***I do not own Bleach or it's characters, I just have fun playing with them :) *****************
The sky was blue. The sun high and bright. Every child in the neighborhood was out and in play.
Every child but one. One sick child lay in bed wheezing softly, his mother crying at his side.
This beautiful day went unnoticed inside the walls of the hospital. Where outside, time merrily skipped on as children played and mother's gossiped, inside was completely the opposite. No sun shone on the mother's face as she gazed tear streaked eyes onto her son. To her time stood still. Laughter stopped. The world is merely a numb empty place.
Her baby would be dead by nightfall.
Moments before she'd driven herself to migraines, desperately racking her brain for any alternative. Anything she could do to make it all better. In her desperation she'd driven her husband from the room, scolding him not to return without a cure for their only son. She knew it was wrong of her, but she couldn't accept there was nothing anyone could do. Her baby couldn't die here, not now. There has just got to be something...anything...anything in the world...someone...anyone...someone who could help her son.
But there was nothing.
There was no one.
He was born with Tuberculosis, and on this day it would claim his life. And so there she sat, at his bedside, broken, alone, watching his breathing grow weaker and slow.
Suddenly the door flung open and her husband stood before her, sweating, out of breath, and with half the hospital staff behind him.
"Sir please, you can't do this!" One of the nurses closest to him seemed to be trying to stop him getting near the bed. "A technique like this is highly illegal and very dangerous! I must advise against it!" She stepped in front of him and flung her arms out blocking the child from his father's 'forbidden technique'.
"Move aside!" He shoved her away easily and proceeded to where his wife sat watching the scene her husband was making. "I've found it! It's a long shot, but this may save our boy!" He held out his hands revealing a glowing, pulsating orb. She was shocked into silence, as she stared at the orb that seemed to have it's own heart beat. She could feel her husband's energy inside the orb and knew that he was the one that made it.
"What is that?" She reached out a hand to take it from him, and he snapped it back to his chest.
"Don't touch it!" He looked to his son sadly. "Only he can touch it. The first person to touch it other than me will activate it." He cupped her chin affectionately in his free hand. "This is going to save our boy. Trust me, it'll work."
"No sir, it WONT work!" The crowd of nurses in the doorway parted to reveal a pretty, but stern looking woman with a long braid going down her front. Her piercing blue gaze bore into the hopeful husband's and he took a instinctive step back. It was none other than the head nurse, Unohana Retsu. "Put that down this instant! You'd only cause him more pain."
"Will someone tell me what that is?" Hope had sprung alive in the mother's heart and she wanted answers. "How will giving him that ball of energy help him?"
"It wont." Said Unohana. The husband sprang toward his wife, new found courage in the hope he heard in her voice.
"This is a forbidden technique I found while researching death among royalty. I figured if anyone had defeated death it would be those with the money to play with." He held up the ball of energy. "This is my will to live. Or better put, my need to survive. I used the technique to isolate it into this object and once infused with our son, my sweet, the energy inside this ball will force the threat from his body. In other words I'll implant my own will to live inside him to boost his and together the two forces will isolate the sickness in his body and force that harmful gene out of him." He smiled exasperated after spewing the story so quickly. He looked like a mad scientist, but to the mother of a dying child he was a night in shining armor.
"What will happen after it's out of him? Will the gene need to go to another person?" Her eyes hardened and there was no doubt she was fully ready to take that burden on herself. Unohana stepped forward.
"You see ma'am this is were the research got tricky and the technique banned." She gestured to the boy. "The sickness in your son is hereditary, and the technique will not only force it from him, but separate all genes it deems harmful. All genes your husband's energy deems harmful." She began ticking off fingers as she spoke. "For instance, hair color, sense of humor, favorite-"
"It'll affect his personality?" Unohana nodded. The husband wasn't as easily shaken however.
"But he'll live!" He looked to his wife. "I wont do this if your not on board with me."
"..."
"Ma'am please. It'll separate the unwanted genes into another soul. The natural order of the Soul Society wont allow just 1/4 soul to be created. This procedure will split your son in half. Half of everything about your son will be eliminated and destroyed. And that's only IF you do it properly." Unohana looked to the ball of energy in the husband's hand. "You do realize that this had only been made perfectly once in over 2,000 years? And ever then the soul it was performed on didn't split properly and ended up dieing a very painful death." She looked sadly at both parents. "I understand this is difficult, but please hear me when I say if this goes wrong, which it most defiantly will, your son will suffer and die."
There was silence as the two thought this over. Then they suddenly looked up at one another and knew what had to be done. Before anybody could stop him, the husband lept toward his son and touched the glowing orb to his chest.