Karakura Village, 1902
Under the polite orders of former Twelfth Division Captain Urahara Kisuke, Shinji and Hiyori were supposed to be testing out the most recent iterations of their gigai. Kisuke asked that they record their false bodies' reactions to certain stimuli, and their limits in terms of movement—noting anything which they thought might improve them. Instead, they'd gone exploring in the gnarled woods surrounding the tiny farming village of Karakura, which they and the rest of the exiled shinigami had retreated to from the Seireitei.
Time seemed to drag and stretch out forever in the mortal world, but Shinji knew they'd only been living here for a few weeks.
Kisuke wanted them all to stay nearby in case something malfunctioned, and Shinji didn't much care. He respected Kisuke, however it grated to feel like he was being treated as an underling or an invalid. His body didn't make him feel like his every nerve was on fire and about to fly apart, and that was a distinct improvement from the last model.
"I'll never get used to this," Hiyori said, as they walked past a rough wooden shrine, which she stuck her tongue out at. She tugged at the front of her faded, red silk kimono, pulling it from side to side like it itched. Shinji's clothes weren't in much better shape, but were warm; if he wore a straw hat, he thought he could probably pass for human at least temporarily. "Filthy, run down, pointless village, I can't stand it!"
Not satisfied that he was listening, she punched sideways at him. Shinji dodged, at the cost of nearly toppling over in the other direction. His limbs in this new shell, felt heavy and weak, like the gigai was consuming his reiatsu instead of just masking it—something he should probably mention to Kisuke.
"Who says you have to?" Shinji replied, getting his feet and balance under control. Once the gigai were perfected, and Kisuke thought their hollows were stabilized enough for them to wander farther outside of the village, they could venture into Tokyo (which had still been called Edo the last time he'd visited, some fifty years ago). Shinji was dying to buy some clothes that didn't look like a farmer had previously used them to stuff a mattress, and he knew the others were alternately bored and craving some personal space.
"My captain," she grumbled. "He's still trying to blow sunshine up my ass, saying that we're all going to be all right."
"Ah, well, Kisuke is just getting started, so don't doubt him just yet. But I think get what you mean. He doesn't know what it's like. I'd like to see what kind of monster he'd turn into, if his hollow got dragged out," Shinji said, somewhat bitterly. Kisuke seemed to have managed to avoid the effect Aizen created, which brought the rest of them down.
He remembered just how horrifying Hiyori had looked as a hollow, how frightened he'd been. Guilt that he'd let it happen to her, cut across his gut every once and a while, too, a feeling he felt certain he shared with Kisuke. Now, with the gigai tamping down her massive reiatsu, she seemed tiny, like she'd blow away in a stiff wind. Shinji knew differently. Hiyori most of the time was on the edge of exploding. He wondered what it was costing her to control her notoriously short fuse, under her hollow's influence. If she could actually keep her head while wielding all that power, she might end up being the strongest out of them all.
As for his own hollow, he had yet to look in a mirror with his mask on. It didn't matter, because he could already see it in his mind laughing at him. It hated how weak Shinji was, and why couldn't they go find some tasty souls to consume, to gather more power? Why couldn't Shinji just let him take over?
Not a chance.
He held back a sigh, noticing that Hiyori's shoulders had started to rise, as they always did when she was about to tear into something.
"I hate it here. Everything looks like it's fallin' apart, and smells like ass. The food is so, so, shitty," she complained, kicking hard at leaves and small stones in front of them, like every one of them offended her. "I don't care what happens, I want to sleep on my own futon again!"
At that comment, Shinji grabbed the back of her collar, making her head snap back, and she gasped and growled and spun to face him.
"What the hell, Shinji!"
"Listen," he said, letting her go and folding his arms. "It's going to take a while for the gigai to sync with your body. You need to remember it's not just you who doesn't feel right. It'll get better. Just let your captain do his science crap. Kisuke's losin' a lot of sleep over this. I promise, he'll figure it out."
Starting from the day they'd arrived, Kisuke had already, among other things, designed and constructed ten of the most advanced gigai Shinji had ever seen. Also, he'd made headway into creating a pocket dimension below the old barn where they'd set up their cramped headquarters, which would give them more space to live in. Yoruichi brought them food and supplies periodically, but for the most part they were cut loose in a world they didn't fit into. He understood Hiyori's frustration, but what they needed most right now was patience.
Shinji didn't tell her that the reason he knew Kisuke wasn't sleeping, was that he couldn't sleep either. So far, half the time he ended up acting as his test subject, while the other half they spent drinking horrible shochu behind the barn, sometimes joined by Lisa, Tessai and Kensei. The rest of the group seemed to sleep more than they should, or in Rose's case, wanted to be alone.
"Just shut up! Us being stuck here is his fault!" she yelled. "Stop acting like he can fix everything!"
"Would you rather be dead? What the hell else are we supposed to do? He's our last shot, there's no one else who wants to help us," Shinji said. He stared, grimacing back in irritation at her scowl, as his hollow whispered at him again.
-Crush her! She's useless to you!-
He ignored it, pretending he wasn't breaking into a cold sweat, waiting for Hiyori to go on with her rant.
