coughed delicately.

"Why, thank you Mister–" He began, but was rudely interrupted.

"Wait, what? Grayson? You can see?" The voice called as a figure pushed past Tessai's bulky form that was blocking the doorway.

So, going to be honest. I regained some of my sight and somehow, it didn't even enter my mind that I'd get to see my girlfriend. But now that I was thinking about it? Holy shit was I glad I had my eyesight back.

Suzumi—currently dressed haphazardly in one of my tee-shirts and a pair of form fitting short shorts—was possibly the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Though, I guess my expectations were limited to the foster mothers and child services ladies I'd seen before my eyesight went.

Her gorgeous black hair was long and straight, reaching far down her back. Her face was a mix of Caucasian and Asian features, just like myself. Double lidded eyes, and a strong nose, in comparison to my far more Asian nose. Her eyes were a hazel colour, just bright enough to delineate it from a mundane brown. Her lips, a full and lovely pink—contrasting her slightly warmed but still pale complexion.

I grinned wildly, butterflies flittering within my stomach at the mere sight of her.

"Hey beautiful. Come here often?" I winked sleazily for effect. With a shrill noise, Suzumi raced towards me and wrapped me in a powerful hug that probably included more than a little spiritual muscle enhancement. Thankfully I was running high on reserves, so I was protected.

I heard a scoff of distaste from Mr Bucket-Hat himself, though I just sent him a smirk. What are you gonna do about it? He rolled his eyes, and let the moment continue uninterrupted. I let the hug drag on, the beautiful woman in my arms hugging me as tight as she could. We let it go until Suzumi finally pulled away, slightly embarrassed. She looked about ready to ask a bunch of questions, but I made a pointed glance towards the glowering man sitting across the table, his hand hidden in the sleeves of his overcoat. I mouthed 'we'll talk later,' and she nodded, turning her attention to the unamused store owner.

"So," Kisuke began as Tessai settled down beside his friend, "apparently there are a great many things to ask." I nodded, genuine this time. All of a sudden, I had a bunch of information without any understanding of how to apply it. Kisuke waited to see if I would interject, then continued when I didn't.

"Firstly. You say that you just… considered yourself to be the owner of the spiritual energy around you?" I nodded slowly, trying to figure out how to best explain it.

"Yeah, basically. When I was down in my soul, I realised that I was working with a skin-deep understanding of what my soul was capable of. Like, even you said that I have a really strong soul and all that." Kisuke nodded patiently, letting me make my point, "So, I started to ask myself what that actually meant. I went on a little mental journey to the bottom of the sea—that was really my soul in metaphor—and realised just how… magnitudinous it was. I realised just how little I was really taking advantage of. Like I said, I was sipping before."

"Where does you considering yourself as owner of the spiritual energy come in?" Kisuke asked, his patience wearing thin. I sighed.

"Well, I just tried to think of something that mentally equalled the magnitude of spiritual energy my soul was actually capable of gathering. What's more mentally powerful than reclaiming what was already yours?" I asked, and both Kisuke and Tessai grimaced. I had stepped on a massive fuck-off landmine and I didn't even know why.

"That… sounds dangerously close to an old foe of Soul Society, Mr Carter." Tessai explained, making me wince myself.

"The same foe who bred a generation of people, propagating and growing his power just to cull them to destroy the balance between life and death." Kisuke continued darkly, ignoring Tessai's warning gaze.

"Hey now, I didn't mean to bring that comparison up. I'm not going to go breed a generation of people just so I can kill them off. I don't even know if I'm capable–" There was a loud bang as Kisuke's fist crashed through the delicate wooden tea table between us, suddenly towering over me.

"You were stealing spiritual energy right from my soul at a distance!" Kisuke thundered, his voice cracking like a whip, "You may not be capable of it now, in your nascence. But how long will it be before you could?"

I felt the need to make a scathing retort, but it died on my lips. There was no witty retort, no joking remark that was appropriate. Why? Because when I looked at the enraged face of Kisuke, I see only a superficial layer of anger. Underneath the bubbling lava of hate and rage, there is freezing ice and water, kilometres of it. I saw true fear.

"I don't know." I said carefully, making the enraged Soul Reaper pause despite his rage, "I barely know anything, and I can only say that it is theoretically possible I could do that. You would honestly have a better idea than me if I could or not. But it doesn't matter, because it won't happen."

The room was silent, both Suzumi and Tessai were doing their best to not jump to their feet and defend me from the fuming Soul Reaper. I stared directly into the grey eyes that Urahara seemed so desperate to hide beneath the brim of his hat and his unruly fringe.

"Fine," Kisuke growled reluctantly, returning to his sitting position, hands hidden in his sleeves—no doubt clutching his Zanpakutō's handle, white knuckled. I nodded passively and waited for Kisuke to ask another question. It took him a minute to come around to it, but eventually he let the question leak from between his snarling lips.

"You said that you having a soul was only 'partly true'." He commanded, more than asked. I nodded, acquiescing to the man. Then wracking my brain on how to explain the mess of a situation that was my soul.

"So," I began slowly, "I'm both two people and one person at the same time." The immediately dumbfounded look I was granted by every person in the room was easily worth regaining some of my sight alone.

"Explain, Mister Carter." Tessai said quickly. When even Tessai was getting impatient, you knew that you were so far up in the 'importance levels' that it'd probably top a nuclear warhead sent straight for the shop. I cleared my throat theatrically, earning a glare from all three participants.

"As best as I understand it. I—the identity that I am personally—died in the womb shortly before birth." According to the expressions from the two Soul Reapers in the room, I needed to bring the 'importance level' estimate up a lot of pegs. "The other identity is a soul that somehow found his way to me by pure chance. From here things get weird."

"They get weird?" Suzumi squeaked, the rest of the participants mirroring the sentiment. I smiled wryly.

"So, after I—the identity I consider me—died in the womb, my soul unravelled and was stuck in a limbo state. Don't ask me why that is–"

"Because before birth, a soul isn't fully actualised, just the building blocks for what comes after birth. If you die within the womb you are spiritually considered both dead and alive, making you…" Kisuke's face scrunched in thought, rapidly flicking through ideas and concepts, "making you unable to be a hollow, and unable to be taken to Soul Society until the foetus is removed or birthed. After which the 'unravelled' soul, which has had no personality or identity impressed upon it, will naturally return to Soul Society through some extremely complex fundamental laws of how spiritual energy works." I sat back trying to process, and so did everyone else in the room, including the man himself.

"Right. That seems very… obscure, doesn't it?" I asked hesitantly and Kisuke nodded.

"It's a strange edge case of souls that I discovered… maybe three-and-a-half decades ago? I've never thought about it a single time since then. I'm not sure many other than me actually know that's an edge case that happens." Kisuke sighed heavily, the looked up at me wearily, taking off his hat to scratch through his hair roughly. I quickly re-evaluated just how old I believed the mid to late thirties looking man to be. Three-hundred-and-fifty years, just as nonchalant as that. I could see Suzumi do the same, sharing a look.

"So yeah, that was me." I continued, sufficiently perturbed, "Then there is this other identity—which is still also me, but our identities are technically separate—who is currently serving as my soul. He goes by the name Grayhom, apparently." Kisuke's eyes narrowed.

"What does he look like?" He asked quickly, another landmine maybe?

"He looks like a floating orb about the size of a basketball." Which thoroughly stumped that line of inquiry. "He says that he was the identity of the soul that melded with mine, cutting away parts of itself to integrate with my unravelled soul. However he did it, it left a lot of our souls by the wayside. There is a lot of dark water surrounding my soul, which I assume represents the dead or non-functioning parts of my soul after the melding process?" I looked to Tessai and Kisuke who just seem flabbergasted, "So yeah, I compressed my soul's mass in a lot to let Grayhom add some of the dark water back to our bright waters. So that's basically how I regained some of my sight." The dead stares bored into me like nothing else I'd ever experienced.

"Anyone want a drink?" Suzumi called and both of the Soul Reapers nodded absentmindedly.


A/N: Hah! Finally made it back after that massive mass uploading to Patreon. Jesus, that was a lot of work.

A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.!

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[Sarius]

Chapter 25: The Journey, The Return

I have to say, watching Kisuke, Tessai, and Suzumi get drunk was way more fun that I thought it would be.

Personally, I had my bets of Kisuke becoming a depressed, mopey mess, but actually what happened was he revealed that part of himself that was constantly thinking and theorising. The problem was that he had entirely lost the ability to dumb it all down.

Kisuke's topic of interest today was, unsurprisingly, how the hell my soul mechanically existed. The whole conversation was extremely interesting, even more complex and even more difficult to follow. It all boiled down to my soul being almost impossible—'almost' being emphasised to the highest degree. I obviously existed, so it was possible, but exactly how wasn't clear.

Kisuke talked a lot about a guy called Mayuri, who had a long running project nicknamed Nemuri. The concept was actually pretty simple, creating a true artificially manufactured lifeform, body soul and all. Capable of learning, changing, and becoming—for all intents and purposes—a legitimate being. Even in his drunken state, Kisuke was hard-pressed to admit that the project's results were impressive, but he did explain how exactly it applied to me.

The Nemuri project was a mixture of two separate spiritual tech, Gikon; Artificial Souls, and Gigai; Faux Bodies. Both are inherently complex, but the two technologies were almost once used to create an army of disposable souls and bodies. At some point this was shot down, and the idea was scrapped. Kisuke admitted that—while the science was integral and beneficial—it was better that it was canned. Though, even that old project had nothing on the lengths that Mayuri went to.

Gikon and Gigai are certainly not mutually exclusive, and one could be put inside another without much hassle. But the creation of a soul truly capable of inhabiting a body so seamlessly that it could be considered a genuine being by all rights? That was a whole other level of science. Much to Kisuke's chagrin, he admitted that Mayuri had actually been extraordinarily successful. To the point where he had accomplished the unthinkable.

An artificial being, created with spiritual science, capable of wielding and bonding with a Zanpakutō in truth. Nemuri Hachigo.

While I didn't specifically understand the context behind why that was so important to Soul Society, just the way that Kisuke said it made chills run down my spine and my arm hairs stand on end. An entirely artificial creation, soul and all. I wondered if living humans would ever create something like that? We had the capability for cloning, technically. But would that be considered entirely artificial? Was that just a case of a normal soul being sent into the body of a physically cloned being?

Kisuke continued with lots of math and spiritual principles that, frankly, was lost on me. He did bring up the name Ichigo a few times, mostly in reference to his own soul being a bit of a clusterfuck. Apparently, I was part of the gang now. Maybe I'd have to go snoop around and see if I could find the guy, get some advice or something.

Kisuke managed to get back onto some of the more theoretical sides of the analytical breakdown on the composition of my soul, which was mostly barren of complicated numbers and theorems. Now he was onto the soul composition of a Hollow, specifically Menos Grande.

I hadn't heard of them, but Menos are Hollows that have consumed or assimilated with hundreds of other Hollows, typically growing to be massive—tall as skyscrapers—though even more mindless than the sometimes-cognisant individual Hollow. The reason why they are part of the discussion at all is because its theorised that Hollows, as they are assimilated into the greater whole of a Menos become a sort of 'soul soup'. All the different personalities, powers and identities of those individual souls are left by the wayside and the imperative of eating to sustain the Menos' form becomes more important. From there it's a game of survival of the fittest, where the luckiest and strongest Menos wins, consuming its Menos brethren and assimilating their 'soul soup', at which point the most powerful, domineering, and dominant soul is effectively chosen as the main identity, and the rest of the souls become that identity's being.

It was all very confusing. Point was that Kisuke theorised that the unravelled foetus soul could possibly be similar enough to that 'soul soup' to be malleable. Though when asked how it'd be tinkered with the way the other, foreign soul had done, Kisuke had no real answer.

Long story short; confusing. Kisuke continued on, but I left him to his own devices after I realised that he was creating and disproving extremely technical theories ad nauseum. I left to talk to Tessai and Suzumi, who were having a good time of their own.

Honestly, it was a little heartening to see that Kisuke had actually decided to get drunk while I was in the vicinity. While the paranoid candy store owner had been overly aggressive after the whole ripping-spiritual-energy-from-your-soul thing, it seems he had decided that I wasn't actually a threat. Or not enough of one to be able to take advantage of his intoxication.

Suzumi and Tessai were sitting just opposite from each other, apparently talking about anything other than my whole soul fiasco. Suzumi had managed to get herself fabulously drunk in my time away from her, which I noted as something I'd have to look out for in future if there was alcohol around. Tessai, however, acted entirely normal—the only sign of him being drunk at all was two very rosy cheeks and a looser smile.

I let myself enjoy the company of my girlfriend and possibly our closest friend. Socially interacting was so much better being able to actually see their faces, even if I could make do with their ribbons. The way that Tessai's eyes crinkled slightly at their corners, the way that Suzumi's face lit up with excitement every time she had something she desperately wanted to say, barely holding herself back in waiting for Tessai or I to finish our own thought.

It was something I didn't realise I had missed until I had it back. For some reason it was now that I remembered the faces of those I had talked to as a child, their small facial mannerisms and body language. Now I was hyper aware of each moment Suzumi and Tessai made, my mind struggling to compute what they meant by that movement, or what it signified. I came to realise that, just as reading a ribbon was a skill, so was reading expressions and body language. Some things came across and were naturally understandable, and some as obvious quirks, but everything in between was a muddy grey of half-understanding.

Tessai specifically was a hard nut to crack. His posture was perfect, back extremely straight and hands placed gently on his powerful thighs as he knelt on a cushion with the utmost professionalism. I suspected that, if he weren't drunk—aside from intentional mannerisms—the man would be almost entirely unreadable. But, as he was, I could see minor movements around his eyes, a contemplative adjustment of his glasses, a small furrow of the eyebrow and so on. Suzumi, in comparison, was wild; her hands waving with no shortage of theatrics that both Tessai and I found to be endearing.

When the clock hit midnight, Tessai and I collectively agreed that it was time to pull the curtains closed. It was surprising to me just how much information you could effectively convey over just the few scant glances he had sent my way while Suzumi drunkenly rambled. Suzumi gave a token argument before she saw Tessai rise from his kneeling position to leave himself, which she decided was a good enough end to the night as any.

I looked worriedly over at Kisuke, who had been sitting in the corner of the room where I'd left him, muttering some incomprehensible jargon.

"Should we be worried about him?" Tessai let a gently breath release from his nose in amusement.

"No need to fret, Mister Carter. Kisuke rarely gets drunk, but I assure you that tomorrow he will be in his lab, working on something that he thought up while drunk." I laughed and Tessai let himself chuckle more fully. Tessai walked over to the man who had found himself in a scientific fugue and gently looped an arm underneath Kisuke's stomach, pulling the man and his multiple layers of clothing over his large and muscled back.

As Tessai gave one last farewell nod after we'd all left the room, he retreated down the hallway with Kisuke's form still slung over his back, hanging bonelessly. Just before they left the range of my vision, I saw Kisuke's hat slip form his head. I just about called out to Tessai before Urahara's hand snapped out from its hanging position and grabbed the wayward hat, slamming it back over his blonde locks, never faltering from his audible muttering.

Both Suzumi and I both choked back a round of raucous laughter, trying not to pee ourselves as we stumbled back to our room. Then came a dire few minutes as I waited outside the toilet that Suzumi had used spiritual energy to get to first. Blind drunk and still faster than I was totally sober. Bitch.

We laid down in bed, the lights off and our semi-clothed forms hugging closely together, still struggling to stop ourselves from laughing about the hat. It took us another ten minutes to calm ourselves fully, and then a few more in complete silence. I could feel Suzumi pressing herself close to me now, far closer and more intimately than she had done before.

I felt a joyous warmth fill my chest as I felt her soft form against my side. I repositioned to get more comfortable and hold her closer myself. A handy usage of spiritual energy; enhancing the parts of your body underneath your partner and their weight won't even feel uncomfortable, let alone make you lose blood supply to the area. Gotta say, I was prouder of that little discovery than I really should be.

"Grayson?" Suzumi whispered. I'd have expected her voice to be drowsy and slurred, but her voice sounded sharp—cognisant. I furrowed my brow.

"Yes? Are you okay?" She was quiet for a little while afterwards but hugged me tighter to let me know she was still there, just thinking.

"Tonight was… scary." She said slowly. I felt a flush of ice cold go down my spine but Suzumi quickly amended it with, "but kind of amazing?" I let out a breath I didn't even know I'd taken, and slowly let my nerves resettle.

"I'm sorry." I said simply, letting the words hang in the air while she chewed on what to say next.

"It's okay. I was just worried that Urahara would do something. Especially when he talked about that guy who culled generations?" I nodded gently. That had been scary, even from my position. I didn't like being called what amounted to the spiritual world's Hitler, but I had gotten good at letting it slide off me. I didn't realise that it'd effect Suzumi so much instead.

"And then the… soul stuff? I–" her breath hitched slightly and gave her pause, her voice returning with much more emotion, "I don't know how to process that. How do I even help you with that?" I let out another sigh of relief, unbidden. I had almost been expecting her to say that she couldn't do it, but it seems that my opinion of Suzumi had once again fallen short of just how amazing the genuine article really is.

"Suzumi," I said, my voice calm and even a little bit of a smile to it, "you don't have to worry about the soul stuff." There was just enough light to see her hazel eyes squint in distrust, and I could only chuckle. After a moment of thinking about how to word my thoughts, I spoke.

"When I went down to the bottom of my soul—where Grayom is—it put a lot of things in perspective. The way that I've been going through life, just how unaware of myself I actually was, how much of my limitations were self-imposed." I paused, and I could feel Suzumi cuddling up to my shoulder more closely, "When I finally met Grayhom… I realised that I, both metaphorically and literally, had parts of myself that were locked away and left alone, and that I had surrounded myself by limitations without ever bothering to look deep enough underneath my own self to even see that it was me holding the chains all along." The room was silent, and I could feel that Suzumi wasn't quite happy.

"Don't put yourself down like that," she whispered as her eyes roamed gently over my face, "maybe you're right, that you were the mastermind of your own demise… but aren't we all? When I was a child, just after dad had died, I saw him hovering over me. He sat by me in the days after his death, he read me the stories I loved, he watched over me as I fell asleep, when I felt most unsafe. One day, only a week or two after I first saw him, he never came back. Now I know that he was real, with all this spiritual stuff and souls… that he wasn't a figment of my imagination, that my father had been right there in front of me—comforting me, desperate to show me that he loved me…" her breath hitched.

"And I had ignored him—not even daring to look at him—because I was afraid that if I spoke, he would disappear." As I looked upon the guise of the most beautiful woman I could conceive of, letting the tears leak sideways down her face, I cried. I kissed her on her forehead and cheeks, hoping to give her any comfort I could. She hugged me in turn, her powerful arms gripping me like I too might disappear, just like her father had.

That evening I had set off on a journey to discover myself, and I had found so much of myself; parts of myself that were forgotten by design, and parts that I had shunned from my mind, forever left at the bottom of the sea. But who would have guessed that it wasn't the journey, but the return that taught me to forgive myself for years of self-neglect… if only a little.

