i apologize if i repeat things in here cuz everyone is telling everyone the same thing but different people. oh, and there are only three clans mentioned by name (shihoin, kuchiki, and shiba) the shiba clan fell from nobility for some reason and the kasamioji clan is an anime clan... so... two clan houses are up for OC-ing haha!
ps: i dunno why I decided to use spiritual pressure instead of reiatsu. it's the same thing but one is ten times easier to type
A couple days later, Ichigo went to Squad 12 to ask Mayuri about the development in regards to what he found in Byakuya's blood that could have done this to him. Byakuya wanted to go with him but he told him to stay with Rukia.
"I wanna go wiff you, Itsugo." Byakuya said, bouncing up in down and making a moaning sound, like he was about to start a temper tantrum.
"Byakuya Kuchiki, I'm surprised at you." Ichigo said, turning to him. "I've never seen such a sour face."
Byakuya pouted as Ichigo bent down in front of him.
"Look, I'm going to the person who had to stick you with the needle when you got here the first time, remember? You didn't like him, did you?"
"No…"
"So there's no reason to come with me. Rukia will take good care of you, right?"
"Of course." She said.
"But Nee-chan keepsth hugging me weally tight! I can't breaff."
"Rukia, don't do that." Ichigo growled.
"Fine…"
"See? She won't do it anymore, okay?"
Byakuya looked skeptical and Ichigo rustled his hair a little.
"Don't worry, we'll get you back to normal and hopefully everything will go back to the way it was."
Byakuya pouted again but he let Ichigo go without a hitch this time.
"From the sample that I received, it looks like someone injected him with a serum that made it where instead of his Spiritual Pressure building and making Byakuya stronger, when his Spiritual Pressure reached a certain stage (probably when he was about to release his shikai) it didn't aid him but leaked from him."
"What does that mean?"
"It means someone wanted to get the sword out of the way by trying to make the zanpakuto weak enough to be broken. By releasing Byakuya's Spiritual Pressure from his body, it would play a large role in how the zanpakuto would react to him. It looks, though, that whoever did it, maybe gave him too much."
"What do you mean?"
"The amount of the foreign body was almost double what it would have taken to decrease the captain's Spiritual Pressure to a point that his own zanpakuto would find him unworthy of wielding it. Someone wanted to be triple sure that Senbonzakura rejected Byakuya."
"So you're saying that they gave Byakuya something that would reduce his Spiritual Pressure, sort of tricking Senbonzakura into thinking that Byakuya was no longer worthy of wielding it?"
"That's what I just said, you idiot. Were you not paying attention?" Mayuri growled.
Ichigo made a face at him but put his hand to his chin.
"Why would they want Senbonzakura out of the way? What threat could that be? I mean, I know it's a very powerful zanpakuto but there are others just as powerful. Why not the Head Captain?"
"Who knows… Now get out of my lab and figure it out for yourself. I did the easy part for you. I have other things I need to do." He said, waving him off.
Ichigo nodded and went back to his barrack.
"So they were trying to get Senbonzakura out of the way and Nii-san's body got caught up in it?"
"I think it goes hand in hand. Mayuri said that they were tricking Senbonzakura into thinking that Byakuya had become unworthy of wielding him but that whatever they used may have had this effect instead. Whatever the case, Senbonzakura is broken at the moment and Byakuya is still a little kid."
"But at least Senbonzakura can be repaired… we just have to find a way to raise Byakuya's Spiritual Pressure to back when he was an adult and maybe that will help out."
"Bwahaha! You'll never be able to get him back to his normal size!"
Ichigo and Rukia looked out the window and saw a man sitting there laughing his head off.
"Who are you?" Rukia asked, putting her hand on her hilt.
"Names don't matter, girl. All you need to know is that Byakuya Kuchiki won't be getting back to normal anytime soon."
"Sai!" Rukia yelled, pointing at the intruder.
He yelled, his arms suddenly pulling back behind him and he fell into the room. Ichigo then grabbed him by the back of the collar and held him up.
"Who are you and why did you do this to Byakuya? What do you have against him?"
"You'll never get me to tell!"
Ichigo thought for a second and then nodded.
"You're right. We will never get you to tell us. But I know someone who can."
"Head Captain, you have some visitors." Nanao said, coming into his room. "It's Kuchiki-san, Kurosaki-san, and an unknown individual."
Kyoraku nodded. "Send them in."