"But why does that dumbass get to make all the decisions for us? Whether we live or die? I hate it! I hate that, almost as much as I hate your stupid fucking dickhead four-eyed lieutenant; I hate all of the rest of them for abandoning us! I hate that I can't walk two feet without wanting to jump out of my skin and kill you all! You don't seem like you even care!" she cried, her face for once looking like the real her and not the half-inhabited skin of the gigai.
"Kisuke is hardly making all the decisions," he said, when she seemed like she'd gotten out all of her frustration. He tried to project an air of calm and cool, though her expression tore at his heart, and his hollow dug at his mind. "And as for the Seireitei, forget them. You don't think I'm angry? I'm pretty fucking angry. I'd wring Aizen's skinny neck if I could get my hands on him. But why should I hold on to any of that shit? We are where we are, we are what we are. They don't want us, fine, we'll make our own way. I'm still kicking and I won't let a little shit like Aizen Sousuke stop me from living."
Hiyori stared up at him for a long moment, and then crossed her arms, looking away sharply like she'd had an embarrassing thought.
"Idiot. Is that why you cut your stupid hair?" she asked, her anger temporarily defused.
Shinji almost laughed, because knew she'd been trying to find some way to ask him about his hair all week, without making it sound like it bothered her. He was also glad she changed the subject.
"Nah, it was weighing me down. This world is heavy, so why give it any more pull?" he said, giving her a wide, cool smile as he started walking again. They'd go as far as the river and turn around, he decided. If they went too far, they'd run into villagers, and he wasn't in the mood to explain himself.
"You're such a liar. Why do people live in this place anyway? Seems like humans must spend more time dying than they do living. What a pointless existence," she said. They watched as a plus in a white kimono drifted past them, the spirit almost transparent and looking lost. He could see Hiyori's hand drift back for the hilt of her sword, though it wasn't there.
Shinji caught her wrist. "Like they have any choice. It's not our business. Don't look at that guy like that. Shinigami are the ones who do that soul-reaping crap, and we're not Shinigami anymore. Got it? We should tell the others the same thing."
"What are we then, dickhead?"
"I don't know, ask your captain. He's the one who knew just enough to get in trouble," Shinji laughed. He admired Kisuke, and yet…
"He's still a Shinigami."
"Maybe he is," Shinji said, more ominously than he should have. He could see the river now, a diffuse shimmer ahead, and smell the muddy, freezing cold water.
"What do you mean?" Hiyori asked, as they reached the shore. She stopped, looking up at him, pensive, waiting for an answer.
But Shinji walked right past her. He picked a sunny spot near a thick stand of bare-limbed cherry trees and sat down. As he folded his gangly legs in front of him in the yellow grass, he noticed with irritation that one of his tabi had a hole in the heel.
"It bugs me that he knew exactly what the effects of hollowfication looked like. That, and he'd already been working on the gigai prototype he's using for ours," he said. Maybe he knew because he'd tried it on someone, maybe he knew because he'd tried it on himself. "It just seems oddly prescient."
"You really don't think—"
"There's no point asking a guy like that his secrets. He and Aizen have certain things in common—the difference is that Kisuke seems like he cares about other people besides himself," Shinji said. "Whatever he is, he's bent on helping you for now. Don't get in his way."
Hiyori sneered at him. "Whatever. Don't go blabber to him that I complained. He'll fake being extra nice, and that's the worst."
"Stop glowering and sit. What makes you think I talk about you behind your back?" he asked, making no promises. He did gossip sometimes, but it was only to help smooth things over between people.
She kicked him in the side, but then settled on the ground beside him, leaning her head on his arm in a huff. Shinji sighed, sensing that what she really wanted was attention, and pulled her over onto his lap. She pressed her back into his chest, still grumbling a little, but when he hugged her she finally relaxed. He had a feeling she was exhausted, but she wasn't the sort to admit it.
"I know I'm not supposed to be able to sense your reiatsu, but I don't like it," Hiyori admitted, after they spent a few unusually quiet minutes watching glimmering water flow past. If he hadn't known better, he'd have thought she'd fallen asleep.
He knew what she meant, though. The distance that the false flesh of the gigai put between them was tiny, yet he couldn't sense the fluctuations in Hiyori's mood as her reiatsu spiked and receded in response. He could usually read her pretty well, regardless, but not being able to know where she was and how she felt without even looking for her, made him feel almost blind in a way.
"I was thinking the same thing. I could be holding a doll. I know you're in there, but your skin's a little too cool. Let me see if—"
"Are you trying to feel me up?" she yowled, squirming and trying not to laugh as he tickled her sides, testing to see her reaction. Yep, even with the gigai, still ticklish.
"You wish. You're exactly as flat as before," he teased.
"Creep. If I weren't trying so hard to keep my hollow under control, I'd beat the crap out of you," she said, and rocked forward and then back, trying to do some sort of reverse headbutt. Shinji let himself fall into the dry grass, before she could connect, and laughed at her surprised expression, as Hiyori had to scramble to stay upright. She turned and looked at him indignantly.
"We'll if you're gonna lose it, lose it on me. I can take it," he said, and pulled her down with him. "I'm right here."