As we both choked back sobs, staring each other in the eyes with the warmest love I had ever experienced, I forced myself to grin haphazardly.

"I'm really glad I can see you." She snorted, even while she shuddered with sobs.

"Shut up—you're lying." She scowled in mock protest, but I let a face of pure seriousness take over.

"Suzumi, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen." Suzumi was stunned for a moment, her face looking as if I'd slapped her, then flickering through a hundred other emotions, her pale face slowly warming with an intense blush, visible even in the low light. Then she got the joke, just as my shit-eating grin hit its peak and suddenly she was wearing her own.

"That's cheating!" She quickly flipped herself up, straddling my stomach and looking at me with a blazing fire in her eyes. I was shocked for a moment, confused even, but then her lips clashed against mine with a pure heat and fervour as her hands began to roam my–

Oh, that's a little too graphic. Let's leave it at that, shall we?


A/N: A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Rob Rimsill]

Enjoying this. It's very refreshing to see someone make such different use of the Bleach setting. Grayson and Suzumi are likable, which just about avoids the Sue-ish trap that would be so easy to fall into when your protagonist is the most powerful soul evar. You haven't fallen into that trap, and contrasting them with Kisuke does help in not making Grayson feel like an OP protag with zero effort.

I'm interested to see just where this is all heading. So far, the driving plot has been 'just who or what is Grayson?', which is a perfectly fine story, and contrasts with the original work's high-stakes action. The nice thing is that you could really explore any part of Bleach you like in service of finding an answer to that mystery, so I'm looking forward to what you choose to use and how you work it in.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Sarius]

Enjoying this. It's very refreshing to see someone make such different use of the Bleach setting. Grayson and Suzumi are likable, which just about avoids the Sue-ish trap that would be so easy to fall into when your protagonist is the most powerful soul evar. You haven't fallen into that trap, and contrasting them with Kisuke does help in not making Grayson feel like an OP protag with zero effort.

I'm interested to see just where this is all heading. So far, the driving plot has been 'just who or what is Grayson?', which is a perfectly fine story, and contrasts with the original work's high-stakes action. The nice thing is that you could really explore any part of Bleach you like in service of finding an answer to that mystery, so I'm looking forward to what you choose to use and how you work it in.

Keep up the good work!

Click to shrink...

Aww thanks man!

I'm certainly working towards more, and have ideas on where I want to take the plot where I felt that the original plot really lacked in exploring. I'm glad that you think that Grayson doesn't feel too powerful, because he is certainly powerful, and where I have written upto in my advance chapters, he obviously only gets more so. But in the grand scheme of things, he's still not that powerful. Not yet. Grayson will have people standing above him, whether that's within his peers or in the universe as a whole for a long time. Just because Kisuke says, and honestly believes, that Grayson's soul is the most powerful soul ever, doesn't actually mean that he's as powerful as all that. Reasons for that become clearer soon!

I think that something that Bleach universe was really good at was allowing some characters to be really powerful alongside other extremely powerful characters in some semblance of balance. Though, just because of the nature of a manga and how it needed to be released, some clearly got more W's than others, which accentuated their own power over others. Something that I think the written medium excels in is letting many characters exist in a more coherent, leveled out plot.

It'll certainly get a bit confusing at times, due to the sheer amount of characters there are in the Bleach universe, though they will be inherently limited to how many I can reasonably puppet at once without sending myself insane.

Let's just say that the next arc, that I'm only just starting on writing 30 chapters ahead of here, is going to be... interesting.

We will see what we think when we get there

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 26: A Learning Curve

"Isn't she the cutest!" The red-haired, middle-aged man gushed childishly as he held his daughter, suspended in front of him by her armpits. The man—somewhere in his mid-forties—was pretty short, standing somewhere close to my own height. He wore a tracksuit set in a light red, a few shades brighter than his fiery coloured hair which—despite his age—showed no sign of losing its colour to the grey of age and wisdom.

For reasons clear to just about anyone.

In his hands hung his daughter, who he was absurdly proud of. Uyu's face sported a mixture of deadpan boredom and embarrassment on her strangely melancholic features—an affectation of the way that her face naturally sat in an expression of anxiousness or worry. I could understand why Suzumi loved doting on the girl she professed as her little sister, much to Jinta's own excitement. The young girl had slightly darker hair than her father, though still a deep red—just a quieter flame in contrast to her father's burning red. Uyu's darker red hair was pulled into two pigtails on each side of her head, exploding outwards from just behind her in a grand display of dichotomy between the excitement of her hair and her somewhat dour face.

"She definitely is." I said, playing along with the father's game. He pulled her back into his chest, twisting her away from me and assuming the face an overprotective mother gorilla.

"You can't have her, she is property of–" He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence as a un-gauntleted fist slammed into his face, launching the man into the air and to the far side of the Study Room—screaming all the while. Uyu tapped to the rocky floor below, letting out a slight huff of exasperation.

"Whose property!" I just laughed at the antics, having long since decided to go along with the charade. There is a genuine and affectionate relationship there—there was just a very strange dynamic that sat over top of the surprisingly normal and supportive relationship. "I-I'm sorry!" Uyu said after a moment of silence. Realising I hadn't said hello to the girl I waved her anxious hand wringing away.

"That's okay. How are you doing today?" I asked inanely and started listening to her answer.

Outside of being an incredibly powerful high-spec human, able to beat a relatively powerful Hollow into the ground in the span of a few minutes—Uyu was a normal schoolgirl. From how she looked and acted, I had expected she was significantly younger, but she had actually started high school this year. That made her somewhere around fourteen, which was only a little mind blowing. Though I guess it didn't change much.

I happily listened to Uyu as she talked about the classes she was taking and friends she was making. It seems that Uyu—despite being a timid girl—is a bit of a friend magnet; people naturally surrounding the girl they think needs the most protection. Apparently, her hair is an excellent conversation starter and the challenge between the girls of her grade has been to try and tame her hair. None other then Uyu's own mother has succeeded and—to Uyu's endless frustration—she won't tell her how she does it. Knowing her father, I'd say it is a conniving plan to get her daughter to talk to her if she wants her hair done nicely.

It was cathartic to hear about Uyu's fairly normal life, outside of what she does with us and her general involvement with the spiritual world. It was a breath of fresh air, to hear about a life so disconnected from anything going on in the mess of the spiritual world, regardless of how interesting and fun it might be. Maybe it gave me a little hope as well—that some day this will all calm down and I could create that for myself, and instead of the spiritual stuff being my entire life, it can be something akin to a day job.

We started to warm up while we talked, ignoring Suzumi's absence from training today. She may have been able to push away the effects of the alcohol with spiritual energy for the latter part of the night—or early morning if you were feeling pedantic—but it certainly doesn't help with the hangover. Both Tessai and Kisuke had refused to help her recover from the hangover with medicines or a technique, stating simply, 'She will need to figure that out for herself. Or she could just not get blind drunk.' Or something to that effect, anyway.

While Suzumi was hungover, the symptoms weren't all that bad, and we were able to have a quiet and thoughtful conversation in the morning—as we both enjoyed the slow nature of it. We talked a lot about the more detailed stuff I missed out on explaining last night; the other identity, if it was me or someone else, what the whole taking from other peoples reserves thing was about, etcetera.

The answer to all of those were sort of simple. I explained what the other personality was like; originally bland and one-note, not even really possessing identifying features or personality. I explained how, over the short conversation that we'd had in my bright waters, the identity had grown into his own—becoming Grayhom and somehow more me as well. After confusing her with that, I explained that it was like being adopted at birth and never knowing you had a twin. When you finally meet, you realise just how similar and different you are at the same time. That seemed to bring it together for her, though the situation was a little more complicated than that, the metaphor did its job.

After that I explained more about how—while the Grayom is his own identity—he's just another identity of me. We are inextricably linked, one and the same at the most fundamental level. It was like we were one being with two heads; both able to talk and think independently but sharing the same body that builds their personality. Suzumi was relieved to accept that. She was worried that Grayom might want to take over, but I could only shrug. As little as I knew about Grayhom, I knew he was me, and that I wouldn't do that—so he wouldn't either. He also knows that because he would totally let me out to have a bit of a life, that I would as well. Mutual understanding on an extremely complicated but basic level. Though I guess I had to find a way to do that in the first place.

Then the most difficult question to answer. I don't really understand exactly how it works—though I'm not without theories—but I do understand how the 'blackhole' trick is different from how I steal ribbons. Sort of, anyway.

Effectively when I become a 'blackhole' for spiritual energy, I am just calling all nearby spiritual energy to me. This means all nearby spiritual energy—meaning its not targeted, and I'm not even sure it could be targeted. All the mental model does is take from the most convenient sources nearby, which might just so happen to be the reserves of a Soul Reaper—after it exhausted the immediate vicinity of spiritual energy, of course.

Which means that the blackhole trick I do is vastly different from the ribbon snatch. For one, the blackhole trick requires me to 'slowly' sap energy from the surroundings. Someone could easily defend themselves against the relatively slow leeching, or even just run out of the radius of my reach—until I consume the other easy sources of spiritual energy to return to that particular being. In the sort of way that a single cell organism breathes, being small enough to rely on the principles of diffusion—with maybe slight supplementary 'suction'—to allow the oxygen to pass through the barrier of their cell wall and assume the empty space where the cell had consumed the oxygen before.

My point is, there is severe diminishing returns. At some point, the 'surface area' of the blackhole I create will be too small in relation to the mass it requires to reach more spiritual energy—making it impossible to sustain itself, inevitably collapsing in on itself. So, I couldn't just sit there and continue to widen the area of effect until it covered the entire world, just like a human can't supply themselves with enough oxygen through their skin cells. Or something like that, anyway.

Now, the ribbon snatch works with the same basic mechanism—I would assume—but focused. Instead of widening the spiritual energy sources that my soul will accept to everything and anyone, it instead limits it to a simple soul, or ribbon. That way—as long as I can make contact with the ribbon of the being, or maybe even their body at some point in future—I can steal a portion to all of their reserved spiritual energy at once.

Now, this has its own limits—just like the blackhole method. Sure, I can take a large portion of a soul's spiritual energy, but it can fairly easily be resisted. Especially if the target is aware of their own reserves—like any good Soul Reaper likely would be.

Take Urahara for example; it only took him a matter of seconds to figure out that the air around him was being leeched of spiritual energy, then even less to figure out that it was leeching his own reserves as well—then figuring out it was me.

However, even if I am able to steal spiritual energy from an opponent's reserves, there is no guarantee that I am able to seal all of it—or even most of it. I think this is due to my soul being in the state its in. It was immediately noticeable after utilising the blackhole method that my soul is almost squishy—which is not at all normal. Souls are compact machines of pure spiritual excellence, they are packed tightly with integral components that are the literal building blocks for who and what you are—also giving you the potential to be more than that.

My own soul is nothing like that. The dark waters represent the equivalent to semi-functional hardware strung together in a daisy chain of Rube Goldberg machines that—while the components used are powerful—don't accomplish anything. It would be like having a computer that is technically has the most processing power, but the software could never take advantage of the ludicrously inane way it's been strung together—complete with chewing gum and sticky tape.

So, when I go to steal power from someone, the same bloated soul that says that I'm immensely powerful gets in the way of my own reserves. Making sure that even if I do try to steal more energy than my diminished reserves can hold, it'll simply bounce right back off my soft and rubbery soul and into the atmosphere for that person to take right back into their own reserves.

Meaning that, while ribbon snatching allows me to temporarily use more spiritual energy than I can hold in my reserves for a few attacks or so, it eventually dissipates. Therefore, the best I could do against an incredibly strong opponent would be exactly what I did to Urahara the first time I stole a ribbon; hit them with a burst of their own spiritual energy when you still are holding most of it. Though Urahara also came out totally unscathed from that, so it clearly isn't a winning strategy.

Another bummer about ribbon snatching versus the blackhole method; only the blackhole method can compress my soul, allowing Grayhom to work with the dark waters—adding the nigh infinite spare parts to a grand tapestry that I certainly don't understand, but apparently I do somewhere deep inside.

Now, ribbon snatching is fast—I grab the ribbon of someone like Urahara and suddenly I have one-hundred times the spiritual energy I could possibly hold in my current reserves. This rush of spiritual energy floods inside my reserves and batters against my soul at odd angles in non-uniform patterns. This just makes all that excess spiritual energy bounce off uselessly.

The blackhole method is different. Its slower—at least comparably—for one. It slowly injects a fine mist of spiritual energy into my reserves, filling the reserves slowly to their maximum and then pushing just a little more. Now, since both the 'walls' of my reserve and my soul are nigh indestructible, this tiny bit of pressure is almost nothing. But little by little, more pressure is added—making the soul compress itself and bringing more of the dark waters close to the bright waters. There is only a consistent and dispersed stream of spiritual energy entering the reserves.

Uyu and I began to spar after finishing our long warmup process that we've completed what feels like hundreds of times—one that we honestly didn't even need to do anymore, our physical ability far surpassing the need for a warmup. I shook myself of my contemplative stupor, trying to put my mind into gear for fighting.

As soon as we began the fight, I realised—once again—how difficult it was to adjust to actually having sight. Sight was great but worked to your great detriment when each attack threw up a flurry of dirt and stone—making my little monkey brain focus on the falling detritus. As soon as I'd gotten my limited sight back, my brain had decided to take everything I saw as gospel, even if what I was looking at was nonsense to my other senses.

For example, I could see Uyu's ribbon and that could easily pinpoint exactly where she was in all the dust and rock—yet my brain made me search for the girl rapidly with my eyes, swinging my head to and fro. My still poor eyesight couldn't even see far enough to correctly identify her anyways.

That earned me a gauntleted fist to the face, sending me flying backwards through the air without me preparing the spiritual rooting technique. As I flew through the dry, warm air of the Study Room I could only think one thing.

'Well, this is going to be a learning curve.'


A/N: A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 27: I Reject!

A learning curve was an understatement, to be honest.

Though it did come with its own unique benefits, strangely. The way that I sense things has always been inherently piecemeal—like most humans, I guess. A little bit of sound, a ribbon, a dark shape in the murky grey fog, and a slight rush of air on my left. I had gotten exceptionally good at using those cues—some bigger than other—to effectively 'see'.

That way I could actually make do in this whole fighting thing, at least on a smaller scale. Sight and hearing were inherently muddy when it came to fighting—especially when someone can kick the ground and hit you into a geyser of dirt and stone. So, my ribbon sense was invaluable in fights. As far as I knew, it was exceedingly difficult to lie to it—though that didn't stop someone from hiding from it all together.

The Phantom Hollow was a good example of that in general. In the days after my little fiasco we had been out on trip after trip, beating up Hollows like nobodies' business but I was still to catch a glimpse of the Hollow's harrowing ribbon. Every now and then I swear I saw or felt something, and I wasn't stupid enough to not trust my most powerful sense. I was certain that the elusive Hollow was still in Karakura town, and I wouldn't even be surprised if it had been as close as a few blocks away from me.

Regardless, with the limited sight as an addition to my senses, I was effectively forced to take advantage of another sense at the risk of letting it drag me down like a ball and chain. It simply wasn't something that I could ignore, it was an intrusive and potentially destructive addition if I didn't manage the sensory overflow it caused.

Unique benefits with a new addition as frustrating as this were happily accepted. The specific benefit—other than being able to see—is a sudden 'command' of the space I can see in. I had struggled with the feeling for a long while, trying to understand what it was trying to tell me. Eventually I came to the realisation that seeing something—perceiving it as lucidly as possible—has a lot of spiritual significance.

It was when my newfound sight worked in conjunction with my other, more developed senses, that the benefits really show themselves. The spiritual energy inside of me moved more snappily to my intended actions with just another element of my perception. The depth perception and proprioception helped dramatically, obviously. Even if my sight only reached a five to ten metres, the precision that I could achieve with sight and ribbon sense was a little nuts. So that also means that my cat and mouse fighting style could be aided with a real offensive edge, rather than a counter-attack intensive style.

Suzumi's fist snapped forwards, her enhanced fists screaming through the air towards me as I twisted out of the way, jumping into the air towards her and launching a kick using the force of the twist. The kick didn't land, unfortunately, but the cheeky ribbon snatch did—catching her while she was busy correcting her stance.

From there it was game over, her spiritual energy depleted and now in my own reserves, with what couldn't fit being used as an aggressive punch at her gut, one of her least defended areas.

"God damnit," she cursed, brushing off her training uniform as she pulled herself from the little ditch she'd been pushed into, "I thought I had you. You were spacing out and everything!" I chucked at her exasperation, offering her a hand despite knowing she could launch herself from the hole with enough force to rocket her a few stories into the air.

"Well, I have been getting powerups left and right lately." She scowled at my total lack of humbleness, "Also, I've been messing more with spiritual senses recently and when you shroud your hands in spiritual energy you light up like an LED."

Oh yeah, spiritual senses. Another new addition to the senses basket, though not a really significant one yet. After gaining some sight, I was able to sort of… mish and mash senses, you might say. I realise now that I had performed a version of it a few times in the past, especially when Urahara's eyes cut through the fog of my vision.

Grayhom had said that he 'made me blind', but I'm not sure I buy that being the exact truth, or at least not with full context. My sight seems inextricably linked to the dark waters of my soul, and how much there is. I think if Grayhom had the capability to entirely lift the fog, then he probably would have done it already. It doesn't really help either of us if I'm blind.

So then when Urahara's eyes cut through my own personal fog cloud, then it must mean that I am capable of seeing spiritual energy being used, at least when it was powerful. I asked Kisuke about it and he said that it was a technique meant to be seen, deliberately sharp and undeniable. But the fact I saw it through my 'soul fog' meant that I could theoretically see any spiritual energy through it.

Thus, with the help from Suzumi and Uyu, I managed to include less and less powerful spiritual energy usage. Though it's still a bit lacklustre and while I certainly use my own spiritual energy to 'ping' the other spiritual energy, it doesn't help me with any understanding of physical environments outside what I can already see.

"Well, still! You're totally spacing out again, I can see it in your eyes, Grayson." Suzumi said, her own eyes suddenly only centimetres from mine. I flinched slightly before laughing and giving her a smooch as a peace offering.

"Are we going out on another Hollow hunt today? It's a Tuesday, so I don't think Uyu will be coming along." Suzumi, sufficiently mollified by the kiss, nodded easily.

"It's better than sitting around here all day, mulling over prospective new senses and power gains." She grumbled with a glower, though it lacked any real heat.

"Hey now, miss. Who out of us wins eight of ten matches now?" I drew out an accusatory hum, making Suzumi roll her eyes. Before quickly racing off towards the stairway.

"Last one to the top is a rotten egg!" She called as she jumped out of my vision range. Taking the challenge, I raced forwards myself, only barely catching up by the time that we reached the steps—eventually emerging from the top of the steps with a victorious roar. I had beaten out Suzumi by maybe a fraction of a second, with her emerging with an even more pronounced glower.