Nanao nodded and opened the door, where Ichigo dragged the intruder into the room and then threw him onto the floor with a loud thud. Kyoraku looked behind him and then turned fully.
"What brings you two here?"
"We found this guy laughing in the window and told us we would never get Byakuya back to normal. We figured you'd be able to get him to tell us what he did, how he did it, and how to turn Byakuya back."
Kyoraku looked at the man and put his hand to his cheek.
"Hmm… What's your name?"
"Like I'd tell you."
"You don't look like any Shinigami that I've seen in the Seireitei. You must be from the Rukon District." The man looked away and Kyoraku smiled. "I thought so. From the looks of you though, you don't look like you're too impoverished so you must be from a higher district. Maybe ten or so…"
"I happen to be part of a noble house, thank you."
"Really? A noble house, huh?" Kyoraku said in a slightly mocking tone.
"If you're part of a noble house then you know good and well how childish it is to have done whatever you did to my older brother." Rukia growled.
"Oh? Did Mayuri find out something?" the Head Captain asked, looking at Rukia.
"He said that someone figured out a way to make Byakuya's Spiritual Pressure so low that Senbonzakura would think he was unworthy of wielding him but something must have happened and turned Byakuya into a kid instead."
"Is that true?" Kyoraku asked the man.
The man didn't answer.
"This is why we brought him to you, sir. We need answers so that we can get Nii-san back to normal and fix his zanpakuto."
"I see… What clan are you from?"
"I won't tell you."
"Why are you trying to get Byakuya out of way?"
"We weren't trying to get him out of the way, just Senbonzakura."
"What do you have against it? You're part of the Soul Society, so why try to take it out?" Ichigo asked.
The man seemed to refuse to talk and Kyoraku shrugged.
"Sorry, my hands are tied. If he won't talk, he won't talk. Maybe you should ask your grandfather if there are any enemies of the Kuchiki Clan out there."
"We'll go to the mansion after we grab Byakuya from my dad's division. I'm sure he's not happy about being there."
As suspected, when Ichigo went to Isshin's squad to get Byakuya, Byakuya was quick to run to Ichigo, eyes full of tears. Ichigo grabbed him up as he buried his face in his chest.
"What happened?" he asked softly, touching Byakuya's hair gently.
"Nothing much." Isshin said. "He's just not as fun as you, Ichigo. No, seriously, even though he's a little kid, he's still the same Byakuya Kuchiki. He wasn't too keen on playing around and got scared and hid somewhere for the remainder of his stay."
"I'm telling you, you people are going to give this kid a heart attack. You realize that he doesn't remember anyone, right? I mean, he's okay with me, but he doesn't really know who anyone is. All you're doing is scaring the shit out of him, Dad. If I ever have children, I'm not leaving them with you."
Isshin just smiled, leaning on the wall.
"He's quite irresistible. It's a wonder you haven't fallen for that Kuchiki charm… not necessarily little Byakuya's…"
Ichigo and Rukia both blushed as Ichigo turned away.
"We're leaving."
They used shunpo to get away as Isshin smirked.
"Have fun, son…"
They reached the Kuchiki mansion and Byakuya looked up from Ichigo's chest and looked up at him.
"Isth thisth gwampa's housthe?"
"Yes, this is his house but we have to ask him some questions." Rukia said with a smile.
Byakuya mumbled something and laid his head on Ichigo's shoulder. Ichigo frowned and reached up to touch him on the forehead.
"He's pretty warm, Rukia."
Rukia turned back and put her own hand on his forehead.
"You're right… We may need to take him to Squad 4 and ask them what they think. It probably has to do with the regression. Am I right?" she growled, looking at the man they still had tied up with them.
He didn't answer, which seemed to be his default, and they walked into the mansion. Rukia asked to speak to Ginrei. A couple minutes later, Ginrei walked out and lifted an eyebrow.
"I thought we had already discussed the matter about this child, Rukia."
"I'm sorry, Ginrei-sama, but we have more information about this and also need to ask for information."
"I see… Come, let's go into the tea room."
They followed him down the hall to a room that overlooked the backyard of the mansion.
"Now that we are somewhere a little more comfortable, I implore you to speak."
"Ojii-sama, when we said that this little boy was Nii-sama, we were not trying to trick you. It really is Nii-sama and we asked Captain Mayuri to do some testing. Somehow, Nii-sama was injected with something that would lessen his Spiritual Pressure so that Senbonzakura would find him unsuitable to wield it and make it where he couldn't use his shikai or bankai."
