A/N: I know I said I would wait till the readers from my other story Unconventional Unions pm'd me/left reviews telling me if they thought this story would be worthwhile publishing, but screw it. I am in love with the idea of this story and I really wanted to share it with the lovely people on this website
I know writing fanfiction set during current arcs can be risky/messy but I'm okay with this story not necessarily working out the same as what happens in the manga. Besides, the fact that the ARRANCAR and tons of non-canon pairings will be featured in this story has already veered it away from being even close to canon.
Anyway, I don't want to bore you anymore with my ramblings, so without further adieu, here is Hueco revival!
I Do Not Own Bleach
Arrogance was the downfall of the shinigami. The very name by which they styled themselves stunk of their supercilious bigotry. The name Shinigami derived from 'Shini' death, 'gami/kami' god; the Gods of death. They named themselves as if they were some sort of all powerful benevolent force; the only ones who decided who deserved the right to live. It was laughable really when one thought of the reality of their situation. They were nothing more than the pawns of an 'omnipresent' being who deigned concerning himself with the affairs of his own creations too bothersome. Kami was an absentee parent, in essence. Shinigami were nothing more than one of the many babysitters of the world and its children. By their own misguided enthusiasm they had come to the conclusion that they were more important than they truly were.
Kurotsuchi Mayuri scoffed as he entered a series of complicated passcodes into the user interface of a rarely frequented portion of the 12th division. It was that same arrogance that had nearly cost them the thousand year blood war and almost cost the soutaichou his life. Almost. If it weren't for the sheer chaos that the realms were thrown into when the Quincy bastards had invaded and raised hell in the spirit world, powerful souls like the soutaichou and Kyoraku would've been reborn in the realm of the living and their chances of restoration would have been lost forever. Fortunately for them, the sheer level of spiritual destruction that Yhwach and his minions had wrought on the realms caused a sort of purgatory-esque realm to be created where all the souls with considerable amounts of reiatsu who 'died' ended up during the war. Souls with considerable reiatsu were too powerful to be processed in the cycle of reincarnation as it was on the verge of collapse, and thus only the souls who possessed little to no reiatsu were capable of transcending to the world of the living or transcending to soul society. The buildup of reiatsu possessing souls who needed to experience transcension (which was impossible at the universe's state at the time) caused an irregularity in the inter-realm network. To save itself from implosion the multiverse created a rift the within itself, causing a small realm to be formed in the apex of the network where all of the powerful souls were filtered into limbo as the multiverse tried desperately to hold itself together under the circumstances. It was only due to Mayuri's sheer brilliance (and Urahara's he grudgingly admitted to himself) and the kami-defying abilities of Inoue Orihime that there was any hope for those who were stuck in the purgatory realm before it became disconnected from the cycle of incarnation of the universe. A self-satisfactory smirk crossed the mad scientist's lips as he recalled how he discovered what was happening to the multiverse.
Kurotsuchi Mayuri had once hypothesized in his early days before his imprisonment in the maggots nest what might happen in an event such as this. He had broached the subject of a universe that was potentially far more complex than once thought to his peers, and they had mocked him. They called his theories drabbles of fiction and nearly laughed him out of his fraternity. 'Fools,' he almost spat aloud. If he hadn't slaughtered the lot of them he would have enjoyed seeing the looks on their faces at the realization that he had been onto something all along. Hell, he probably would have enjoyed belittling their simple-mindedness more than he enjoyed running them through with ashisogi jizo. 'Vindication would certainly have trumped wasting away my talents amongst those Barbarians in that deplorable prison. Alas, hindsight is 20/20. ' Mayuri thought in passing as his hands flew furiously over buttons on the control panel console. He would have to make a mental note to himself not to kill respected scientists from well-to-do families in his fits of rage, or maybe create a prompt for Nemu to incapacitate him if the thought ever happened to cross his mind again.
The multiverse was clearly on its very last prongs of stability, a hairs breadth away from complete collapse. Even though the threat of Yhwach had been neutralized the very fabric of existence still seemed to be bursting at the seams as the multiverse continued to spiral out of balance. Though to be accurate, since nearly annihilating the Quincy over 200 years ago the multiverse had never truly been in balance, and chaotic souls continued to recycle themselves between the realms, wreaking havoc every generation or so. In the Quincy's absence however the number of destructive souls in the world seemed to grow alarmingly, and the current state of the human world was testament to this. The sheer amount of overwhelmingly devious souls who corrupted and destroyed the Earth, creating disease and suffering in their wake was higher than ever in the recorded history of the multiverse. There were simply too many fatally flawed souls who kept being re-filtered through the cycle of reincarnation, and not enough new souls being created in their stead. But the lack of Quincy's didn't appear to be the problem at the moment, Mayuri observed as several monitors beamed to life in his laboratory. Something was causing an overload in the multiverse, and he was almost positive he knew why. One look at the large screen in front of him confirmed his suspicions: Souls of the recently deceased were not passing into their respective 'next lives'. This was not good at all.
"Nemu! Consolidate the universal death-birth rate data across the realms at once!" Mayuri yelled as he quickly begun working with another set of screens and consoles.
"Hai Kurotsuchi-Taichou" said Nemu reflexively as she set out to complete her task.
Kurotsuchi wasted no time prompting the computers within his reach to begin calibrating to the complicated sequences he typed out. His intuition and sense of fore planning had almost never led him astray before, so he was confident in his course of action. There would no doubt that the world was in an impossibly precarious calamity at this point, and no matter the outcome there were an unprecedented number of possibilities to explore in the wake of his new discoveries. He would salivate right now if it were not utterly unbecoming.
"I knew you'd be on the job by the time I got here" a voice said behind him.