"Oh shush you," I said dramatically as we made out way through the halls of the 'candy store', giving Tessai a quick nod and a short word about where we're going. After that we were on top of roofs, bouncing from one to another. Unfortunately, my new sight didn't really help with my acrobatic ability on the roofs, where most big jumps would be slightly too large to make on blind ambition.

"Alrighty then! Where are we going, Miss 'I don't want to put effort into getting stronger'?" She laughed despite her mock offense.

"How about we go take a poke around Minamikawase, we keep going to Mashiba and Kinogaya all the time." I groaned a little more exaggeratedly than was strictly necessary. The Urahara's Sweets shop was located in Mitsumiya, the eastern most suburb in Karakura and also more than a little out of the way. The more populated areas were to the north and west, generally. Mashiba and Kinogaya were directly to the west and south of Mitsumiya—Kinogaya being the favoured hiding spot for the local hollows, as it doesn't get patrolled often because there isn't much of a population to speak of.

Minamikawase is a whole different story. In fact, the one or two times we made out way over there, I couldn't sense any souls of the dead, let alone Hollows.

"But there's never any Hollows over there, Suzumi!" I whined petulantly even as we corrected course to make our way over to the suburb on the far west of Karakura town. I huffed childishly, "I thought you were supposed to be the one who loved fighting, Miss Battle Addict."

"What!" She yelled from in front of me exasperatedly, "am I not allowed to explore the nicer suburbs now that I can run there in less than half the time it takes me to drive there? I lived in Komatsu you know!" I recoiled a little. Komatsu was a small suburb directly west of Kinogaya, the ickiest suburb in Karakura.

"Oh, wait. Is your mother's flower shop in Komatsu?" I said, remembering the comparatively short drive. I received a just perceptible nod, "Ouch, is she managing to stay in the green? I don't even know how many people even live in Komatsu." Suzumi chucked.

"Not many, and don't worry about mum. She basically runs the social world in Komatsu and Sakurabashi like a mini mafia. She isn't hurting for cash by any means." We laughed a little bit at the mental image of Yua—the kind old woman that she is—running any sort of crime syndicate. It fit surprisingly well, actually.

We chatted our way across the urban landscape, the houses progressively getting nicer, in their own very Japanese way. I swear that we used a convenience store sign as a springboard every five steps, but eventually we made it all the way to Minamikawase. I instinctively reached out my ribbon sense, covering what had to be at least a few kilometre radius. Instantly I recognised the ribbon of a wayward soul becoming a 'demi-Hollow', similar to the one that we had encountered on our first night out.

"Demi-Hollow to our right!" I called, taking the lead on changing direction and letting Suzumi naturally adjust. As we bounded from rooftop to rooftop, another ribbon slowly started to appear as I drew closer, distinctly a Hollow's pallid white. "Hollow as well, possibly chasing!"

We sped up after that, a sudden imperative to compel us forwards. It was going to be a pain in the ass to drag the hollowfying soul all the way back to Mitsumiya and get one of the Soul Reapers to take care of it, but it was always worth it, when you managed to save a soul. No matter how weird they sometimes got when they were out of their body.

Eventually we came across a mostly abandoned street, the only occupants being a large, almost doglike Hollow sniffing around for a terrified demi-Hollow, hiding in the corner of the street. For some reason there was an unnoticeable redirection that occurred when a Hollow appeared. It seemed that most were able to instinctually steer clear of the Hollow's presence. We dropped down to the street, preparing ourselves to fight with the large, doglike Hollow.

As soon as we were seen, it stumbled towards us with uncoordinated legs, dragging its body against the front of a store and smashing through the glass panes and metal of the windows as it raced towards us.

"Please help, please help! I don't want to die!" the hollowfying soul started to scream, his form of a middle-aged man slowly degrading as the hollowfication process continued to proceed. I looked to Suzumi.

"Can you hold it off? I need to try and help this–" I started but got cut off midway through.

"No need for that. I can take care of this just fine, children." An older, matronly voice said—easily cutting through the madness of the Hollow coming towards us. I turned towards the voice, seeing a short orange haired lady, standing in the middle of the road behind us with a silly smile on her face.

"Uh–" I began, ready to try and convince the woman to get out of here as soon as possible before I thought better of it and opened my spiritual senses. And was summarily blinded by an extremely powerful light coming from the sides of her head, two six-pointed flower hairpins. As the woman walked towards the Hollow casually, the monstrous dog leapt forwards at her before either Suzumi or I were able to react.

"Barrier, please." The woman called, and suddenly burst of light consisting of three edges came into being. A golden barrier appeared in front of the woman, shining spectacularly in my vision—and as the Hollow hit the barrier the woman chanted solemnly, "I reject."

The Hollow simply bounced off the barrier without a even a millimetre of flex in the barrier's shape. But the barrier didn't seem to do it any damage, able to pull itself up from the ground after just a moment of being dazed. The woman laughed merrily, as if she was told a joke we couldn't hear.

"Oh hush, Hinagiku—Ayame is already embarrassed, no need to rub it in." She scolded gently before her voice hardened only slightly to chant, "Tsubaki, I reject!"

I the single greatest flash of spiritual energy I've ever seen, a wave of spiritual energy cut forwards, slicing the Hollow directly in two, the regular black blood of a Hollow leaking out of the cut as its body fell apart. There was a moment or two of hushed chatter from the older woman before she turned to both me and Suzumi with a bright grin on her slightly aged face.

"Well, I haven't seen you two around before. Are you friends of one Kisuke Urahara, by chance?"


A/N: A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.! And a gargantuan thanks to my 20-dollar Patron Marisa E.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 28: Kurosaki Clinic

The inside of 'Kurosaki Clinic' was a great deal nicer than I thought it would be. Far more modern too, with all the modern conveniences that Tessai and Urahara simply didn't need or didn't care about. An expensive smart home system was installed, with small robotic caretakers and fancy machines littering the house. I myself had never been in a household that was rich enough to own tech this advanced, even when I lived with Ray and Sera—mostly because dad was stodgy and loved to do things the 'old fashioned way'.

We sat on a nice couch in a living room watching TV, something that hadn't even entered into my brain that I could do now. I could get by with closed captions, but I generally went for a good audiobook instead of a movie. Suzumi also hadn't realised that I could actually use a screen again and started to get herself excited by promising to make me watch the classics like her father had once for her.

It was heart-warming, but I was distracted. Suzumi was way better at dealing with stress than I was, and I was possibly sitting in the house of the Kurosaki. Like Ichigo Kurosaki, the very same kid that Urahara said was possibly one of the most powerful beings in existence. So yes, I was nervous.

The older, orange haired lady who had brought us here suddenly emerged from the door beside us, holding up a tray of cups and biscuits. She placed the tray on the coffee table that sat in front of the couch, taking her own of the three cups and two chocolate biscuits and sitting in a comfy looking chair to the right of the couch and table.

"The two sugars is on your right." The lady said pleasantly as she took a hearty sip from her tea. I took the cup on the right, tea with milk and no sugars. I didn't take a biscuit yet, more interested in talking than eating, though the other woman didn't seem in any rush, simply smiling contentedly to herself.

"Uh, ma'am?" I started, but immediately was shot down with a glare from the woman.

"No ma'ams here, young man. Call me Granny Inoue or just Granny." I gulped, even though the anger had been the harmless kind, a light chastisement. I simply couldn't separate the image of her two six petal flower pins burning with all that spiritual energy. Even Kisuke hadn't shown me anything remotely close to that much power, though I had no doubt that he had something to trump it.

"Yes, Granny." I said, though I couldn't get the word to sound quite right in my mouth. The older woman sighed, comically depressed by the awkward use of the title.

"Just Inoue then!" she laughed, all sorrow gone from her expression, "May I ask who you two are? Or is it top secret information for Kisuke's eyes only?" Her face transformed into something belonging out of a noir film. Thoroughly put off guard by the one-woman comedy act, Suzumi swallowed the last of her third biscuit and responded for me.

"I'm Suzumi Hamari, and this is my boyfriend Grayson Carter. A month or so ago we learned about the spiritual world and since then Kisuke has been helping out." Inoue nodded sagely, as though she understood perfectly.

"Has Kisuke been nice to you two? I hope he hasn't fallen back into bad habits…" Inoue asked, her voice was happy, but the smile was brittle.

"I'll admit, we had a… rough start, and Kisuke is very concerned about Grayson and what he is—but we manage to hold our own against him pretty well, I think" Inoue took a gentle sip from her tea, and her thinking face was so obvious that I could just about make out the clanking and clicking of gears turning in her head.

"I see. He hasn't done anything like trying to hollowfy you or put you through training that would result in immediate death after an allotted time period?" The room went very still as both Suzumi and I turned to look at each other, eyes wide with concern.

"No?" I said hesitantly, breaking the silence.

"Good!" Inoue said happily, the grim atmosphere suddenly lifted, "So if Kisuke is worrying over you so hard then that means… of course! You were the little disturbance we had in Karakura's spiritual energy the other day, yes?" I nodded woodenly, though in my mind the question I've wanted to ask ever since I saw the sign outside burned.

"Are you related to Ichigo Kurosaki?" I blurted out, netting myself a sharp glare from Suzumi—her face telling me that she was going to get around to it a little more elegantly than I had. Apparently Suzumi was more socially gifted than I was, so I guess I'll let her talk to new people next time instead of me blundering forth with less subtlety then a blind bull.

"Oh, you know of him? I haven't ever had that question from a non-Soul Reaper before!" She smiled grandly, "Ichigo is my husband, so yes I know am related to him." She giggled lightly while I tried to pull together my stunned face.

"Wait they called him a kid!" I reeled, my mind trying to readjust to this new reality of the 'kid' being a grandpa.

"Well, what is a child to Soul Reapers who live thousands of years. I think Kisuke and Tessai are at least five to six-hundred years old, but I can't say I've ever asked." She smiled cheerily even as she dropped that bomb on our heads, "But no, we haven't been kids for some fifty odd years now." I sighed but continued on with my line of questioning. There was time for existential crises later.

"Anyway, Kisuke mentioned Ichigo a few times when he was talking about my soul. Apparently Ichigo has a really weird soul too?" I asked, almost hesitant. I didn't know if talking about someone's actual soul was taboo, like talking about your privates in public, but Inoue seemed totally find with the invasive inquiry.

"Oh yes," she chuckled to what had to be a private joke, "Ichigo's soul is a bit of a mess, really. We had to make a checklist for all the different things his soul was, just to be able to keep up in conversations." Suzumi turned her gaze towards me, accusingly. I pretended not to notice, but Inoue seemed to find it funny.

"You say that your soul is strange?" She asked gently, with a great deal more care than I had so bluntly asked. I hesitated, thinking of Kisuke's outrage that I leaked 'top secret' information—as Inoue had put it—but I figured if anyone could help or at least give me advice, it'd be the wife of Ichigo Kurosaki.

"Uh, yeah. Just a bit." I laughed nervously, and then proceeded to launch into an explanation of my soul and… well, everything. For some reason it felt like I was talking to a doctor like I had as a kid, telling them the rap sheet that is my medical history for the forty-seventh time. Hoping to get an opinion that didn't tell me that there was 'nothing to be done'. Suzumi and Inoue let me speak, though Suzumi piped up to explain a thing or two from her point of view every now and then. When I was all said and done, everyone's cups were empty and the biscuit plate empty.

Inoue asked for a moment to go get more tea and biscuits, which I thought was fair enough—especially having been forced to sit through a recount of journeying into my soul. But, before Inoue had returned, there was a bang as the front door opened and then shut again.

"We're home!" Two older women called out voices in synch despite their very different tones. One was far closer to Inoue's own cheerful disposition, while the other seemed almost tired or frustrated. There was the sound of two sets of footsteps walking across the varnished wooden flooring of the Kurosaki household.

Two doors opened at once, one on the wall that the couch sat against, revealing Inoue holding a tray once again. The other door was on the wall directly to our lefts, revealing two older women—a woman with wild, black hair that sat in a high ponytail tied with a blue beaded hairband and another woman with hair that was a fainter orange than Inoue's own, but gave the distinct impression of motherliness.

"Orihime, I–" The black-haired woman said, her sceptical grey eyes landing on us in our training uniforms, dark blue and white with a bright blue satin sash. The light orange haired woman did so as well, wearing a more innocently interested gaze. Both women, similar in age to Inoue, turned towards the tray-wielding matriarch with questioning expressions.

"More cultists? Really Orihime?" The black-haired woman began but was interrupted by her companion.

"No! They are obviously kendo practitioners, Karin!" The light orange haired woman said with indignance. This, of course, led the women to stare at me, ignoring Inoue as she walked past them and placed the tea and biscuits on the table. I turned to Suzumi with a serious face, and she nodded—allowing me to tell them our true identities.

"No, we aren't cultists. We are merely here to talk about our lord and saviour–" Suzumi punched me in the arm, but I continued. "our lord and saviour, Kisuke Urahara." Suzumi punched me in the arm, but hard this time. The two women stared at me for a while, eventually resulting in the black-haired woman—Karin—snorting with amusement.

"Kisuke's found some new brats, huh? Fair enough. You seen Jinta around?" Karin said, though the last part came off a bit strangely.

"Ooh, we're still pining after the one that got away, are we Karin?" The light orange haired woman teased lovingly—Karin spluttered, a blush rising to her face.

"Oh shut it, Yuzu—just because you can't get a boy to save your life doesn't mean the rest of us have to be celibate for the rest of existence." Karin scowled venomously, making Yuzu scoff in offence.

"Pardon me, little miss 'I get around'! When was the last time you went on a date, huh? Fifteen years? Twenty?" The door closed behind the two bickering women, their voices still hearable as they walk down the hallway.

"Oh yeah? How're your 'housewife' skills helping you now, hmm?" Karin's snide voice rang out, before stopping and rushing to open the door peaking in and looking at Inoue.

"By the way, Orihime, we cleaned up the Hollow you cut up and sent that demi-Hollow off to Soul Society." Orihime Inoue nodded and gave a few words of thanks before Karin disappeared down the hallway, the bickering between the two women restarting as she did. Suzumi and I sat in stunned silence after that, dumbfounded by the whirlwind that was the two women. Inoue cleared her throat gently.

"So that was Karin and Yuzu Kurosaki, Ichigo's little sisters and my sisters in law." She smiled as we turned to look at her, eyes wide. The two women had looked somewhere in their forties, younger than even Jinta looked. She chuckled.

"I mostly choose to look this way," motioning to her current grandmotherly appearance, "Ichigo and I wanted the experience of growing old together, and I think we have achieved that much." I did some quick pseudo math based on context and came to the realisation that Ichigo Kurosaki and likely his wife as well were in their late sixties or early seventies. Which was still a hell of a lot older than Inoue looked.

"Regardless, my opinion on your soul situation." My mind snapped back to the important topic at hand—the woman's face, normally cheerful, was a dead serious now, "My opinion is that you must do whatever it is that you feel is right. Learn what you need to, and don't let the words of others sway your opinion of your own soul too much. You constantly second guessing the genuine experiences that you've had within your soul will get you anywhere but where you want to be." She took a momentary sip of tea.

"You will find out what you need to in time. Now that you are involved, your various histories and powers will make themselves known in time. It's almost unavoidable—trust me." And I did. This was the woman behind Ichigo Kurosaki, and they said that every powerful man had a powerful woman. Though I had a sneaking suspicion—based on that moment of intense spiritual energy earlier—that Orihime Inoue may be a whole lot stronger than you'd give her credit for on appearances alone.

"Granny Inoue?" Suzumi said, the title rolling off of her tongue easier than it had mine, "Do you think we could meet Mister Kurosaki?" Inoue smiled sadly.

"If you had come only months ago then yes, but at the moment all four generations of the Kurosaki boys are off galivanting around Heuco Mundo—or any other spiritual dimension with nasties they can find themselves in." Inoue shook her head in something as close to exasperation I think was possible for the woman. I was a little sour about it, to be honest. During the small snippets of stories I had heard about the man, I had found a strange kinship with him. A man who hadn't known the first thing about himself, who had gone on a journey that taught him more and more about who he was, resulting in him being the truest version of himself he could be. If I couldn't relate to that, then I didn't know who I could.

"But, while you cannot meet the man himself," Inoue continued with a smile, "there are more spiritual powerhouses that live inside of Karakura town than you'd ever expect. If you would like, I can help you meet them?" We would have been stupid if we had refused the Kurosaki household's Matriarch, even though she didn't assume the name. We were going to continue talking, but suddenly there was a light warning sound coming from speakers around the room, followed by a gentle voice announcing that a patient was incoming, including a rather serious list of injuries. As the voice sounded out, two sets of footsteps came rushing down the hallway and through a few doors into a conjoining medical space.

"I'm sorry, we're going to have to end our chat here." Inoue smiled apologetically as she rose from her seat, making a few quick goodbyes before sending us out the door.

Well, that was certainly a wild ride.


A/N: A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.! And a gargantuan thanks to my 20-dollar Patron Marisa E.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 29: Only in Karakura Town

Training was an odd mix of stressful and rewarding, all in one.

I understood, logically, that there wasn't necessarily any deadline I was abiding by. That I technically had all the time in the world. But it certainly didn't feel like that was the truth. No matter the improvements I made in a day, I never found myself satisfied. I'd always be left with a feeling of disappointment, as if I could have completed just one more thing or made one last improvement before I had to cut myself from training to go to sleep.

It wasn't addicting, not in the classical way. Sure, it felt good to know that I was getting quantifiably better, that I could move faster and punch harder—even the more abstract improvements to my mental state had felt impactful. But it was something that left me with an ever-hungering void sitting in my chest.

So I did everything I could to fill it, even if I knew the hole was endless.

It was yet another month of endless training and Hollow hunting. It was seriously astounding just how many Hollows were in Karakura town. Kisuke had explained that much of the region's Hollows lived in Karakura because of the spiritual energy density here, including the plethora of powerful people that lived within.

Apparently Karakura was one of, if not the most dangerous assignments as a low-ranking Soul Reaper. I myself hadn't seen any particularly powerful Hollows yet, aside from Phantom, but I could believe that they'd be hanging around the more dangerous areas of Karakura.

I felt stuck in an endless loop of training, fighting Hollows that had long since stopped being a challenge, and then training more before the anxiety of the idea of training any more sent me to bed. Just on repeat day after day.

"Grayson, you need to slow down." Suzumi had told me, and I tried—I really did—but I couldn't. I would train for a few less hours that day, then the next another hour would be added, increasing back to where I started. The anxiety of not doing enough taking me by the throat.

So now I sat in bed, knowing full well that as soon as I got up the whirlwind started and wouldn't be able to stop until I couldn't possibly do anything more. I looked to my side, finding Suzumi awake and already staring at me.

"No." She said sternly.

"What? I–" I began, but she cut me off mercilessly, her expression thoroughly unimpressed.

"You're torturing yourself, Grayson. The only reason you're even sleeping is because I make you. Why?" She asked, just like she had many times before. And, like many times before, I had no answer.

