Chapter One: Power and Trouble
Masaki and Isshin cuddled close smiling contentedly around their newborn baby girl, their eldest child and first daughter. They were on a tiny hospital bed in their little at-home clinic.
The baby girl cooed contentedly in their arms.
"She'll grow up in a modern Tokyo city," Isshin realized. "A far cry from where I grew up..."
"What do we call her?" Masaki asked. "I was thinking of the name Satsuma. We were going for a 'sweet fruit themes' name for our children, and Satsuma is a traditional orange colored Japanese citrus fruit - not unlike the Yuzu, another name we were considering for a child.
"It's a bit of a serious name, but -"
"Kurosaki Satsuma," Isshin said thoughtfully. He smiled fondly at his wife. "No," he said, "I like it."
They watched their baby girl - frowned as her eyes slowly wandered, following a ghost that had just floated above them through one wall, ghosting absently through the farthest hospital wall and out of sight.
"... She can already see them," Isshin realized seriously. "The dead."
"She has more spiritual power than both of her repressed and weakened parents combined," said Masaki, looking troubled. "All kinds of people could end up wanting something from her.
"I worry about a little girl being given all that power and trouble…"
Isshin rubbed Masaki's shoulder from where he had his arm around her. "We're her parents," he said, a little sadly. "Our job is just to protect our children as best we can."
Gin entered the desert space in Hueco Mundo, between the worlds, where Aizen was waiting. "The girl -" he began.
"Yes. She's been born." A strange, unreadable tone had entered Aizen's voice, his back turned to Gin. "... I felt it. She is already… strong."
A tiny frown had taken over Gin's usually fox-like grinning features - a puzzled one.
"You're keeping close tabs on this one. You're interested?"
"You're not?" Aizen echoed back, as if skeptical of the very idea. He turned, and an eager and uncharacteristic grin had filled his features. "I am, I admit," he said softly, his eyed distant, "morbidly fascinated by the girl… She will have to appear in my plans…"
"... They named her Satsuma," Gin stated at last, a simple fact, a tiny frown still on his features.
"To begin with, I think…" Aizen had turned away, his hands steepled. "I place two Shinigami into her future path." His tone had turned clinical, familiar once again. That flat grin replaced itself on Gin's features. "She must gain power somehow.
"Kuchiki Rukia… and Hitsugaya Toshiro."
"The prodigy? The one intent on replacing Isshin?" said Gin, pausing in slight surprise.
"Yes… I am interested in a potential dynamic, and in any case, Hitsugaya seems like he would be particularly fun to torture." Aizen smirked. "What better way than to place him unwittingly in the pathway of his traitorous ex-Captain's daughter?
"Of course, Hitsugaya is growing in power fast. A few modifications will have to be made.
"I use my illusions to force Hitsugaya after Isshin's betrayal to view himself as weak. Psychology strong affects reiatsu, and so Hitsugaya becomes weaker and Matsumoto Rangiku becomes Tenth Captain instead, Hitsugaya her Vice Captain. Desperate to prove himself stronger but constantly struggling, Hitsugaya's soul ages up in response to the emotional desire to be seen as stronger.
"I send Hitsugaya down on some pretense, once we have taken over Central 46, as some unusual precaution alongside Kuchiki Rukia who is mourning the death of a different Shiba.
"The two ice rulers who see themselves with frustration as chronically weak, as not achieving their full rank potential. The two ice rulers with a strong connection to Satsuma's family.
"Each giving half their power during a skirmish would in their eyes theoretically be ideal. Though, of course, someone with Satsuma's growing power would in reality take everything from both of them. I am interested in both sets of interactions with Satsuma, the target. Satsuma gains power, I get to see the interactions play out and frustrate both ice users in the process.
"It's perfect."
"And from there everything falls into place…" Gin drawled slowly, carefully smiling and unreadable. "Hinamori is sent alongside Rangiku to retrieve Hitsugaya, just as Abarai goes with Byakuya to retrieved Kuchiki Rukia. That leaves only Izuru to deal with for us in the middle of our first big coup."
And it put Rangiku at least somewhat more out of harm's way, and a few other people besides, which was privately fine by Gin.
Some deep part of him pitied Izuru.
"It also - and I love this," said Aizen, a vicious smirk of a grin in his voice, "leaves the woman with two targets to fight per rank instead of one - and one woman opponent per fight.
"I plan on eventually making life harder for this girl than it would have been for a boy… Just to see if she can do it as a woman…
"Yes. This first and most powerful child turning out to be a girl is quite a welcome, fortuitous, and unexpected change," said Aizen pleasantly, and he turned to smile blankly at Gin. "Some tea later?"
Urahara sat in the Shouten back in the world of the living surrounded by everyone, Yoruichi included. Considering a child had just been born, the Shouten was remarkably serious and deadly quiet.
"I know Aizen is already planning on how to manipulate the girl, so I have to do the same," Urahara admitted to Yoruichi. "Even if I don't like it."
"You're hesitant?" said Yoruichi, slightly surprised.
"It's probably a gender thing," said Tessai knowingly.
Yoruichi was heated. "Well that's not entirely fair -!"
"I didn't mean that she's weak and helpless. But think about it," Urahara bit out. "Doesn't all this plotting and planning seem that little bit more predatory, with a young girl at the helm?
"It doesn't mean I'm not going to do it. The whole thing just takes on a different tone."
Yoruichi fell silent, looking serious and a good deal more understanding. Urahara felt privately just that brief stab of relief.
"These are going to be tough lessons to learn," he prophesied, "for someone gentle who is for their first years treated, born, raised, and trained to act like a sweet-hearted girl..."
Author's Notes: This is part five of a six-fandom series called Gender Changes Six. Follow me for more.