"Unlike you I abhor idle procrastination in the stead of exploring the explorable, Urahara Kisuke" He said casually, briefly turning his head to look at the former 12th Division Captain before setting his focus back on the computers he was tinkering with.
"Ah, but if you never take time to smell the roses you'll never get to really appreciate how brilliant each exploration really is." Kisuke said, adjusting his hat on his head as moved to stand beside Mayuri.
"'Tch. Save your rhetoric for that band of misfits you're responsible for minding, I have a ground-breaking discovery to make"
"You believe that the Wandenreich's corrosive manipulation of the reishi of Soul Society and Hueco Mundo has begun to tear our existence apart, don't you?" Kisuke said knowingly, observing the multiple screens the scientist had streaming information and generating images.
"More than that. The damage they've done has prevented souls from being able to transcend between soul society, the human world, and Hueco Mundo" Mayuri responded, eyes never leaving the screen in front of him.
"If they're not passing through the cycle of reincarnation, what is happening to all the souls of those that have succumbed to death during this war?"
"That is what I am in the process of figuring out" Mayuri replied tersely.
Just then, Nemu returned with a stack of papers in hand walking briskly towards the two men. She gave Kisuke a slight nod of acknowledgement before addressing her Taichou.
"Kurotsuchi-Taichou I have completed the task that you have asked of me. I collected the birth-death rate data across the realms based on the net total of fluctuations of reishi and matter as a result of the emergence of sentient life. Based on the numbers our inter-realm monitors have collected I have found that the ratio of birth to the net total of deaths recorded is approximately 15 emergences of sentient life, or 'births', to every thousand deaths" Both Mayuri and Kisuke visibly stiffened at the alarming news, but said nothing as Nemu continued to speak.
"This revelation led me to believe that there must be some sort of fatal error in our monitoring system, but I assure you Kurotsuchi-Taichou such is not the case. Upon closer inspection of the details of 30 individual inter-realm wide emergences, I discovered that they were the reincarnations of beings that contained no reiatsu or reiatsu potential within them. All of these reincarnations appeared in the human world, and originated in soul society. I attempted to locate the reishi migration of the remaining souls which possessed high levels of reiatsu and I was met with the discovery that in between their migration from one realm to another these souls seem to 'disappear' through what appears to be a rift in time-space"
"It is as I suspected. The stress the Wandenreich has put on the cycle of reincarnation has forced the multiverse to create a new realm to act as a storing pool for souls that it cannot process and reincarnate without undoing itself entirely." Mayuri said ominously, clasping his hands together.
"Which means there might still be hope for the Soutaichou and the other members of the Gotei 13 who have lost their lives during this war" Added Kisuke, not mentioning the one particular devastating loss he had experienced as a result of Yhwach's war machine.
"I should be able to finish constructing a navigation system which would allow me to locate the storing realm that these souls are being transported to within the hour. However, actually extracting these souls without utterly destroying what little balance is left tethering the multiverse together may be potentially problematic"
"Maybe, but Maybe not." Kisuke said thoughtfully. "We may need to enlist the help of Inoue-san's powers for this. Without a doubt the girl does not yet possess the knowledgeability or strength to help us on her own, but with a bit of engineering on our part we may be able to amplify the scope of her powers in order solve this problem once and for all"
"Hn. Very well then. Nemu retrieve Inoue Orihime at once… and if her foolishly stubborn Kurosaki comrade attempts to stop you, tell him Urahara sent you" He said rapping his fingers against his cane.
That had been a little more than two weeks ago. They had been quite fortunate to have succeeded at retrieving the souls of reiatsu possessing Shinigami and returning balance to the worlds as best as they could, Mayuri thought as headed down the corridor of the restricted area of the 12th division. The events of the thousand year blood war had taken an apathetic Mayuri and enlightened him to a point where it could not be helped that he had to take matters into his own hands. His old mentor's musings and philosophy on life was starting to make more sense to him the further he involved himself in this potentially ground breaking project of his. While he was by no means concerned with the personal affairs of the idiots who had surrounded him in this life, but he'd be damned if he would allow archaic strains of bigotry to prematurely end his quest to discover the great mysteries of existence. If he had learned anything during that war, especially against Giselle Gewell, it was that his 'collection' was far more useful than he'd ever imagined. It was obvious that the gotei 13 was not enough to keep the realms in balance anymore. A new age of guardianship was required if there was to be any hope of maintaining balance. The purist mentality that only shinigami could protect the realms was foolish, and was what had nearly led them to the brink of utter destruction. Quincy's, powerful humans, Shinigami, and Arrancar alike were all a necessary part of existence. A legion of guardians of the realms should be reflective of that undeniable truth. Mayuri pressed his hand against a door at the end of the corridor, and the sound of gears unlocking themselves clattered in his ears as the doors receded to reveal a large incubation room. It was a shame that the prototypes he used against Giselle had ended up getting purified. However, their powers paled in comparison to the ones of those he had in the in this room before him; he would have gladly given the prototype Arrancar up if it meant preserving the lives of his more treasured collections. Urahara Kisuke would be here soon with the girl and the others; there was much work to be done. If they intended to be successful with their proposition to the newly restored members of the gotei 13, they would need to complete this project by the time the revived taichou's were well enough to be present for a Taichou-class meeting which would be the first since the utter destruction of the seireitei and parts of rukongai.
A/N: That's it for now. If I get at least 7 reviews for this story then i'll post the next chapter. If not then I'll take the hint and leave this one as a one-shot (ish). I hate to give reviewers 'ultimatums' so to speak, but I don't want to end up 80k words and 10+ chapters deep into a story that barely anyone reads again. As much as I love all of my writings it simply isn't prudent to be rushing home from school and work to write a story that no one except me cares about :/
Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed reading this chapter. Until next time!