"I'm not going to let you sit alone and train for ten hours today, it's just not happening." She said firmly. A flash on anger ran through me, but it was underpinned by a relief I didn't expect. It was the same relief that came when you got sick, forcing you to take the day off school—and even though it sucked, that relief was tangible.

"Okay." I said quietly, letting Suzumi entangle her arm with mine. We were slow to get out of bed, slow to eat, slow to everything. Even when we finally managed to say good morning to the pair of shopkeepers, it was already midday.

I let myself tag along with whatever Suzumi was doing. We didn't talk, really, no explicit plans were made or spoken about. Though Suzumi clearly had a plan for the day. We were going out but didn't dress in out training uniforms—the only piece of clothing I had worn for weeks, other than underwear. While I was going through the drawers I even managed to find my missing glasses, the same ones I had barely thought about since loosing them. I tried putting them on over my blue eyes, but they almost hurt to look through, so I simple left them on top of the drawer set—never to be used again.

We set out dressed in casual clothing—jeans and a hoodie for me and the same but a blouse for Suzumi. We didn't run atop the roofs of Karakura, instead using a car and committing to the lack of training for the day.

I'm not sure how long the drive was, too mystified by being able to look out the side windows of the car and seeing people walking on the side streets. Seeing other people was strange, the disconnect between our lives even more drastic than they could possibly know. Who could ever expect the two halfs sitting in a car next to them on the street to be involved with other spiritual dimensions, possibly even multiple?

I realised where we were going, even before we got there. Kurosaki Clinic. It had been a whole month since we had interacted with Orihime Inoue, or anyone outside of Urahara Sweets' main circle. I was practically pulled into the home by the sleeve of my jumper, entering without even ringing the doorbell.

"Sorry I'm late!" Suzumi called as she entered, eliciting a muffled greeting from the living room once again. Being pulled through the corresponding door by Suzumi's firm hand. Immediately I was confronted with the joyful smile of Inoue and a strange man's gaze of interest.

"Good afternoon you two, I hope you're having a fine little day!" Inoue said happily, but my attention was grabbed by the other, unknown man sitting in the room. The man was odd looking, his face too long, and his features stuck somewhere between a teenager's and thirty. His chin length blonde hair was cut with an exact straightness around his head, his fringe bucking the trend and putting itself at a slant descending towards his brow from left to right. He was dressed in a black robe and white haori not too dissimilar to Kisuke's own dress, though minus the wooden sandals and the ha—replaced with a something close to a white cravat around his neck. The man's odd teeth and smile would be serial killer scary if it didn't match him so well somehow.

Though, of course, the physical components too his oddness were well and truly usurped by his crimson red ribbon—flicking and swaying back to and fro like a cat's tail, though the ribbon seemed off ever so slightly. The man must've felt the scrutiny in my eyes as he raised his hands in surrender, his slender fingers wiggling playfully all the while.

"Woah there, cowboy! No need for the scary eyes. I'm just your friendly neighbourhood Vizard and Captain of the 5th​ Division in the Thirteen Court Guards." He extended a lanky hand in greeting and I took it and shook it gently. A Captain class Soul Reaper, right in front of me. Sure, I think both Tessai and Kisuke are Captain Class—but they were just different somehow.

"Nice to meet you…" I trailed off, just weirded out by the situation. I feel like I've had a surprise birthday sprung on me and they got the day wrong. "I'm Grayson Carter." The man's toothy smile extended widely, like a half moon across his face.

"Oh, I know all that. You're partner here," he motioned towards Suzumi, "has told me a lot about you. Of course, Orihime has called upon a favour or two to get me down here." He looked around the house, eyes catching on the small gizmos that make up modern living.

"Been a while?" I asked as Orihime and Suzumi made a prompt exit at stage left, sneaking away to leave me with the unnerving man.

"Oh yes, somewhere in the realm of half a century I think." He said his grin even wider now.

"So, why are you here to talk to me? I'm sure an actual Captain has better things to do?"

"Of course I do, but I'm slacking." I snorted unbidden, only encouraging the Court Guard Captain. "No, the real reason I am here is because I am a being with a very… confusing soul. One of only a few." I raised an eyebrow at that.

"A Vizard?" I questioned, recalling the odd self-descriptor. He is smile deepened, giving the distinct impression that his full smile would almost be monstrous.

"Or a Visored, yes. I was a normal Soul Reaper Captain before I became one—though I ended up doing quite a fair amount of my own hiding from Soul Society, something Kisuke Urahara is likely trying to replicate with you." He tilted his head to the side, his almost straw-like hair falling to cover his face ever so slightly. I was struck with a slight paranoia, realising that I was sitting in front of a high authority within Soul Society. All it would take was one word from him and all of Soul Society would know about me.

"I'm assuming that you won't go around spreading the good word?" I asked with enough sarcasm to hide the doubt. Though it seemed like the man could see.

"I won't, no. Everyone deserves their secrets from Soul Society—try as they might to know all of yours and have their own." He snorted in faint derision, "Regardless. My name is Shinji Hirako, and I'm…" All in one smooth motion, Shinji's hand glided over his features—obscuring his face just long enough for a severe looking, bone white mask to form.

"Part Hollow."

To my sensitive senses the room was suddenly a mire of oppressive power, the air quaking with the sheer density of spiritual energy it was laden with. Now that Shinji had that Hollow mask adourning his features, the ribbon that had only seemed slightly off was now a deep, blood red—its end cut with a half moon rimmed with black, a partial hollow hole.

Instinctively, my hand reached out, breaking through the invisible barrier that stopped me from grasping a ribbon. My hand clasped solidly around the ribbon and I pulled with all my might, but it simply ripped itself from my grip. Shinji took the mask off from his face, pulling it to the side and looking at me with a conniving smile.

"None of that, please. I'd rather not have to beat you into the ground like I did the last time I tried to help someone." I restrained myself from trying to do it once again, just to spite the man. He was a little too close to Urahara's flippancy for my tastes.

"I may not be the man you were looking for, and I personally think that Orihime would suffice just fine, but she asked me to help." He shrugged nonchalantly, letting the mask evaporate into particles of spiritual energy so pronounced that I could see them without even using spiritual sense. I grudgingly accepted the situation, letting myself relax into the nearby couch with a thump.

"How did that whole Hollow thing happen?" I asked bluntly. Shinji grinned, knowing that he'd got my curiosity.

"Ah, a little weasel was testing out a new toy, getting rid of a few dangerous elements along the way. I really wouldn't recommend it." He grinned grimly, and I nodded, letting the man have his own privacy.

"So you were pushed out of Soul Society for it? I haven't heard much about them being inclusive."

"We left before they could exile us, but yes—they would have executed us for being abominations. Rightly so, from a certain point of view. However, we survived to control the Hollow within—becoming out own uniquely powerful beings in the process." I nodded slowly.

"And now?" Shinji tilted his head again, widening his arms and showing off the gratuitous sleeves of his Captain's haori.

"And now I'm back, and have been for forty odd years under Shunsui's command. They are even letting Arrancar into Soul Society now, which had been… interesting." The man grinned, clearly living for the drama between the others.

"This Shunsui guy, is he trustworthy?" I put forth curiously. Kisuke and Tessai almost never talked about Soul Society or their involvement with them. In fact, Kisuke told me the bare minimum about Soul Reapers and Hollows that he could get away with. But I had always hungered for more than just that.

"As trustworthy as a Captain-Commander can be, especially when he has to answer to Central 46." Shinji shrugged, the haori bobbing and flowing as his lanky body moved underneath.

"So the political leader, basically." Shinji snorted.

"If you want to think of him like that, then it's your funeral. The man could wipe the floor with half the Court Guard Captains. Even I'd give myself a fifty-fifty at best." I stopped myself from trying to put an order on the strength of those that I had met, knowing that it'd only result in me meandering away from the questions I really want to ask.

"Do you…" I paused to rethink my questions, but went ahead anyway, "Do you think I would be able to go to Soul Society? Without them ripping me limb from limb, of course." Shinji barked out a laugh.

"No. Even under Shunsui's order you wouldn't be safe. The political landscape of Soul Society is evolving so fast in recent decades. A strange specimen like yourself going missing wouldn't even make it into the Soul Society Communications." I gave him a bitter smile, trying not to show my disappointment. I had known that would be the case, even if the same message had come from the overly paranoid Kisuke.

"So, the only other place where I can learn about my soul and really get stronger would kill me. Great." The bitterness in my voice only increasing causing the odd-looking Soul Reaper to give me a wide smile, amusement spilling from the man.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Grayson. How long have you been in Karakura Town—if you don't mind me asking?" I hadn't expected that question, but I answered anyways.

"Two and a half months, I think. Thereabouts." Shinji's grin widened to truly manic proportions.

"Oh! Then you are overdue for a chance encounter. That'll set you right." The smiling man cackled evilly before shacking his head ruefully, "Only in Karakura Town, kid."


A/N: A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.! And a gargantuan thanks to my 20-dollar Patron Marisa E.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 30: What the Future Holds

I started at the man dumbly.

"What… what's that even supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what it means. Tell me, have you had a chance encounter with anything powerful recently?" I looked at the man oddly, though my confused silence only made the bizarre looking man grin widely.

"Well, I guess I ran into that strange Hollow, Phantom. Then Inoue more recently. I didn't get into any fights though." Shinji shrugged; the mass of cloth that covered his body shifted to exaggerate the motion even further.

"Hardly matters. Point is, in Karakura town, things rarely stay quiet for long. I and the Visards know this, Kisuke and Tessai know this. Even newcomers like Jinta, the Kurosaki twins, and their band of high-spec humans know this. Soul Society had been keeping an eye on the goings on here for just as long, even if they do suck at it."

"I knew Karakura had a lot of spiritual activity, but is it really that bad?" I asked. Aside from the chance encounter with Phantom, not all that much had actually happened while I was here, unless I counted my own personal 'events'.

"Oh boy is it bad. Sure, it might not seem like it to someone that hasn't stuck around for a century or so—but Karakura has the most ridiculous things happen in it, for seemingly no reason at all. If Tokyo is the capital for human activity in Japan, Karakura is the capital of the spiritual world." Shinji stopped for a moment, reaching underneath his large white overcoat, and drawing a sword from almost thin air. He placed the blade to where the tip of it only just rested on the carpet, holding it up its weight.

It was clearly a Zanpakutō, and a powerful one at that. The blade itself slowly exuded its own spiritual pressure, clearly a thing made with the flow of spiritual energy in mind. Maybe that was why it was so much easier for Kisuke and Tessai to wield their spiritual pressure as a weapon, because instead of having to cover your body with increasingly large amounts of spiritual energy and creating a technique to achieve that—they simply had a convenient tool that is already created for the purpose of utilizing large amounts of spiritual energy, naturally creating the spiritual pressure by existing at all.

Before Shinji could speak, his wide crescent moon smile gaining a sharp edge—Orihime popped her head into the room with a curious expression, the grandmotherly wrinkles and lines on her face only adding to the effect. She had obviously felt the change in spiritual pressure from the room, twice after the mask earlier. As soon as she saw the drawn sword her eyes became piercing, even if her expression didn't overtly change.

"No swinging that thing around, alright Shinji?" For his part, he nodded mutely, his theatrics and grin dulling slightly underneath the grandmotherly woman's powerful gaze. The woman receded back into the other room, leaving us behind in an awkward moment before Shinji coughed.

"Anyway. I assume you understand the basics of Soul Reaper powers, yes?" I nodded.

"Vaguely, yeah. You have your normal sealed state, Shikai and then Bankai. All of which are increasingly powerful and more difficult to master. Other than that, I'm in the dark about it." Shinji snorted.

"I thought that Kisuke would at least give you the luxury of knowing more about Soul Reapers, but fair enough." I had to agree with the man, and we shared a moment of kinship over having to deal with the man one too many times. "Regardless, you won't technically find any earthshattering new information that changes everything, but there are a few titbits that you might find interesting. First of all; Soul Reapers aren't fundamentally different from the regular soul." I nodded, already knowing this, even if it hadn't been explicitly stated.

"The only real difference between the normal soul and a Soul Reaper's soul is the presence of their Zanpakutō—or the binding of an Asauchi. When they do so, the Asauchi binds with the soul and they become one and the same, in their own special ways that are usually unique to the Soul Reaper. I hear that you are capable of reiraku?" With a nod, he continued, "That's why a Soul Reaper's ribbon appears as red, mostly because the Asauchi is now a significant being within the soul, giving mind and presence to important or unique features already there. So in a nutshell, Asauchi are reflections of the soul, and understanding them is the same as understanding yourself."

Well, that was certainly informative. I had gotten the gist of it from just bits and pieces that Kisuke would tell me, but I wasn't sure if Kisuke was capable of actually telling the whole truth. Maybe when he was drunk, but he'd be more likely to talk about the principles that govern the Asauchi's binding with the soul in the most technical way he could.

"So, wait. In my soul there is another identity. Does that mean that he is my 'Asauchi' or whatever you call them after you bond with them?" Shinji scrunched his face together, the ever-present grin quickly turning the other way in an uncanny display of facial muscle control. He didn't respond for a moment, but I felt a wave of gentle spiritual pressure waft over me, almost as if it were poking and prodding.

"I– Well, no. I don't think so." He said, his voice confused, "It sounds remarkably Quincy-like. Does the identity appear as a tall black-haired figure, sometimes wearing glasses or moustache?" I shook my head.

"No, no. I think you're talking about that genocide guy that tried to blow up the world?" Shinji snorted with amusement, regaining some of his grin, "Kisuke already went through that with me. The other identity is named Grayhom, rather than Grayson. He just appears as a golden ball in my soul."

"In your inner world?" Shinji asked thoughtfully.

"I don't think so? It's just a massive ocean that represents my soul. Its not a world or anything, I think its just a literal embodiment of my soul. My soul is a mess of bloated 'materials' that I'm trying to get back into working order. Its just soul soup." Shinji hummed thoughtfully.

"Interesting. Not a Soul Reaper but exhibiting the ability to interact with your own soul on likely a higher level than normal. Not a Quincy but has an identity within that isn't a bonded being or thing. Not a Hollow or Arrancar, or even hollowfied, yet your soul is 'soul soup' as you say."

I knew a fair few of those words, though most of them meant nothing to me. Arrancar were still a bit of a mystery to me, though I only really understood that they were better and more dangerous Hollows. Quincies I hadn't even heard of, though I could only assume that the genocide guy was a Quincy and the generations of people he spawned were also Quincy.

"Well, then I have one tip for you to learn. Something that might aide you in understanding your soul further and that is an invaluable tool for Soul Reapers no matter the situation." I pulled my attention from the questions I had in my brain, abandoning them easily in lieu of the far more salient information that Shinji was offering me.

"Sword meditation." He said simply, "We use it to get into contact with our Zanpakutō's spirit, and while it has the fancy name, all we are really doing is trying to establish a line of communication between us and our inner world—where our Zanpakutō's spirit resides. It seems that you've already met this other identity, and I don't see why this meditative technique wouldn't work for you just as it works for us."

Shinji took a deep breath, before lifting his legs and curling them underneath himself while he sat on the couch. He flipped the blade in his hand to point towards the roof, and waited for me to look closely, only then closing his eyes.

As soon as I realised that he was going to give a demonstration, I opened every sense I had to perceive what was happening. At first it didn't seem like all that much was going on, but as I let my mediocre spiritual sense perceive the man, he was letting the spiritual energy leak out of him and then summarily taking it back within himself along with the pattern of his breathing.

While the blade itself was synchronised with Shinji's breathing—releasing spiritual energy at the same rate as the rest of Shinji's body was—it didn't seem to be important to the process. The atmosphere was calm and gentle, a synchronisation of the body, spirit, and mind in one. Shinji's ribbon wavered slightly, as if it was searching for something. It was after a minute or two that the ribbon went ramrod straight.

Just a moment later, the meditation stopped with Shinji's eyes opening, a humour dancing within them.

"Hello there, Sakanade." He said softly, and there was an overwhelming moment of resonance from the thin sword, the air shaking around it, as if in response. It died down after just a moment, leaving the air to settle back into its status quo. Though, the sheer power of the moment left eh air truly electrified.

"That was… new." I said, trying to place the sensation of feeling the sword's presence—finding a place to slot it into the library of important information and memories I'd formed. Shinji chuckled harshly.

"You didn't even get to meet her, she is extremely confusing to be in the same room as, trust me. I can't materialise her like some other Soul Reapers can, not without special technology to do so anyways. Some Soul Reapers are quite literally capable of materialising their Zanpakutō's spirit as a fully realised being, though that's so incredibly rare." I tried to recollect myself after that, my mind whirring with the possibility of actually materialising Grayhom into existence. That'd be… weird.

"Grayson." Shinji said, snatching my attention away from my thoughts get again. "I'm not sure if you've been told yet, but you are going to inevitably be brought into the fold no matter what you do. Kisuke, for all his faults, is doing his best at giving you more time than if you'd simply walked around Karakura's streets and lived here normally."

I was coming to that exact realisation now that Shinji had planted the seed. I could see why Kisuke was so paranoid about my existence and what it meant, especially with Ichigo Kurosaki's saga happening only so long ago. I was just another strange being with no clear link to any known threat, and it just seemed that I was simply the taste of what was to come.

"What am I even supposed to do? How do I know when this'll happen, or how strong I'll need to be to face it?" I asked, but the powerful Soul Reaper Captain just shook his head.

"None of this will matter when it all begins. As you are now, you are weak and fragile—I could end everything that you are right this very moment. Kisuke and Tessai certainly could, and Orihime could likely destroy you so hard that it'd be like you'd never existed in the first place. But," he said, interrupting the snide remark I was going to make, "that doesn't mean that you can't succeed when impossible odds are placed in front of you. You only need the foundation—with it, you'll be surprised just how quickly you can grow from what you are, into what you can be."

Shinji let the moment linger for just a little while longer, the seriousness on his face remaining for just a moment longer before it reverted into a silly grin. He rose from his chair with a spritely hop and bowed theatrically.

"How'd I do as the 'wise mentor'?" He said sarcastically, and I forced myself to roll my eyes in response.

"Well enough. I only have Kisuke to compare you with, so don't get too excited." He barked out a harsh peal of laughter, though ending with a satisfied smile.

"You'll do just fine kid, trust me. Soul Society is warming up at the moment and big shit is going to go down. Just a heads up, of course. I have a sneaky feeling that you're going to end up involved." Then, with that little bombshell of a sentence, the man walked out of the room silently, his footsteps making no noise regardless of his seemingly thoughtless movements.

I sat there for a moment, trying to process the new deluge of information. But something I didn't expect was a newfound sense of peace. It was something about having pure confirmation from Shinji that something was going to happen. That the eventuality was a surety, rather than something lurking in the dark. In a way, it made me feel like I couldn't be surprised by it now that I knew it was there—past the initial, instinctual surprise.

I poked my head into the dining room and saw Suzumi chatting with the rest of the women, all of them their own versions of boisterous. After a shared glance between us, I let her know that I was going out for a while. I needed some more time to just think, and I hadn't spent as much time walking the streets of Japan as I wish I had.