"But whatever that stuff was," Ichigo continued. "It didn't just lower his Spiritual Pressure but it seemed to release it from him, as if he lost it. In losing the Spiritual Pressure, it somehow reduced him to a child. Mayuri seems to think the state of his body is due to the fact that he was gearing up to use a lot of Spiritual Pressure probably to release his shikai and this serum that was given kicked in instead."
"We have proof of it too. This man told us that we would never get Nii-sama back to his real state, as if he knew what was going on." Rukia said, pulling on the rope to pull the man forward. "He won't tell us who he is but we thought that maybe you'd be able to tell us if there was any noble families that had anything against Nii-sama's abilities."
Ginrei looked at Byakuya, who was very flushed and breathing heavily, as he hung onto Ichigo's shihakusho. Now that it had been explained to him a little better, he could see now what his grandson used to look like a small child. It had been many centuries ago but he remembered it. He then looked at the man that Rukia had with her and narrowed his eyes at him.
"I know you from somewhere…" he said as a maid brought in some tea. "You're one of the Chipuchi children…"
The man seemed to not like that he had been recognized and looked away. Ginrei nodded.
"Yes, yes, you're Jinzo Chipuchi. I thought I recognized that eye color… always has been an odd house."
Rukia and Ichigo looked more at this Jinzo and found that his eyes were colored different colors, as if there were a line drawn in the iris to mark the difference.
"I've never heard of the Chipuchi House." Rukia said.
"That's because they aren't actually a noble house. They want to be but have not succeeded. They are a scientific household, doing many experiments but so far have not done anything impressive enough to be granted favor to becoming a noble house."
Jinzo looked away. "With no heir to the Kuchiki Clan, we will get our chance once Byakuya is out of the way. We don't want to kill anyone, of course, we just want to have the clan fall from grace, like the Shiba Clan. With the Kuchiki Clan out of the way, we can rise up to into its place."
Ichigo made a face at him.
"You have some delusions… So regressing the heir to the Kuchiki Clan was your grand idea?"
"Reducing his Spiritual Pressure, dumbass."
"Yeah well, all you did was make him a little kid. Unless you fix him, all he'll do is grow back up again and there will still be an heir to the Kuchiki Clan. Your plan sucks."
"Not if he can't get his zanpakuto to speak with him again. A clan leader who can't even wield his own sword is nothing but a low class Soul Reaper. If a clan leader can't even gain the favor of his zanpakuto then what good is he? Our plan is working in our favor in regards to Senbonzakura being broken. Even if he were able to get it to rebuild itself, his Spiritual Pressure would still be too weak."
"Nii-sama could raise it at any time." Rukia argued.
"And probably be reduced to a small child yet again. Every time he releases a large amount of Spiritual Pressure, he will be reduced to a child. Do you see how flushed he is? How feverish?" Ichigo and Rukia looked at him as he breathed in short breaths, looking very feverish indeed. "It's his Spiritual Pressure building back up to make him grow again. The transformation isn't wrong and the serum wasn't wrong. You think that blue skinned quack is a scientist? Ha! The Chipuchi Clan does the ultimate experimentation. The amount is there because even if he grows back up, even if he gets his Spiritual Pressure to an amount of repairing Senbonzakura, it will always reject him since he can't release enough to use shikai or bankai. The zanpakuto won't break again but if he tries to release that amount of Spiritual Pressure, he will be reduced to a child once more. He loses all the way around."
Ginrei frowned deeply and called for the guards to take Jinzo and put him in lockdown in one of the rooms of the mansion. He then looked at Byakuya, who looked at him.
"If what Jinzo says is true, we must let Byakuya sleep. Maybe he will grow up… But, if that is true then the other must be true as well. If Byakuya cannot wield Senbonzakura, then he cannot be the clan leader of the Kuchiki Clan."
so i had to do extensive research on the zpt thing. i couldn't be a shinigami cuz omg, there is so much shit involved with a zpt! anyhow, but it said that even if a shinigami knows the name of it's zpt, if the zpt doesn't feel it's worthy of wielding it, it can not work for them. it mentions that sometimes the amount of sp a shinigami can put forth can cause this. i also read that in most noble clans, the heir has to have a high amount of sp in order to run it. i dunno why, i just read it on the wiki. so much intricacy *faint*
and you see i totally pulled a 'kamisama kiss' there huh? baby tomoe anyone? can anyone guess that those eps are my favorite?
ps: mayuri CAN be wrong about motives every once in a while...