Leaving the warm Kurosaki household, I let myself begin my aimless wandering—not quite knowing how long I would be wandering for.


A/N: A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.! And a gargantuan thanks to my 20-dollar Patron Marisa E.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Reymen]

I like the character interactions. I wonder how strong Inoue is right now.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 31: Hunt

Walking around Karakura alone and with sight was a strange experience.

There was a humanity in the action that I realised I'd been missing. I had been pulled out of touch from the world around me so quickly, in no small part due to the introduction of this mysterious other world that I was slowly being dragged towards.

It was relaxing to walk the streets without fear of walking into anything, or the worry of bumping into others around me. I let myself revel in the odd sonder of walking by someone and wondering what their life is like, trying to flesh out a story behind them.

A young woman and a little girl, a toddler even. She was only twenty some years old, but it was possible that it was her child. The child would have been born while she was a teenager, likely. Howe had her family reacted? Was she even the mother at all?

In the slow walking, something that could hardly fatigue me, I found a proper absolution from the intense training I had been pushing myself through. The responsibility and pressure slowly lessened, like a shaken soda bottle as you slowly opened the screw top. Instead of being so focused on only myself, I tried to push my mind outwards onto other people.

Shamefully, it was harder than I would have liked it to be. I'm not a people person, really, Suzumi had me beat in that field and I can find it exceptionally difficult to relate to others—no doubt a holdover from my childhood.

But as I slowly released my attention onto others around me, I began to recontextualise my life. Step after step, I was coming to understand that I was both with aim and without it at the same time. I had the aim of getting stronger, more powerful, fixing my soul, learning spiritual sense, gaining spiritual pressure, so on and so forth…

But why?

Why did I want those things? I was scared; that was the easy answer. I was doing it all because I wanted to feel safe and secure at night, and I wanted to make sure that nothing could simply walk into my room and kill me while I slept. But I couldn't guarantee that. I could probably never guarantee that.

So, if being scared and self-protective wasn't a good enough excuse—something I had been caught up in for so many years as a child—what was a good reason? What was strength and power without a good reason for it?

Was I nice enough, or selfless enough, to want power to protect others? For Suzumi and Uyu, maybe. For the tens of random souls we'd saved out on our Hollow hunts? It lacked the same reality or levity. To do that, I'd have to be an astronomically better person than I think I actually am and sacrifice a great deal to do so.

I just don't think I could do that to myself.

So, what reason should I search for power? Self-preservation seems like a slippery slope, the end being self-destruction, and selfless pursuit of protection for others seemed almost as bad. It was a painful topic to internally consider. I was trying to tear my thought processes from the base instincts that I held, fear and protectiveness. All the same, I kept coming up short with good moralistic arguments for trying to gain as much power as I am.

I had berated myself so heavily not a month before for not understanding myself, and yet I now tried to distance myself from my own base desires, to give myself good reason to move on and upwards without becoming something I didn't want to be.

Quickly enough, I had found myself walking within the darkness of night, my limited vision obscured further by the lack of sunlight to aid me with silhouettes framed by the golden sun's rays. I must have been walking for hours, contemplating this strange moral and philosophical conundrum in my mind on repeat.

I found myself unperturbed by the darkness, despite being far outside my element. I had fought enough Hollows at night to feel at home in the faint moonlight above. Where in Karakura was I now? Probably in Kitakawase, the north-western most suburb. A nice area, all things considered, one of the nicest amongst the western suburbs in Karakura.

Almost as instinct, my senses were wide open, seeking any sound, movement, spiritual activity or even discernible souls. I hadn't noticed it happening, but I was a professional now, my mind running through a script as it scanned my surroundings for threats and anything else that might either harm or need help. It was funny how becoming good at something crept up on you like that—one day you begin, totally inexperienced, and then one day you wake up and realise that you're starting to get really good at what you're doing.

I felt a minor disturbance just outside of what I was setting my ribbon sense to. I immediately widened my range, focusing a little as I did, and found a conglomeration of bright white ribbons, all within one stretch of street. There weren't any other souls nearby, so I could only assume that there was something going on.

Without my direct input, my legs launched me to the top of a nearby roof just within my sightline. The bombastic movement gave me a pang of pleasure, experiencing the freedom that I'd crafted with my power. I flew across the rooftops, my feet easily pushing off from the uneven surfaces—spiritual energy allowing me to cling to the surfaces ever so slightly.

The subtle destruction of conventional physics delighted my mind, coming as close to legitimately flying as I might ever be capable of aside from instant movement. My regular clothing was holding up surprisingly well, despite the large and powerful movements I was performing in them.

I as I drew closer to the group of five bright soul ribbons, I did another sweep of the street and found exactly what I was bargaining for. The faint trace of a Hollow's ribbon.

My body pushed itself harder towards the Hollow's location, keeping tabs on the other ribbons that surrounded it. No doubt they were high-spec humans, maybe even in Jinta's crew—though I hadn't ever met any of them where we usually patrolled.

With a final flip off a roof, I was within the same street as the other ribbons, and I let the ribbon sense drift into the back of my mind—letting other senses take precedence for the moment.

Immediately I smelt blood, a sickening metallic smog filling the air with a severe pungency—assailing my nose as I surveyed my senses like a checklist. I could hear others around me, lining up perfectly with the bright white ribbons. There was a lot of yelling, and some screaming, but I was focused—searching for signs of the Hollow itself.

"Fuck! Call Jinta, this thing is way stronger than we bargained for!" One voice called. The voice belonged to a young man who was quickly backpedalling from where I assumed the Hollow was, further down the street. He entered my little bubble of sight, allowing me to see the man in full clarity. He was probably in his late teens, wrapped in a dark cloak that seemed like it hid padded armour beneath it. He was a fairly average looking Japanese guy, and aside from the speed of his movements, you probably could never guess he was strong at all.

"What's the situation?" I called out to him, taciturn as I could manage as I let my ribbon sense scour the area for a clearer view of the Hollow's ribbon. The man's head whipped towards me, his hand suddenly holding a decently long sword of western design. He pointed it at me and it glowed with spiritual energy, though not much.

"Who the fuck are you?" He warned, resetting his stance to face me properly in the ensuing moments. I looked away from the man, refocusing my ribbon sense as a deeper scan of the surroundings caught on something.

"I'm here to help. Tell me what's going on, and why I smell someone bleeding out—then I can help you beat the shit out of a Hollow." The man hesitated, the emotion so strong that I could see it in his ribbon as it cringed in on itself, "Now, would be nice."

"Fucking tell him already, Reo." A pained voice called from a few metres away, where the bloody smell was emanating from. None of the others made to comment, they were too busy being on watch. The Hollow wasn't out in the open, then. An ambush predator.

"Alright, fuck. We got called out here 'cause some of the soul sensitives in the area were picking up minor signs of Hollows. They didn't seem real worried, so we went out without talking to Jinta or Ururu. This Hollow is crazy strong, it keeps popping out of fucking nowhere. What are we even supposed–"

I tuned the younger man out as I focused in on my ribbon sense once again, the new wave of my scan grabbed a hold of the Hollow's ribbon in truth now, letting it appear in my vision atop a roof nearby. The man, who was still rambling—probably trying to cope with being truly terrified—had stopped paying attention altogether.

In a split second, I felt the Hollow move, it's wide, bone-white ribbon flicking from side to side like a cat's tail. I grimaced as I strained my legs, pushing in a tremendous amount of spiritual energy to support the ridiculous movement. I reached the man, who only just realised I was racing towards him, and slammed a palm into his chest—sending him flying a few metres to the side.

The Hollow appeared within my vision, blurring with the sheer speed of it's movement. It's small, bug-like form blurred with the speed inside my vision, but it's outstretched, lancelike arm passed through the air harmlessly—right where the chest of the man had been only a fraction of a second earlier.

I saw a black and empty eye stare at me for just a second before it's clawed foot struck against the ground, resulting in a loud bang and the Hollow disappearing from my sight entirely.

"W-what the fuck, man?" Reo accused, the young man I had pushed was fine, thankfully. However, with the Hollow appearing so quickly, I expect he hadn't even seen it. I ignored the man's squawking as my mind returned to my ribbon sense.

I had a good handle on the Hollow's ribbon now, a long and fat thing—far to strong to be any old Hollow. Though it was nothing in comparison to Phantom's ribbon, not even close. This Hollow was still simply a Hollow, but far more potent than the regular, mindless thing that we so casually slay.

"You know," I called loudly, my voice enhanced ever so slightly with spiritual energy, "you're far too powerful to be playing games with runts like these. You could have taken them out twice over before I even got here." The surroundings went silent, the attention of the other four high-spec humans who I'd paid no attention to were now placed solely on me. All of them were weak, though they had some potential for strength in them—they were nothing in front of a Hollow like this.

"Who the fuck are you talking to, idiot?" The stupid teenager yelled at me from his place on the street. Though I expected it was anger born out of a paralysing fear. From an alley nearby, a distorted and garbled laugh rang out, making the others around me panic—turning towards the sound.

But I wasn't so stupid. I turned my body towards the sound but kept my mind open to the actual location of the Hollow's ribbon, directly opposite where the sound was coming from. Just a second later, the Hollow moved towards the ribbon of the wounded high-spec human. The movement came first, then the bang of the sudden acceleration—but I was already moving, my legs already prepared to make a sudden, explosive movement.

This time, I couldn't very well push the wounded person out of the way—something that'd likely kill them or do significant damage. I was left with a very unfavourable option, which was trying tank the hit head on. Now, I had realised I wasn't going to be a selfless protector, but I couldn't let someone die right in front of me just because I was being a fraidy-cat.

With a grit of my teeth, I inserted myself between the lance-arm and the wounded man on the floor, whipping my hands towards the oncoming strike to change it's direction ever so slightly. I had expected that I'd be able to defend against the blow pretty well, maybe be sent flying from the force of it being dispersed across my spiritual shielding, and then the pressure and energy that cloaked my body.

However, even as I pumped it all up to maximum, watching the world slow to a crawl as my brain kicked into overdrive, I could only watch helplessly as the bug-like Hollow's arm pierced through my defences and into my flesh.

The pain coursed across my body with a malicious abandon, the lance-arm piercing through the side of my abdomen and through the muscle and organs within. In this moment, as the world was slowed to almost no movement at all, I could see the Hollow properly.

It was maybe five foot tall, extremely small for a Hollow this powerful. It was covered in a chitinous armour, plated across it's body to where almost none of it's black flesh was even visible. On it's back where two wings, fluttering quickly even within this slowed time. It's mask was almost hornet-like in structure, it's two black eyeholes almost making it look like the skull of an insect. Around it's mask was a fuzzy hair, covering up any exposed neck from view.

As my eyes met it's, a fire ran across me that I'd never felt before—a pure burning sensation within my chest, pushing away the severe pain from my mind almost entirely. The Hollow quickly pulled it's lance from my abdomen, letting the bright blood pour from the wound—destroying my clothes.

A moment later, the Hollow was gone, claw marks the only evidence that it had ever been here.

"H-holy fuck." The man behind me groaned as he put pressure on the wound in his thigh. I turned my head to look at him, the tall and muscled man was sweating heavily and bleeding profusely—he'd need medical attention and fast if he wanted to live.

"You lot." I yelled, my voice booming with a strength I was surprised I could control while there was a hole in my gut, "Get out of here and get your friend to Kurosaki Clinic in Minamikawase. I'll take care of the bug." There was a long, malicious peal of laughter from the shadows of the street, a cackling, horrible thing that you'd swear was being played through a static-y television.

"You think you can get them away from me while I hunt?" The Hollow said, it's voice nasally and filled with an intense primal hunger. I pushed out another scan of my surrounding, finding the Hollow's ribbon right where I expected it to be. I started to laugh along with it, the fire within my chest burning brighter and brighter by the second.

"Oh yes, I do think so," I said as I stared into the alley where the Hollow was hiding, it's form cloaked. "Do you really think you're the only hunter around?" I growled, an anger arising from the depths of my soul—an instinctive understanding that this was incorrect, that the right of power was mine.

"You say with a bleeding hole in your body, Human." It snarled as it realised I knew it's location. It sprang from it's hiding spot, the speed so intense that it was difficult to track even when I was staring directly at it. However, this time I was prepared; I grabbed the Hollow's lance, the blistering speed tearing the skin off of my hand as I clenched it. I whipped my hand towards it's own stomach, piercing through the chitin with difficulty, but managing to put a hole in the thing with my bare hand and a great deal of spiritual energy.

It screamed, the air around the two of us shuddering with the clashing spiritual pressures. If the group of high-spec humans hadn't dragged their friend away, then I wouldn't be surprised if it had made the muscled man pass out.

"Two can play at that game, bug." I snarled, my face warping into a predator's smile. "Let's see who of us is the real hunter, shall we?"


A/N: A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.! And a gargantuan thanks to my 20-dollar Patron Marisa E.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Sarius]

I like the character interactions. I wonder how strong Inoue is right now.

Click to shrink...

Inoue is strong, but not astoundingly so. She doesn't really seem like someone who would necessarily seek to become super strong, really.

 

[Reymen]

That is always the question as soon as you leave the shonen protagonist mind set. Why spend the time becoming strong? Do you want to dominate other, or selflessly sacrafice yourself doing something vague as "protect them"?

I can see Inoue trying/ having to become though enough that Itchigo don´t need to wory about her. So continue the way she was doing and turn herself into a veritable fortress. Then leave all attacking to her husband that was considered one of the strongest beings. And she needs to do it because Itchgo is one of the strongest. Because if she can´t defend herself then it is the kidnapping arc again. But if she can negate all harm that anyone else does her. Then why bother kidnapping or attacking her?

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 32: Reasons

The Hollow was too quick for me to stop it from pulling away, the loud noise of it launching its small frame away from me was almost deafening, but I didn't let it distract me.

Now, the group of high-specs were getting themselves out of the way, and the Hollow was going to be too distracted with me to have time to chase after the easy prey now. I felt the deep growl in my throat rise into my mouth, ever sensation I had ever felt was amplified by so many times that it was almost overwhelming. I could feel the heat of my breath against my teeth, the blood from my abdomen wound leaking down my side and saturating my clothes with a deep, red stain.

"You think you're a predator?" I taunted the surrounding buildings, giving the Hollow the illusion that I'd simply fluked it when I'd caught it last time. But the ribbon didn't lie, not on something as weak as this. It was dancing from place to place, overthinking its plan of attack. I needed to make a move soon, or it would simply decide that I wasn't worth the risk and run away.

I couldn't have that.

"I'm a predator alright," the Hollow's voice rang out, somehow both masculine and feminine at the same time, "how many souls do you think I've eaten? Hundreds!" I scoffed, entertaining the self-aggrandising Hollow with attention.

"Only hundreds? Of the weakest prey you could find? Honestly, maybe I overestimated how strong you are. Are you sure you could have killed those high-specs back there?" I mocked, leading to a growl from the surroundings, a distinctly different spot than it'd been before. I turned my head towards the sound, staring directly at the Hollow's ribbon. It'd gotten frustrated and fucked up.

I didn't let the Hollow notice that I'd realised its position and I raced towards it, mirroring the Hollow's own strange movement. It felt awkward and clunky in comparison to my normally flowing movements, but it certainly allowed me to move a great deal quicker than before, even if it did feel instinctually wrong.

I launched my hand out, wrapping around the small corner of the street and grabbing a hold of the unseen Hollow's scruffy hair around its neck. With a loud growl I dragged the body out from behind the corner with all my might, throwing the small-bodied beast out into the open with more force than I thought I had in me.

The Hollow's chitinous armour allowed it to skitter across the concrete and tarmac until it hit the wall on the other side of the street with the sound of concrete shattering. Driven by pure instinct, I lowered myself to the ground and moved again, using an edited version of the Hollow's movement from before. With a cracking sound of the concrete breaking under my feet, I moved so quickly I only had time to raise my knee to plant it in the Hollow's chest.

The small thing managed to scramble out of the way ever so slightly, making my knee crash into its shoulder instead. With the speed I was going, I was also suddenly embedded into the wall. It took me a moment, but I managed to struggle my way out of the wall. The Hollow hadn't tried to be opportunistic and stab me while I was stuck, probably because it was hurting from its own injury and trying to recover.

"That was a good connection, no? You did a pretty good job of getting yourself out of the way there." I said snidely, my eyes wandering the streets dramatically. Though, as I kept my mind on the Hollow's location, I realised that it was starting to slowly move further away from me. It was running.

With a predatory grin, I let my legs push me forwards with blistering speed, climbing to the top of the buildings easily and vaulting over the ledge and making a beeline right towards the Hollow's sneakily retreating form.

The wind whipped around my body as I cut through the air like a knife, and as I reached the Hollow's form, I reached out a hand and grabbed a hold of the edge of its mask—yanking it to the ground as I decelerated.

"Thought you could run away, bug." I snarled, pure violence finding its way into my voice. The Hollow replied with an ear-piercing scream before it turned, breaking my grip and launching it's one good arm towards me, it's lance-like point searching for my body. I couldn't dodge something this fast at such a close range, but I could work around it.

I let the piercing blow fly through my spiritual shielding and glancing the side of my chest, sliding into my armpit while drawing a line of burning pain into my flesh. But, for whatever reason, the pain only compelled me further.

I pushed forwards, my hand formed in a facsimile of a spearpoint, trying my best to get a shot at its chest once again. This time, the Hollow didn't have time to react to the attack, too focused on its own. I felt a small amount of blood within my mouth, a metallic taste on my breath. I must've injured something earlier and didn't realise. As My hand broke through another part of it's chitin, I spat bloody phlegm in its face.

It recoiled, despite having a mask and no way for it to really affect it. Must be a hold over from when it was human, once. I laughed with a ferocious glee at the reaction—the idea of it having leftover instincts from being human was laughable. For a being that seemed to be the antithesis of human, it sure was human.

The Hollow, now stuck with its only functioning arm clamped in my armpit and underneath my body, was running out of options. I didn't have the strength to hold down its entire body, so instead I was left with the little runt screaming loudly and clawing at my chest with its clawed feet, tearing up the skin on my chest and making the droplets of blood fall onto its bone white carapace.

With a vengeful grunt I slammed a fist into the Hollow, over and over, letting it scratch at me futilely, even as pain lanced across my body. My fist beat into the Hollow's carapace, cracking it further every time the flesh and bone of my hand connected.

"You know," I growled in between the blows, "I thought," slam, "a little," slam, "harder," slam, "to kill." My fist broke through the carapace and exposed the black flesh underneath, a light smattering of the same course hair around its neck dusted it's black chest. I grinned, my vision going a deep crimson as I grabbed a hold of the Hollow's fat ribbon and pulled, taking its spiritual energy reserves as my own.

I yelled into its bone white mask with a primal rage. The Hollow recoiled from its sudden loss of spiritual energy, the only chance that it had at escaping me. I wrapped the wide ribbon around my knuckles with a flick of my hand and slammed the fist down into its black chest, releasing all the energy at once.

With a satisfying bang, the Hollow's body now had hole in it that almost entirely disconnected the top half of the thing from its legs. With one last vicious grunt, I slammed my hand into it's weakened mask and it cracked, leaving it totally incapacitated until a Soul Reaper managed to purify it, or whatever they did with a Hollow.

I rolled off the Hollow's corpse, or de-animated body, and let myself breathe for a minute.

I could feel the pain all across my body, wounds that would easily land myself in the hospital littering my body like scrapes and bruises. My mind was so awake that I could feel every brush of air against my skin, the temperature of my flesh cooling as the blood receded from my muscles and back to my centre of mass, trying to circulate normally again.

Slowly, as I regained my ability to breathe normally again, the adrenalin faded, leaving me with a full gamut of pain—though it hardly bothered me as much as it should have. In fact, I'm the happiest that I've been in weeks, aside from moments with Suzumi.

Right now, I was on top of the world.

It was such a primal, instinctive emotion. It had nothing to do with morals. There was no justification for how I was feeling in a civilised world. But fuck, who cares. Why should I care what the civilised world thinks when I will be up against beings easily as strong as that one, little Hollow? When my competitors will be many times as strong as that?

No, I won't let myself be dragged into the fallacy of 'righteousness' or 'morals'. How could I possibly care about that when around every corner in Karakura, there was a fight like that waiting for me? No, I didn't want to shy away from the challenge anymore. I wanted to walk right into the fire with a grin on my face so terrifying that the fire stepped away.

Why should I find a reason for my power when a reason like this existed? Where I could put everything on the line and come out stronger, faster, and smarter for it? Why shouldn't I take victory as mine? Make their power all mine.

I laughed gleefully against the searing pain all over my body, the elation still too prominent in my brain to truly complain about my injuries. Painstakingly, I pulled myself from the ground with a concerted effort. I still had a little spiritual power left to go around, so I used it to jump from the building and reinforce my muscles just enough so I could walk along with minimal pain.

Each step was torture, but the elation still residing in my mind didn't allow me to truly crumble under the pain. It wasn't a pleasurable experience, but there was something about that time of pain and suffering that made me understand why warriors of old valued their scars so much. It was a symbol of suffering and pain, and the price that they'd paid to win. But also, the mark of victory, of 'I won.' The classic 'You should see the other guy.'

My body roared with searing pain, but each step towards Kurosaki clinic was amazing.

It took me far more than an hour, but I managed to make it, following the main streets rather than dawdling like I had been beforehand. The exhaustion was starting to set in as I turned the corner to see the signage of Kurosaki clinic. It took me another minute of painful walking, the rest of my spiritual energy was spent by the time that I made it to the door, the last whisps of energy burning away as I stood at the front door.

I demurely pressed the doorbell and waited, the small chime playing throughout the house as I stood, bleeding on their doorstep. It took surprisingly little time for the door to open, revealing Karin, the woman with the black hair, now down running down her back rather than sitting atop her head in a wild ponytail.

"Who the hell–" her eyes widened comically as she raced around me and pulled me into a bridal carry. I just let her take control, and as soon as she closed the door behind us, she called out to the rest of the house in a loud yell.

It was only five minutes before the rest of the Kurosaki household was downstairs, rushing me into the conjoining emergency room that ran alongside their home. So many things happened in the span of only a few minutes that my tired mind could barely compute the order of events.

At some point, Suzumi showed up, which was nice. She held my hand. But funnily enough, the pain from the wounds had mostly dissipated, even without the use of any painkillers. Though, as I looked down at my body, I couldn't see my wounds anymore. In fact, I they weren't there at all anymore—just lots of drying blood where they used to be.

Oh, that's right, Orihime had used her healing thing. For a fleeting moment, I was actually disappointed that the wounds were gone and that I wasn't going to get scars out of them, but I also wasn't stupid, so I wasn't going to complain.

My mind slowly shut down over the next few hours. I was sure that I was speaking and conversing, but I couldn't tell you what I was talking about. Things would be told to me and they would never quite make it to my brain, the words falling flat against my heavy head.

Over time it just became an exercise of keeping my head upright, though even that became an impossible task soon enough—the weight an ever-increasing burden. Soon enough the darkness took hold, even though my mind was still slowly whirring in the background. It was warm in the darkness, my senses slowly receding as only my mind was left to run on its own, slowly shutting down.

The only thing left, the only sensation that I could pull from the abyss of my mind, was a satisfaction. A satisfaction for finding a reason for my power.

So I could truly fight.


A/N: A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; Thomas H., TheBreaker, and Dyson C.! And a gargantuan thanks to my 20-dollar Patron Marisa E.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 33: More Involved

Kisuke had been trying to keep the boy away from a true fight.

Phantom had been a close call, though it was unlikely that the Hollow would even bother to fight back against the much weaker Grayson. Kisuke had been worried what a true fight would awaken in the kid, what secrets it might uncover. He had thrown him at boring fight after boring fight, Hollows that even some monks or priests with very little spiritual sensitivity could beat.

Kisuke was almost relieved when Suzumi had told him that Grayson had been savaged by a Hollow, thinking that maybe it'd hamper the boy's progression towards battle, the same path that so many others had followed—even including himself.

But when the boy had come back to the Kisuke's little sweets shop, the illusion was lifted, and Kisuke was left with the reality. Grayson had always felt powerful, despite his actual lack of power, mostly due to his soul being inflated beyond belief. Now, though, Grayson felt sharp.

Kisuke had spent so many years in Soul Society in many different capacities. As a trainee, as an inventor and scientist, as a warden for the deepest pits they could throw people in, as a Court Guard Captain. Kisuke's combat ability, while certainly a cut above the rest, was weak and flimsy in comparison to some of the others. He had manufactured his own power, using new techniques and intellect to bridge the gap between those who's entire being seemed devoted to their martial strength.

In one of the many conversations he'd had with old man Genryusai, most of them being thinly veiled dressing-downs, one of the compliments that he had received from the man had been on his eyes. Not their boring grey colour, of course, but his ability to see things in others before they manifested—whether that was greatness and power, or deep evil. Once, Kisuke had even trusted those eyes fully, though he was more careful now and far less arrogant.

So, when Kisuke had seen Grayson's first fight with Uyu, the little girl beating him to a paste, there was no doubt in his mind. Grayson was a collection of unknowns as vast as the sea he described his soul as—but the way that Kisuke could contain the risk of those unknowns, was to afford Grayson as much control, without actually having practical use of it.

It really didn't matter how physically powerful you were if you'd never fought before. Someone with any practical skill would wipe the floor with you. Kisuke was finding it easier and easier to admit that he was scared of Grayson, and that anyone would be foolish not to be. Kisuke was especially scared of what would happen when Grayson was given a real fight and a real challenge.

He had seen Grayson on that day as a foreign blade, strange and unique, with no clear understanding of how it was supposed to be used. It was unedged—dulled from misuse, travel, and lack of maintenance. However, as Grayson walked into the door of his little store, Kisuke didn't even need to see him to feel the difference.

Grayson had found his blade and sharpened it on the bones of an enemy. He wasn't an expert in it, or even amateur, but having found it at all was enough. The cat was out of the bag, now, and putting it back inside would require killing it.

It didn't take long for Grayson to find him, sitting in the conference room that had been so rarely used before Grayson had arrived. The boy walked in with an exactness that radiated through his being, released from the mire and confusion of finding a purpose that resonated.

"You fought like shit." Kisuke stated without preamble. Grayson grimaced, his stride faltering just a little before he sat himself onto a pillow.

"I know, it was a mess." Grayson agreed, with a little hesitation. At least he wasn't combative about it, as too many were about their own failings.

"We don't know how hardy your body really is against injury and you allowed yourself to take far too much damage. If you do something so stupid again, I'll come and kill you personally." Kisuke's voice rang out with the same one he had developed at a Captain so long ago. It wasn't as impressive as Tessai's own commanding voice, but Kisuke liked to think that his held a certain other quality.

"…that's fair." Grayson said, goosebumps visibly gracing his skin against the icy tones of Kisuke's voice.

"More than fair. In fact, if you were a Soul Reaper trainee, you'd be thrown out before you could even apologise." Kisuke and Grayson let the silence sit for a while. Kisuke's own grey eyes met with Grayson's blue cornea, the mishmash of Japanese and more western features only adding to the effect of his bright eyes.

"So," Grayson began tentatively, "I want to fight more like Hollows like that and–"

"And die a horrible death in the process, allowing to Hollow that killed you access to a soul powerful enough to blow up my machines?" Kisuke interrupted ruthlessly. Grayson opened his mouth to speak in protest again, but Kisuke continued.

"That's how you get yourself actually killed, Grayson. There are more strong Hollows in Karakura town than you think, and if you go around killing anything but the common rabble, they start to get aggressive. I'd have thought your injuries would have taught you a lesson." Grayson, counter to what Kisuke expected, grinned widely.

"It did teach me a lesson. Don't get hit." Grayson laughed at his own joke, but Kisuke saw it deeper than that. While it was a joke, it was also the truth, and it reminded Kisuke of someone else that he'd rather not equate Grayson with. A scary, extremely powerful hoodlum. Kisuke dropped his Captain-ly presence and decided to make it cut and dry.

"You want to fight?" He asked softly, making Grayson's grin fall away, "Then you can fight. I won't stop you or hamper you. But I want you to understand something, Grayson. This is the path of death." The soft words had a much larger effect, Grayson's face returning to it's neutrality and seriousness.

"I know, Kisuke. No-one has told me the stories of Ichigo and his crew, but they walked that line, didn't they?" Grayson asked just as softly, and Kisuke nodded. "How many of the strongest in Soul Society have walked that line, or still walk it?" Kisuke didn't respond, the answer evident. Even he had walked that line, his Bankai training only being one such time.

"And even now, Ichigo Kurosaki is off in some other dimension with the rest of his family, walking that line. Are you going to tell me that the path of death is not also the path of life? That they aren't intermingled in whatever cosmic way they are?" It was a simple sentence, one not more profound than any other that Grayson could have chosen, but it reminded Kisuke of Genryusai. How many times had Kisuke desperately tried to convince the man of that very same thing?

Kisuke's chuckle came to his throat unbidden. It surprised both Kisuke and Grayson so much that it could only escalate from there. As the peals of laughter sprouted from Kisuke's chest, he had a wonderful moment of sonder—like an one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle spontaneously completing itself within his mind. He had been so frustrated with Genryusai during his youth, even though he had affordd much of the stability that Soul Society had to offer, but he was so conservative.

Kisuke had been a trailblazer, establishing scientific divisions and rocking the boat from within, but it'd all come down to whether Genryusai allowed it to happen. Each new idea being shot down had wounded Kisuke, an endless frustration with the man who had restricted him. Now, Kisuke found himself in much the same situation that Genryusai had.

It was a strange feeling, being in the other chair all of a sudden. Now Genryusai made so much more sense, each of his rejected inventions could be used to harm and start wars that would have no positive outcome. Kisuke knew what it was, now. It was the wars that he'd been in, the scars that he'd received in them. They were terrifying apparitions of what could be, constantly looming over his head like a ghost of the past, whispering in his ear to never forget.

Yet Genryusai had been wrong. He'd even admitted as much, from what he'd heard. Ichigo Kurosaki had turned it all of Soul Society on its head, and Genryusai had allowed himself to change as the winds blew in the direction opposite from where he wanted to walk. Now that Kisuke sat here, he realised how terrifying that was for him, giving up his life's ethos for the sake of the world he commanded—all on the whim of one teenage boy.

And here Kisuke was, desperately trying to plug the holes in the dam, just as Genryusai had done.

"Fine." Kisuke said, finally putting an end to his laughter, the young man in front of him barely able to do the same. "You can fight, with backup of course, but you can do it." The words, as the left Kisuke's lips, almost hurt. They made Kisuke's position vulnerable and weak, leaving a feeling of regret in his chest.

"But you'll need to start on some new training, something a little more… involved than what you're currently doing." The grin on Kisuke's face was one he hadn't worn in a long time, lost to a world that had killed all whimsy in the man. Now, it had returned on his face and it felt right, like it should have stayed there all along. Grayson's eyes narrowed and, with a little bob his throat, spoke suspiciously.

"How involved, exactly?"

---​

"Uh, Kisuke?" I called from within the large metal contraption I'd been put inside. It's outside had looked like a large, metal ball, but the insides were much more complicated looking. I was placed on a large panel of thick metal that acted as elevated flooring above machinery beneath. I was surrounded on all sides, including in an upwards direction, by strange components that were almost reminiscent of tesla coils. Each pointed towards the very centre of the spherical housing, connected to each other by jumbles of wires that clearly weren't strictly organised.

Kisuke didn't respond to my nervous calling, leaving me to flicker my eyes from coil to coil, each protruding rod had a multitude of donut shaped things attached to them. I couldn't identify the materials used, apart from just general plastics or metals, but those materials didn't glow with spiritual energy.

"Yes?" Kisuke answered finally, popping his head out from underneath the elevated platform within the contraption. His face was still filled with that grin that he'd gained in our little conversation.

"Do you mind telling me what the hell this thing is supposed to be?" Kisuke looked at me dumbly for a second, before looking around at the device with a stupid look on his face.

"I dunno, bought it off of Alibaba." And then he disappeared into the belly of the machine once again, my groan the only noise other than a slight chuckle. I waited for a while, hearing the odd clang or sound of some tool or another as Urahara did whatever his mad genius compelled him to do. After a final sound, Kisuke reappeared on the outside of the machine, looking into it towards me with a glint of delight in his eye.

"Are you ready, Grayson?" The man grinned wolfishly at my scandalised expression.

"Ready for what, Kisuke? What the fuck is this thing?" I said, waving an arm wildly around the metal sphere.

"Oh hey, probably don't want to do that. The instruction manual says that they explode if you hit 'em." My arm snapped to my side in an instant, though all I got for my troubles was a grin from the dishevelled man.

"So anyway, I'm going to push the button now. See you in a bit!" Kisuke said, his hand slamming into said button, and making the whole thing whir to live around me, the noise of cooling solutions and buzzing electronics livening the almost dead silent interior.

"Kisuke!" I yelled over the noise, legitimate anger filling my tone, but the hatch that I had walked through to get into the contraption began to lower, as I did. Kisuke followed just under the door with his face filled with humour.

"Don't worry, give me a sec to read the instruction manual!" He called, before the door shut with a clang and silence filled the room for just a moment, letting me hear a rustle of paper from just outside the door.

"Oh shit. It's all in German."

Just as I was about to shout any number of obscenities, the sounds began again, but much louder. I was almost knocked to the ground with their intensity, the sensitivity of my hearing working against me as I stood in the loudest environment I could imagine. It was like standing in a jet engine, but the escalation of sound never stopped, only growing and growing. Each moment felt like the next would be the climax point.

I never heard the end of the crescendo. At a certain point the sound became too painful to bear, even my own screaming felt like nothing as the sound vibrated my body so extremely. I screwed my eyes shut against the pain, the noise, the entire world, letting the darkness of my eyelids soothe my mind and the noise disappeared from my mind completely. Too completely, in fact.

When I reopened my eyes, wondering if Kisuke had turned the machine off, I was instead met with quite the sight.

My eyes were filled an infinite number of stars.


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[Sarius]

Chapter 34: Motes

"Kisuke…" I called into the dark void around me, eyes wildly scanning my surroundings in a panic, "what the hell did you get me into." I muttered, my voice losing itself against the sheer magnitude of space.

There was total silence around me, the ear destroying noises that had led me into this realm were completely gone now. The silence was reassuring and even relieving for a while, that was until I could begin to hear my own heartbeat in my chest and the blood rushing around my body.

This was an odd place, somewhere between reality and the journey I had into my soul. While I had been inside my own soul, things worked in half measures, more akin to a dream than anything real or substantial. For example, my brain hadn't quite realised that I could see in my own soul, my eyes capable of seeing the horizon of in the distance. Stuff as simple as what clothes I was wearing were only filled in with details after my brain had focused in on them, rather than them existing beforehand.

So this was a strange medium, where I could still feel my training clothes, soft by stiff, rubbing against my skin as I moved slightly, but where the surroundings were so clearly fantastical.

"What do I even do here?" I asked to the void, and surprisingly an answer came back.

"I don't know, you tell me." I whipped my head around to see a golden orb the size of a basketball, resting only five metres from me. I did a double take before it finally sunk into my skull what was going on.

"Grayhom? Why're you here?" I asked dumbly, prompting a scoff out of the other identity.

"Well, I was pulled here just the same as you. Heard a terrible racket just outside the bright waters and I thought I'd go take a look and bam." If the orb had arms, I'm sure he'd be gesticulating with them wildly.

"Ah, sorry about that, Kisuke put me in a machine for training. Good to see you though." Grayhom was about to respond, taking in a superfluous breath, but was interrupted with a thundering voice.

"Testing, testing; one, two, three!" The noise echoed within the void, vibrating my body with the sound as it did. Both Grayhom and I groaned at the same time, somehow sharing the frustration of dealing with Urahara Kisuke.

"Too loud, numbskull!" I called into the void, letting it sit for a moment.

"No need to shout." A voice called from what only felt like a few metres away. I spun around in all directions, trying to find the source but coming to the realisation that it was coming from everywhere.

"Well, that's creepy. I can't say that I enjoy being a disembodied voice in my head. I might need to get that checked out." I said dryly, earning a snort from my other identity. After a small delay, Kisuke made a scandalised sound but didn't do much else, the faint sound of fingers clacking on a keyboard could be heard in the silence.

"So, mind actually explaining what's going on right now?" Grayhom asked out into the void, then I joined him while we looked out into the void, waiting for the answer.

"Well, your simple minds wouldn't understa–"

"Skip!" I yelled, cutting the man off after a word or two more, Grayhom chuckled loudly to my right.

"Why I never!" Urahara exclaimed, but sighed after a moment, "Fine. I've basically forced your mind to go into a state of meditation, much like the bigger and bulkier machines that Soul Society use to help others get in touch with their Zanpakutō. Instead of helping the Zanpakutō's spirit materialise, I just made your brain open a link and do the heavy lifting for you. I'm glad it worked the first time."

I had listened to that whole explanation with a reasonable amount of interest, but as soon as the last phrase was spoken, both Grayhom and I spoke at once.

"The first time?" Both of our voices chimed in unison, and Kisuke's voice paused for a second.

"That's really creepy that you're basically the same person, y'know? I could probably help you get rid of–" I cut him off, a little anger reaching my voice now.

"Kisuke. What the fuck."

"God, calm down a little, would you? You're the only test subject I had, and plus, Tessai and I can talk to our Zanpakutō's whenever we want! It's not as if the likelihood of permanent brain injury is all that high." Grayhom and I simultaneously sighed, apparently sharing the same set of responses when it comes to Kisuke.

"Anyway, what did you want out of me doing this, anyway?" I asked, but Grayhom tacked on his own thoughts.

"Like, I appreciate being able to interact with Grayson and all but ending up as a soul in a braindead body isn't high on the to-do list."

"Well," Kisuke began, his voice a little more serious now, "all of this is really an exercise in seeing if the same principles that apply to us also apply to you. Also, this device would be considered a massive breakthrough in the field. I'm not sure that even Mayuri has come close to perfecting this sort of technology, and I've minimised the size of the machine from a large building down to a small sphere."

"You're intending on giving this tech up to the Soul Reapers?" I asked, but immediately received my answer.

"No, I'm not. For the moment I'm only using this on people that have super advanced Gigai or real bodies lying around somewhere. The technology that is required to affect someone's spiritual body is slightly different, but I should be able to figure it out. Being able to force this great of a connection could potentially mean that you can brute force someone's training post-Bankai." I scrunched my eyebrows up, but Grayhom got to the question faster.

"So, you don't think that the regular Soul Reaper could find much use out of this?" The confusion was evident. We both knew so little about the actual training processes for Soul Reapers, making it hard to actually put it into perspective.

"No. Most regular Soul Reapers have very underdeveloped Zanpakutō spirits. While those spirits are technically fully formed, they are more like a wire mesh that consists of the form that they take should the soul that they are bonded with actually gain that level of strength. It's what makes hopping from Shikai to Bankai so impressive, because it just means that the power was already there, in some fashion."

"If you forcibly dragged out the Zanpakutō spirit from their Inner World, it'd be a mess?" I asked finally.

"Sort of. The Soul Reaper needs to find the power themselves sometimes, especially when it comes to finding the spirit's name. Every time someone thinks they've found a subversion to that rule, things go horribly wrong. Either way, it's more useful for those who've already achieved Bankai and are searching for further power beyond that, which some Zanpakutō's are known to have."

That left Grayhom and I in a thoughtful state. It was a weird thing, to be sitting not five metres from a version of yourself, both likely thinking remarkably similar, if not the same thoughts. Grayhom broke the silence first, voice quiet with a pondering tone.

"What do we do now?" But Kisuke was silent. The silence dragged on for what felt like seconds and minutes at the same time, and it became obvious that we weren't going to receive an answer. I nodded my head, understanding the message that Kisuke had decided to send.

"Let's go walking then, I guess." I said, before stretching my leg out and walking gracefully through the void with Grayhom floating beside me, trailing me by only a little bit. It was a calming experience, despite its surreal nature, and the astonishing multitude of stars within the void intrigued the mind easily.

I couldn't tell what they were, really, though they had many different colours and sizes, the brightness being somewhat variable even then.

"What do you think they are?" I asked my other identity, and he took a long time to answer.

"I can't be sure, but I think they are parts of us." I rose an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue, "I think we're in the dark waters of our soul, far enough out of the bright waters for both of us to be comfortable with being here. It's the middle ground of our soul." Realisation washed over me subtly.

"And if our soul wasn't so bloated, we'd probably be sitting in a dead space, or be forced into the Inner World that all the Soul Reapers talk about." For whatever reason, the abstract soul stuff was pretty easy to understand on an instinctual level, maybe partly because of Grayhom's influence. Like I probably am for him when it comes to Kisuke or outside world things.

"Should we… try to do something with them?" I asked, but received the closest thing to a shrug as the glowing ball could mimic.

"I don't know if we even can. Plus, we need the compression from you using the blackhole technique, remember?" I hummed thoughtfully. I hadn't used the technique much since I'd first compressed my soul, but it'd probably be understandable if I gave it another shot. Or I'd be rudely awoken to Kisuke stabbing me.

"Gimmie a sec." I said while quickly sitting in space, my upper body staying still while my legs folded underneath me, and I focused my mind. It didn't take long for me to fall back into the mind space of the blackhole technique, having ownership over everything actually was quite an easy mentality to encourage, though I knew I had to be careful with it.

In only a few moments, I could feel the spiritual energy being drawn towards myself, quickly sucking the immediate area around me completely dry. Thankfully, I was already ninety percent full with spiritual energy, even after the big fight a day ago, so it didn't take long for the pressure to start rising.

At first, nothing seemed to be happening within this space, even though I was definitely pushing more and more spiritual energy into my relatively large reserves. I was almost ready to call it quits when Grayhom called something I didn't quite comprehend in my meditation.

"Holy damn, that's a sight." He said, forcing me to open one eye to take a peek. Right before my eyes, every light within the void was shifting, and fast. They moved closer and closer to each other before sparks began to fly between the sources of light.

"Stop, Grayson." Grayhom said, as he saw the stars begin to arc spiritual energy between them as they drew closer and closer. "Grayson! Stop!"

With a jolt, I forced myself out of the blackhole technique, and letting some of the spiritual energy leak out of my body. The motes of light in the void of my soul slowly separated again, the reactions between them lessening until they finally quieted, sitting across from each other without the fanfare.

"What was that man?" I asked, but Grayhom just made a squeaking noise.

"Whatever it was, you were too good at the whole compression thing. Why is it so much more powerful while you're in here?" He questioned, but just as he did, the answer hit us mutually.

"Because we're both here." We said in unison, voices being almost exactly the same other than a def definitive tweaks.

"So, doing stuff with the soul is just easier because we're both here?" Grayhom asked again, but I furrowed my brow with confusion.

"Why wasn't it the same when I was down with you in the bright waters." I asked, and Grayhom hummed with thought.

"Well, probably because we weren't on equal footing. You were a visitor in my domain, just like how I'd probably be pretty useless if I somehow made it to the surface without us both dying." We both pondered for a moment before I spoke up again, sly smile on my face.

"You know, it really is creepy that we both know each other's questions and answers before we even say them."

"I was just thinking the exact same thing."

We chuckled heartily for a while at our own bad joke, but before long we were just left with the possibilities. With this sort of power over our own soul, we could get so much more done than the little bit of soul compression here and there. We could become substantially more powerful in a fraction of the time, and possibly even open up new doorways. The think was, that because I didn't have a fully functional soul, I couldn't tell what doorways were closed to me in the first place.

I turned to the golden basketball beside me, knowing that he was thinking almost exactly the same thing, and grinned.

"Looks like we have a whole lot of work to do." I said eventually.

"Bah, you think pulling in all that spiritual energy is going to be work? Try putting together the infinitely complex Lego set that is a soul." I snorted, rolling my eyes.

"Infinitely complex might be overselling it a little." I had the distinct impression that Grayhom was lifting both eyebrows.

"Wanna bet, idiot?"


A/N: Thank you to my two 5-dollar Patrons; Bisque and Thaldor! A massive thanks to my two 10-dollar Patrons; TheBreaker, and Dyson C.! A gargantuan thanks to my two 20-dollar Patrons Marisa E. and Thomas H.!

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[Sarius]

Chapter 35: Silver

It took me all of a few hours to realise that I was, indeed, an idiot.

Souls are way more complex than I had even conceived of. They were a concept that was so easy to break down into simple terms, not too dissimilar to a computer. There was a motherboard and all the different component technologies worked off of that motherboard, adding additional functionality to the greater system. In a way, the mind was the software, the operating system that gave the user access to the cold metal of the hardware, the soul.

It was why someone could probably go their entire life without realising that they are extremely spiritually sensitive, that is until their software is forced to comply with the reality of their hardware.

All this is so easy to say and theorise about, but as soon as I actually set hands on the building blocks of it, I realised that it was so much more complex than that. As I tinkered with the grand Lego set of my own soul, I came to understand just why Kisuke was how he was about soul editing and creating new souls like the Mayuri guy was doing.

I had no doubt in my mind that the soul itself was one of the most complex systems in the known universe, and the fact that someone could be so arrogant as to believe that they were smarter than whatever process had created the soul was astounding to me now.

Though who else but those arrogant enough would even try.

It seems that creating ways to interface with a soul has become pretty standardised. Soul Reapers had their Zanpakutō, Quincies had gotten all weird after their Progenitor was killed, but they still had their ways, and there were a few others around the place that seemed similar—though I couldn't be bothered to try and drag it out of Kisuke.

Trying to put together even one piece of my soul was mind bogglingly difficult, trying to imagine creating an entirely new soul from scratch the way that Mayuri had, one that was a legitimate being by every right, was just astounding.

It didn't take long for Grayhom to take the reins on the soul stuff again, and for me to take the reins on the blackhole technique. Turns out Grayhom is just as shit at spiritual energy manipulation as I was with soul manipulation.

We had a long time to theorise why that was within my soul, being that there was effectively no measure of time in here. The consensus we came to was pretty simple, in terms of the prior computer analogy. We were both identities, and a soul is only really meant to have one of them, those that have two are either Hollows or added after the fact. But we are one and the same but separate identities, nonetheless.

So essentially, we're both relegated to our own areas of the soul, one of us maintaining the grip over 'software' management, and the other over 'hardware' management.

If you think about it long enough, it starts to sound extremely powerful. It's the reason that Soul Reapers are more powerful than a regular human with tonnes of spiritual energy. The Zanpakutō's spirit manages the hardware of their soul, though nowhere near the scale that Grayhom and I are capable of. At least not normally.

None of this changed the fact that working with something as delicate and complex as a soul was mind numbingly difficult and tedious. While the early stages were almost easy, we quickly realised that we were picking the low hanging fruit. It was the difference between the no-brainer building blocks of a house and the fiddly accoutrements of each individual room, one being obvious and the other almost a form of abstract self-expression.

As such, the process began to slowly grind to a halt, where no matter how much spiritual energy I sucked in from the outside world, Grayhom wasn't capable of doing the ridiculously complicated math fast enough.

To be fair to the man, we'd managed to increase our spiritual reserves once again by a massive margin. It hadn't doubled, but it'd gotten close. It was getting to the point now that I was going to be genuinely annoying to procure so much spiritual energy to fill my reserves with between massive expenditures like a fight.

The sheer accumulation of spiritual energy I'd need would take hours to refill my reserve, but I knew that this was just another disparity between what I am and the Soul Reapers. By all accounts, I was still a normal human with the label of high-spec slapped on. But with spiritual energy reserves being almost entirely too massive for just any regular human to have—without decades of intense training no less—I was only differentiating myself further.

"What now?"

I forget who it was that asked, between me or Grayhom. In here we were more than separate identities, we were more closely intertwined than we'd ever been.

"We continue." The answer was. And so we did, irrespective of time. The passage of it was almost never pulled into question, tasks more important at hand than counting the seconds within this space.

The answer for our difficulties became obvious in that time. The rigid nature of our thought processes was withholding us more than we'd thought—so clearly sectioning off our responsibilities was cutting down our potential enormously. Such was the difficulties of teamwork, and the major downside of our multiple identities.

So instead of simply launching ourselves at this wall with impunity, we decided to both teach and learn. We ignored the temptation of the stars that surrounded us, glittering and begging to be put to use in truth—to function along with the rest of our soul in harmony—yet that wasn't the right use of our time.

We sat across from each other and just talked at first. Despite knowing so much between ourselves, we lived in inverted worlds to each other and that made for a lot of things we didn't understand about each other's reality.

The upside was that we are both entirely native to our own world, with my understanding of the mind and the physical, of the software that allows us to experience more, and with Grayhom's understanding of the soul, of the energy within and the machinery that makes up what we are.

It was a synchronisation point, being left to only interact with one another, my only company being myself and Grayhom. It separated me from the idea of power, of the fighting. It separated him from the idea of fixing a broken soul, of repairing what we hadn't had in the first place. Here it was all about understanding.

The world galvanised around us as our understanding of each other, and ourselves, grew rapidly. Two waif thin ribbons meandered out of our incorporeal bodies, slowly seeking each other blindly, neither of us bothered to comment on them. The conversation devolved, not even speaking any longer. It wasn't telepathy that we used to communicate, because it was deeper than that. Regardless of the brain being the vessel of thought, each word and action reflected on the soul, and so we just communicated through the ones and zeroes of our mutual hardware.

The tiny ribbons finally found each other and, within moments, had found themselves tied in a knot connected as solidly as they could be for now. The next actions were simple and didn't need comment to accomplish.

The blackhole technique was enacted once again in full force, Grayhom was no longer left behind without understanding it either. He could see my mind, how I organised the world around me into boxes, and then watched as I labelled them as mine.

In concert, he organised his own identity to understand the inside world as ours as well, pulling our actions into consistency. The change was immediate and noticeable, with the spiritual energy happy to be herded like cattle, and the motes of light that represented the parts of our soul taking much a similar stance.

There was no single piece of the soul that commanded ultimate control, only modules and pieces. Each piece held as little reasoning or intelligence as any other, and none of which had the capability of truly restraining itself from wanting to be part of the greater soul, even if doing so would be destructive.

So as Grayhom's mind began to whirr, mapping out the countless pieces left to rot in the dark waters, my own mind worked in concert with his. Instead of manually testing each and every piece of the puzzle, brute forcing our way through the colossal task, I lent my own grasp over the mind to Grayhom.

Software and hardware, integrating in a complexity I couldn't possibly begin to express. The conversation between us had accelerated to a speed that would be incomprehensible otherwise, using the abstract thinking of the mind together with the raw computational power of the soul.

Things clicked into place with a veracity that we only continued to refine, the pieces of the soul were commanded in place, and they moved to our whim. The spiritual energy pushed as hard or as softly as we pleased, everything was under our control.

The dark waters shrank, being subsumed by the golden soul that we had cultivated. As we did so, Grayhom grew beside me, assuming a true humanoid form and as we continued his form only became more defined.

Yet, even though we had every inclination that we'd be able to complete our soul, something stopped us.

It wasn't our lack of spiritual energy, or the lack of understanding. We both knew where the next piece should be placed, we had the pressure to do so, by every metric it was possible. But regardless, the piece didn't budge, even if it so desperately tried to swim forward into the place we'd created for it in our soul.

Something was holding it back, like a fishhook in the mouth of a fish desperate to get away. Again and again, we tried, but there was no making it budge. In time, we had no choice but to go and investigate ourselves.

The downsides of creating an actualised space within a soul is that you also capture the reality of just how large a soul really is. Though it might not actually be that large, if scaled to legitimate standards of physical measurement, the true surface area of the soul would decimate the earth's own surface area by a wide margin, nonetheless.

We raced across the golden surface, the bright waters having now been solidified into golden stone and crystal, the dark waters still plentiful enough to fill the crevasses and valleys of our golden soul. The trip felt like both days and minutes long at the same time, the strange dilation of time fluctuating with each step we both took forwards.

But the strange fluctuations were wiped from our thoughts as we arrived where that stubborn piece was located, though even that was unimportant.

It was there that we found a ribbon. Our ribbon. I don't know what I had expected when I saw my own ribbon, but the gargantuan pillar of bright silver was not it. I'm not sure that I actually expected to see it at all.

However, now that we had encountered the ribbon, it shrunk from the massive pillar into a small line of silver floating in the air above a tall mountain of gold crystal. We journeyed towards it with hesitation, but as we reached the foot of that mountain, we realised that there was no way we could possibly climb it, even within our own soul where our power was strongest.

We tried to slot the piece in once again, but we were denied, the top of the mountain flashing with a power that coursed over the gold crystal and smacked us with pure force, sending both of us flying away from the foot of the mountain.

I tried to push against the power, which was strangely also my power, but only succeeded in plipping end over end with Grayhom trying to do the same. The wave of power didn't stop pushing, however, sending me hurtling further than Grayhom, into the darkness of the now waterless cavity surrounding my mostly formed soul.

My vision blurred as I spun faster and faster through the air before slamming into a wall of some sorts and opening my already open eyes. The act of which broke my brain a little for a moment, but when I finally took in my surroundings, I realised that the blast had been a little more than just localised within my own soul.

The machine that Kisuke had built was now rubble, mixed with a fair amount of the shattered rock and detritus from the Study Room's terrain. I looked around wildly, to see Kisuke sitting on the ground with a magazine held on one of its edges, obscuring his face.

"Uh, Kisuke?" I called hesitantly, and the man peaked from behind the magazine. I was getting ready to apologise, but the magazine was rolled up and summarily thrown at me, smacking me on the head with enough force to make me reel back for a second.

"Yeah, yeah, no need for the boot licking. The thing was meant to be destroyed, the entire buildings that do the same thing routinely explode, so to expect anything different would be foolish." He got up from his spot on the ground and brushed off his inverted Captain's cloak and walked over to me, picking the magazine up from the ground.

"What I really want to know, is what you've been doing that requires multiple refills of both Tessai and I's spiritual energy reserves."


A/N: Thank you to my two 5-dollar Patrons; Bisque and Thaldor! A massive thanks to my two 10-dollar Patrons; TheBreaker, and Dyson C.! A gargantuan thanks to my two 20-dollar Patrons Marisa E. and Thomas H.!

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[Sarius]

Chapter 36: Soul Freedom

Suzumi had been spending increasingly long amounts of time being worried recently, which was hardly a surprise.

Grayson had been getting himself into all sorts of trouble as of late, the hellish cycle of training being only the start of her anxieties. He had gone from that insane training straight into a massive beatdown with a Hollow, one that Yuzu and Karin had help purify and had relayed that information back to her.

That Hollow had been powerful, far more powerful than she could have handled alone. She would have put up a good fight, but it would have killed her at some point. Grayson, however, had torn the thing to shreds while his body was being savaged at the same time.

Suzumi didn't know if she had that in her, that same pure drive to fight that Grayson had seemingly found there, with that Hollow.

It was strange. The ways they had started to develop in the beginning had made her think that she'd be the one more competent in battle, more willing to beat something to a pulp as savagely as possible. Grayson had assumed a cat and mouse fighting style that had made her think that he'd always be defensive and patient.

But the way that Karin had described that Hollow's body… that was far from defensive, and it left her in the dust.

"Miss Hamase." The gentle but still thunderous voice of Tessai filled the room, reminding her of his presence. She sighed as she rubbed at her forehead, giving the man an apologetic smile as she looked at him over the coffee table that many a conversation had been held around.

"I'm sorry Tessai, I'm just a bit out of it today." The stoic man pulled the glasses from his face, as he did occasionally, and pulled a small microfibre cloth from his pocket and cleaned the lenses efficiently.

"That is quite alright. I know how it feels to be separated from one you love and respect and worry for them." He smiled sadly, the genuine expression breaking past his calm façade. Suzumi felt a question boil to the surface, one that she'd held and kept to herself for months at this point, but only now found the right time to ask it.

"You and Kisuke. Are you…?" She said, trailing off with the implication. Grayson had never asked, and he didn't even seem to notice the possibility. She had never claimed her boyfriend to be anything but a little daft.

"Ah, we are not." The large man said with a hint of amusement. Suzumi made to apologise, but he shook his head gently, "It's quite alright. Many assume that we are partners, but we are simply men who have found our lives inextricably tied together. For better and for worse."

"That sounds a lot like marriage, Tessai." Suzumi said, allowing a little amusement to make its way onto her face with her ribbing of the man. Tessai grinned as well, a very uncommon expression on the man.

"I believe I could to a fair bit better than Kisuke." Suzumi almost snorted up a sip of tea that she'd taken but managed to keep it down. "Regardless, he has found who he loves, even if they are hard pressed to show it."

"Wait, Kisuke has a wife?" Tessai chuckled warmly.

"If only. They don't even consider themselves a couple, even if its painfully obvious that they care deeply for each other." Tessai sipped from his tea as Suzumi thought.

"What about yourself?"

"What of me?" Tessai asked, playing hard to get. Suzumi fixed him with a glare, and after a moment he cracked. "I simply have found none who hold my interest. It also so happens that talk of kidō bores many to tears."

"Hey! I find it interesting." Suzumi proclaimed, but Tessai rose a decisive eyebrow. "I only fell asleep once…" With a wry expression, Tessai moved to instead sit with crossed legs, rather than kneeling on the pillow like he usually did.

"Maybe one day I will find someone as interested int eh art as I. The only others I have met who were as interested were of the Royal Guards, and they stand a little out of my league. The rest are men." Suzumi scrunched her eyebrows together in thought.

"The Royal Guards are the ones that guard the Soul King, right?" Tessai nodded, "Why wouldn't you be in their league? Kisuke said, like, multiple times that you were probably the best kidō wielder alive. You don't even need to use your Zanpakutō you're that good!" Suzumi's praise was not lost on the behemoth of a man. The two ways to really get Tessai blushing was to praise his kidō or his work, both of which Suzumi did as often as possible.

"Maybe so." Tessai said finally, his cheeks cartoonishly rosy, "However, I do not use my Zanpakutō for more reasons than being powerful enough without it." While Suzumi found herself wanting to ask more, she was able to withhold her questioning. The man's tone was sad and closed off. Apparently having a difficult relationship with a Zanpakutō was possible.

"You find yourself in a place of difficulty, Miss Hamase." Tessai intoned, the surety in his voice brooking no argument from the girl in question. Suzumi sighed heavily, letting her head rest on the coffee table with a thunk.

"I don't know, Tessai." She said softly, her words almost mournful, "He's always getting stronger now. I walked down to the Study Room earlier today and could barely breathe in there, the spiritual energy was so dense." She turned her head upright, so she was resting on her chin, looking at Tessai with confused eyes.

"How can I possibly keep up with that? How can I help him if he blazes past me no matter what I do?"

The tall, tanned man looked into her eyes for a long moment, taking a sip of tea and then pushing his glasses up the bridge of his powerful nose.

"You ask for help, Miss Hamase." He let the words rest in the air for just a moment before continuing, "You and Grayson have been progressing at an excellent rate, far past what we had originally projected for your growth. However, yes; Grayson is now much more powerful than you. There is the distinct possibility that he always will be just ahead of you." Each word beat on Suzumi's conscience, only confirming what she knew was true still hurt in its own dull fashion.

"But you now have something that Grayson does not. You have connections that you have forged and maintained, rather than Grayson who has simply met with those people once or twice. You even met with the team of high-spec humans that Grayson saved that day. You have far more potential than you give yourself credit for, and there are still options for you to consider." Tessai paused for a long time, merely looking at the girl opposite him in the same way he had looked at so many others in his days as Captain of the Kidō Corps. So many young men and women who had lost their way with their power, lost confidence in their potential to find it.

"All you must do, is ask." He felt the word echo within his mind, thousands of past versions of himself saying those exact words to countless Soul Reapers.

Suzumi felt it too, the surety in the words the same as they always have been. Tessai did not lie, nor say anything without complete confidence. It's what made the man so ridiculously trustworthy, too easy to believe on the drop of a hat. Suzumi sighed deeply, her body deflating with the loss of confidence that led her to ask the question at all.

"What do I do so I can get stronger?"

---​

"This is experimental Kidō arts. It is a concept that I've been working on for hundreds of years now and may work on still for the rest of my existence. This is the first time I am showing it in full, even Kisuke has only seen much of this in parts."

Suzumi looked to the massive circle on the ground, filled with characters and symbols that hurt to even try and conceptualise. Spiritual energy hummed with a quiet intensity in this room, below Tessai's sleeping quarters.

"What is it?" She asked, a little unnerved. Tessai walked gracefully around the sprawling mass of characters and lines, his eyes scanning them for any perceived error.

"It is something I am calling the Soul Freedom Ceremony." Tessai intoned, the pure seriousness of his voice reverberating with the hum of spiritual energy in the room. "The soul is a powerful construct, something that Grayson is coming to understand now as he slowly rebuilds his own. However, the regular soul has been limited by the Chain of Fate."

Suzumi swallowed, wonder just what she'd gotten herself into. She knew about the Chain of Fate, something that was obvious on the Plusses that were slowly hollowfying, the horrifying mouthed chain eating itself in a self-destructively, the cause of the transition into a Hollow.

"We have always believed ourselves tied to this chain; Soul Reapers possessing one, even if it isn't visible. However, Hollows are beings that survive without, and with the advent of Arrancars it only makes me believe that it's truly possible to live without."

"Uh, that's cool. I mean, isn't that supposed to be where a lot of power comes from? Didn't you say that it was an antenna for spiritual energy when you taught us this stuff?" Tessai didn't look up from the circle of mind-boggling spiritualism. Occasionally the man would bend or crouch to examine something closer, and rarely the man would edit the existing characters, making the whole things hum much louder.

"Indeed I did, and I did not lie." He stood from his crouched position and looked directly at the nervous girl, standing close to the door like a scared child. "However, it is our limiter. It confines us to the way we were born, disallowing our own soul from breaking past that limit without some outside help. It dictates that those born with power are to remain with power." Tessai stood taller than he ever had before in that moment a sudden air of exacting importance surrounded him, swirling like a pool of spiritual energy.

"This is Soul Freedom. This relieves us from the need of an intervening factor. Zanpakutō's are simply one path to push back against the chains that bind us all. Quincies utilised the power gifted to them by Yhwach, the Father of Quincies. Visards shrug the chains further with the risk of hollowfying themselves and risking Soul Suicide. We use Kidō to utilise the power we have to push against those chains even further, striving to understand the bindings and limitations so that we may best defy them" Tessai walked to a closet in the corner of the room, forcing Suzumi's eyes away from the terrifying ritual circle in the centre of it.

The room outside of that circle was filled with books, drawings, tools, and god knows what else. The walls were filled with diagrams so complex that Suzumi couldn't even read a line of the text despite it all being in Japanese. She was standing int eh room where a man's magnum opus was to be born, and she was a simple layman.

Tessai looked inside the open closet and smiled gently, pulling a long, flowing robe from its confines. It was a spectacular thing, a rich, royal blue trimmed in gold. There was a gorgeous crest that fanned out at the neck of the robe, just adding to the air of importance that the one wearing it held.

Tessai closed his eyes for only a moment, and suddenly he was dressed in a set of black robes, not too dissimilar from Suzumi and Grayson's own training clothes, except it was an entirely black affair with a white undershirt and sash around his waist. The man threw the robe over his shoulders and slipped into the arms of it, then turning to walk towards Suzumi with a purposeful stride.

"Uh, Tessai?" Suzumi said quietly, "Why are there two of you?" The man had indeed split into two, one which was still standing in front of the closet, and the Tessai that was walking towards the circle.

"That is my Gigai, not my true body. This is the true, spiritual body that we hide within these Gigai, though we have little reason to anymore." He explained calmly. Suzumi had to admit, the new getup suited Tessai and even made her slightly nervous in his presence. It was only now that she began to realise just how true Kisuke's words were, that Tessai was one of the most powerful kidō users alive.

"The chains, no matter how we try, bind us still. Only those who have been given more chain to work with, or those who are exceptionally lucky, do they ever move to accommodate more than what has been prescribed to them. Thus, we are left with no choice but to remove the chains ourselves."

"If you agree to this, you will be the first human without limits, without boundaries. You will be the first to ascend past what even Soul Reapers are capable of, in our finality. You will find Soul Freedom"


A/N: Thank you to my three 5-dollar Patrons; Bisque, Christian P., and Thaldor! A massive thanks to my three 10-dollar Patrons; TheBreaker, Benjamin V.E., and Dyson C.! A gargantuan thanks to my two 20-dollar Patrons Marisa E. and Thomas H.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!

 

[Sarius]

"Kisuke," my voice droned frustratedly, "for the last time, what are you doing?"

Kisuke stopped and looked back at me for a moment, turning away from the numerous cages of Hollows, all of which were railing against their seemingly indestructible prisons. I caught a sly grin on the man's face, his had shadowing his eyes with a calculated precision.

"Oh, you know, nothing much. Just preparing the next leg of your training." I squinted my eyes, as if I were looking into a bright light, the mental anguish Kisuke's answers caused were something I'd almost consider on par with a kidō ability.

"And what, exactly, is this training?" Kisuke chuckled darkly as he turned back to the crates and started ticking things off in an invisible list that always seemed to be floating near the man. I waited, as patiently as you could be when dealing with Kisuke, and when the man finally returned his gaze to me, his words were laden with an answer.

"Nothing special or sophisticated. You'll be fighting." I recoiled a little, looking towards the array of cages and then back to the candy store owner.

"Didn't you say literally a few days ago that fighting lots of strong Hollows messes with things?" He waved a dismissive hand at me, sneer sliding onto his face with a practiced ease.

"Of course I did! I'm gambling, young Grayson. Plus, if you succeed in the training, you'll be the one who has to clean up the mess." I just sighed, letting the man get on with his esoteric plans.

I had told all about the whole experience in my soul with Grayhom, which had been harder to explain than I thought it'd be. It was like when you had a dream and it all made sense when it was happening, but when you tried to vocalise the order of events, it all came out like a story you half remembered, and you had to fill the misremembered portions with saying 'or something like that.'

Thankfully, Kisuke was good at this sort of thing, and this time there was a distinct lack of threats or intimidation. As odd as the sudden switch in position that Kisuke had seemed to undergo, it was strangely nice and reassuring to have the man be on my side—truly on my side, that is. Instead of feeling like he has a vague interest in what I am and is more interested in containing any potential damage that I may or may not be capable of in future. Though, if my little power boost was anything to go by, we're starting to lean towards my being capable of quite a lot in future.

Looking back, I had lamented on my supposedly 'strong' soul not having any benefit, or those benefits being out of my reach for the moment, but little did I know how much that would change. Now, after Grayhom and I had spent our time doing some DIY soul work, my spiritual energy reserves had become immense.

Kisuke had given me a relatively quick rundown on how Soul Society classed spiritual energy, the non-scientific way of course. The tiers went as follows; Below Average-class, Average-class, Lieutenant-class, Captain-class, Advanced Captain-class, Beyond Capitan-class.

Kisuke made it clear that each class was more or less fluid in how they were understood and perceived, shifting with the power level of the era, rather than having any real concrete basis from which they sprouted. Other than Below Average-class and Average-class because they never changed all that significantly.

I sat at around Lieutenant-class, apparently, sitting right in the middle of that specific category. Kisuke went on briefly about how that might've been an insult to my spiritual energy reserves fifty years ago, but now Lieutenant-class beings were at least as strong as a mid-level Captain-class from back then.

I was comfortable with that, at the moment, mostly because I knew I was going to grow, and that there were certainly more fights out there to be had above this level. Ichigo Kurosaki, according to Kisuke, had reached Captain-class within only a handful of months, or even quicker than that if you're going by exact timelines and technicalities.

I might not be quite that impressive, but if Kisuke was telling me that I had the strongest soul he'd ever recorded, I have a feeling it won't stay that way for very long.

"Alright!" Kisuke exclaimed, clapping his hands together loudly in front of my face, waking me from my reverie. "We begin training in only a moment, Grayson. You might want to prepare for this one."

The suspicion hit me immediately, but I tentatively began to cycle my spiritual energy through my body, easily filling out my spiritual shielding and bodily enhancement—a much easier task when you have a veritable tidal wave of spiritual energy to throw at the problem.

"How should I be preparing, exact–" Kisuke didn't wait for me to complete my sentence, roughly grabbing me by the collar of my training shirt and pushing off from the ground with a blistering speed. I felt the g-forces pull at my skin, even with all the enhancement I had added to my body.

Suddenly, the amount of light that surrounded me had diminished severely, only coming from above me and then even that slowly left too, leaving only a light connected to where Kisuke was in relation to me. In only another moment, with the distinctive feeling of Kisuke's nigh instant movement, the scruffy blonde man threw me down to the ground. The stone underneath my body was searingly hot in comparison to the usual climate of the conditioned Study Room, making me jump to my feet and use the sandals to protect myself from the hotplate-like surface.

"Here we are! Your new little training area." Kisuke looked around the circular space with mock cheer, then looking upwards towards the oppressive height of the walls around me, even as they disappeared into darkness before they even reached hundreds of metres. Que the realisation that Kisuke had thrown me into a massively deep hole.

"Are you seriously putting me in a hole right now?" I said, tone disbelieving as I tried to fathom if I'd be able to get out of this hole with my physical abilities. By sheer virtue of the fact that I couldn't even see the top of the hole, or even sense any light shining down from the surface, I suspected that I couldn't, probably not even close.

"Only a little one, a few kilometres or so at most." I stared at the grinning man dumbly. My sight had improved due to fixing up my soul, just like it had the first time I'd done so, but my eyesight was nothing in comparison to his hole unless I spontaneously developed the ability to see in complete lack of light.

"Please tell me that you're leaving me down here with a light." I stated stonily, but the man didn't even seem to notice, turning around the wide area, tapping his finger to his chin almost mockingly.

"So, the plan is that you have to fight your way out of here. See those little holds on the wall?" Kisuke pointed to tiny little footholds that extended out from the wall by only a few centimetres, though they weren't made from the dark rock that the walls were made of, instead looking more like a metal peg than anything.

"You'll be making your way up those to larger platforms that have a Hollow on them. You'll have to fight and win against them to progress up the hole. The higher you go, the more difficult the Hollows will be to deal with. If you get pushed off, you'll fall to the bottom of the hole, so you might not want to be pushing the Hollows of their own platforms, unless you're confident you can do the whole thing in one go."

Kisuke hummed to himself in thought after the long explanation, looking to me for any other questions briefly.

"Are you going to leave me a ligh–" Kisuke's eyes widened with remembrance, clapping his hands together loudly.

"Oh! That reminds me, I'm going to be covering you in spiritual pressure, so you actually have a hard time with all this. Otherwise, it'd probably be a bit of a cakewalk, I'm afraid." Kisuke nodded finally, before his body disappeared, leaving be to be battered by a gentle wave of displaced air while I spontaneously had an aneurism.

Because I was left in complete darkness, given no light to see by.

"Could have left me with a light, asshole!" I yelled, my rage echoing up the length of the hole, the sound becoming more distant as it travelled before it was nothing more than a garbled mess of muttering sound.

I rubbed at my face furiously, desperate to try and figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I was left with absolutely no sight, something that I'd always had at least a little of except in the darkest environments. My increase in sight, one of the things that I was excited about with fixing my soul, was now rendered completely useless as a result. All I had was my other senses and vague instructions on what I was meant to be doing.

I quickly decided that I needed to orient myself. I walked to the nearest part of the wall and placed a hand against the surface, immediately I was taught just how bad an idea that was. Without significant protections to my hands, I was left with a strong searing sensation. Though my enhancement was enough to withstand a large amount of the heat, this was vastly different than the sort of heat I might deal with on the surface, aside from sticking my hand in a frying pan or a vat of fry oil.

It took me a few minutes to redirect some of the enhancement to my hand, allowing me the chance to actually touch the walls without feeling like I was cooking my own flesh. I circled around the wall in a clockwise motion, sticking as close to it as I could bear, trying to feel out where the first metal peg had been.

The area was way bigger than I had initially given it credit for, most of the space had been totally subsumed by the overpowering height of the walls dwarfing the space. But when my waist finally bumped into what I could only assume was the metal peg, I instantly reached my hand down to touch it.

A massive mistake.

Really, I should have been able to put two and two together, but apparently, I was off my game today. Despite my hand being enhanced much further than normal, the metal peg was acting like the equivalent to a curling iron as my skin literally sizzled at the touch. I didn't scream, but the pain was enough to force me to stand completely still for a few seconds, just clenching my jaw against it.

I wouldn't give Urahara the satisfaction of hearing the echo of my scream, the dog.

So, it was clearly made this way to force me to step on them, however the fuck I was supposed to do that in complete darkness. I stood before the task with a trepidation that I hadn't felt in a long while, not since the beginning of training at least.

I had always been good at getting a move on, even if it was a self-destructive cycle, yet this was scary to me. It was like standing at the foot of a mountain… Ah. Well, that was a little on the nose don't you think, Kisuke?

I took a deep breath in and opened my mind, letting a pseudo meditative state take over and clear my senses and mind of how overwhelmed I was. It was easier said than done, but the calming effect allowed for my other, weaker senses to slowly make an appearance.

Spiritual senses had been something I'd worked on idly, though I'd lost a lot of the use for the technique since my eyesight had begun to return as I tinkered with my soul. Now, they seemed extremely appealing once again, the sheer utility of not needing to see to be able to see was a massive upside, dwarfing my ribbon sense in everyday utility.

It was starting to become obvious that all these points of design were likely intentional by Kisuke, the man might not have given me much in the way of hints, but everything had some reasonable point to it.

The pure darkness he'd plunged me in was a direct counterargument to me getting complacent with my biggest advantage, my versatile and powerful senses. The Hollows going up the hole were probably just to show me how unending fighting the way I wanted to was, the suppressive spiritual energy that I'm sure I would start to encounter further up only increasing the difficulty as I got tired and slowly waned in power. The pegs… I wasn't sure of what their purpose was just yet, but they probably had a reason, if nothing more than to just make life harder and to show me just how painful each step up the ladder could be.

But it was with all that in mind that I made my first leap, my mind opening up my spiritual senses and sending out a ping. The peg resonated strongly, the metal shining a bright blue in my vision, allowing me to place my sandal onto the metal body of it, balancing precariously on its small surface area while desperately staying separate from the burning wall of stone.

I had taken the first step, and it glowed with an intentional power—a clear sign that I had understood correctly what Kisuke wanted from me. I breathed a sigh of relief as I balanced on the peg, only to spit out another ping of spiritual energy. I located the next peg instantly, and quickly made for a jump as I felt myself slipping from the first.

As soon as my foot touched the second peg. My foot immediately rolled off the side of the peg, unsalvageably throwing off my stance and forcing me to fall down only a few metres to the bottom of the pit. I sprang from the ground quickly, afraid of the searing pain. I could only sigh as my mind turned to focus on the first peg once again, a glimmering blue in the black of my surroundings.

This was going to suck.


A/N: Thank you to my 5-dollar Patrons; Bisque, Christian P., Kristof D., and Thaldor! A massive thanks to my 10-dollar Patrons; TheBreaker, Benjamin V.E., Puppet424, and Dyson C.! A gargantuan thanks to my 20-dollar Patrons Marisa E. and Thomas H.!

If you want to support me, and receive up to 90 total chapters in advance, check out my Patreon!