Status: Exams are looming. Sigh. Uryuu Ishida's and Zanpakuto!Ichigo's joint CMoA have been written, at least partially.
BTW, if Quincy reiatsu is blue, and shinigami reiatsu is red... that would mean Uryuu's is now purple. Or violet, maybe. :P
A/N: The only reason something is impossible is because either Szayel Apporo Granz or Kisuke Urahara haven't tried it yet. Don't worry. They'll get round to it later. And as for the not-exactly-Hell-butterflies, yes, they have been... modified. Anyone attempting to splat one will receive an unpleasant surprise. This week's chapter is plot-exposition-iffic. And I still don't own Bleach. Worse luck. sigh
Figures sat around a table. At its centre, a butterfly perched delicately, lazily fluttering its emerald-edged wings every so often.
"This emergency meeting of the Crimson Guard has been called, as I'm sure you all know by now, due to the recent departure of Ichigo Kurosaki – " began Szayel Apporo Granz, before he was interrupted.
"Ichigo's dead?! What the hell? How could that bastard just die on us?!" yelled Grimmjow.
"Shaddup! He ain't dead!" snapped Shiro, whacking the blue-haired arrancar over the head. "Weren't ya even listenin'?"
"Hell, it's the first I've heard of this damn news." He crossed his arms. "Why didn't anybody tell me?"
"Maybe because you were too busy with Deliora in the Living World?" Yumichika replied tartly. "If an ice demon gives you too much trouble for you to notice Lugia's transmission – "
"Try having your ass frozen off by that damn bitch one day and see how you like it," Grimmjow bit back.
"Enough," spoke a pale-skinned, brown-haired arrancar. His appearance would have been almost entirely human were it not for the fact he had a quarter of what resembled a Phantom-of-the-Opera type mask on the left side of his face. "What was your news, Szayel?"
"Is everyone who should be here, here, or at least listening?"
"Two is currently with me. Unfortunately, he's still suffering severe injuries despite my best efforts at healing him. He's semiconscious at the moment. Hanataro, are you there?" The voice of a woman came through from the butterfly to the occupants of the room.
The boyish-looking shinigami bolted upright at the table. "Yes, Unohana-taicho! Do you need my help?"
There was a sigh. "Yes, please… but Hanataro… you don't need to keep referring to me as your captain."
"Sorry, Unohana-tai – nh…" He stopped short. "I'm sorry, it's just a really bad habit and I keep forgetting…" Hanataro looked around at the other people around the table, who looked variously amused or bored. "Please excuse me!"
Shiro glanced up. "Pft, I'm here anyway. Three."
"Four."
A pause.
"Six." This from a red-haired woman with a three-tined bone tiara and a falchion at her hip.
Silence.
"Eight." The straw hat raised from the table as a hand reached up to adjust it.
"Nine." A blond-haired arrancar with violet eyes and a purple-handled zweihander sat upright in his chair.
"Ten." A white-haired young man scowled, a long scar running down the side of his face.
"Eleven." Tatsuki drummed her fingers impatiently on the table.
"Twelve." Szayel was frowning, glancing every so often at a small device.
"Thirteen." The man in question coughed slightly.
"Fourteen…"
"Fifteen." Yumichika adjusted his feathers.
"Tch. Sixteen." Grimmjow moved slightly out of his slouch.
Silence.
"Eighteen and counting!" came Shinji's voice through the butterfly, singsong and causing more than one person to roll their eyes.
Szayel shut his eyes this time.
"Twenty." A youthful-looking man with a spear resting upon his shoulder shifted, revealing dark feathers at his back.
"Twenty-one." The scythe slid down slightly from its position beside the brunette's chair.
"~Twenty-two!~"
Yumichika looked aside, scowling.
"And I'm here… as always. After all, it's not as if I have anywhere else to be, but anyway… Twenty-five." This voice sounded out from the ceiling, rather than the butterfly.
"Where's Orihime?" Tatsuki wanted to know.
"In your room, Tatsuki. She's sleeping right now."
"Good."
"In that case… shall we begin? Shinji."
"Yeah, yeah, everythin's fine down here in sunny Hueco Mundo. Gettin' to thirty-two an' countin', but these clones're gettin' reeeally annoyin' right now."
"Do you need backup?"
"Tch. Nah, it's just they're splitting all the time. A million ants might be able to bring down a dragon, but there ain't a million of these guys and they can't clone fast enough anyway. I should be done in about five minutes."
"Fine. Yachiru?"
"They're not much fun to play with here, Pinky-chan."
The corner of Szayel's eye twitched slightly at the nickname as Shiro snickered.
"Anyway," he continued, as if nothing had happened, "as most of us here know by now, Ichigo Kurosaki has passed through the Heaven Gate."
"What?!" Shunsui jerked upright to stare at Szayel, wide awake. "But how?"
"Keigo managed to obtain the Ouken's composite parts, which is probably why Aizen was so annoyed when he managed to catch him. Ichigo managed to restore the Ouken and use it to open the gate."
"He just left?"
"More or less. The last thing he mentioned was that he was going to fix the past and appeal to the Spirit King to let him do so."
"Except we're still here," Shiro pointed out in a bored tone of voice. "So somethin' screwed up, obviously."
Twenty-one frowned. "Does the Spirit King really have so much power to be able to do such a thing?"
There was a pause.
"Avir?" Jyuushiro asked finally. "You know the most about such things."
The deva moved to rest his elbows upon the table, expression unreadable as always. "I have served under those who rule Heaven for the majority of my existence. As such, I do know about such matters, but… there are certain laws which forbid me to speak of certain things. But to answer your question, Raito-san – " here he turned to the arrancar " – yes, the Spirit King has sufficient power to perform such a thing. However, as to whether or not the current ruler would be willing to cooperate with Kurosaki-san… that is a different matter entirely."
"Current ruler?" Grimmjow spoke up. "It changes?"
"Yes."
"So Aizen could have already become the Spirit King without us knowing?" Jyuushiro asked in growing horror.
"If the throne had passed on, I would have known such a thing had occured." Avir hesitated. "Besides, it is not such a simple thing to take that throne."
"Why not?" Shiro asked bluntly.
"The manner in which the throne is passed on from one king to another… it isn't enough to merely be powerful. One needs to be chosen. The king chooses a successor to follow him or her."
"Aizen was chosen? I find that kinda hard to believe."
"He was not. However, he has come… dangerously close to reaching the throne. He may even gain it."
"Wait a damn second." Grimmjow scowled. "You just said the Spirit King has enough power to do what he likes, right?"
"Not quite correct. The Spirit King may not utilise his full power, for fear that the universe would collapse. As a result, he or she is not permitted to interfere with the world so directly. Even so, with the amount of power he wields, such an occurrence as a mere shinigami coming so close to success… it is very worrying."
The red-head frowned. "How could Aizen have enough power to do such a thing in the first place?"
"There are other entities with similar powers to the Spirit King." For a fraction of a second, a flicker of rare emotion passed across Avir's face. "It is more than likely that they may have interfered."
"Wait, wait, wait." Tatsuki held up a hand, disbelieving. "There's more than one person with that kind of power?"
"Does that surprise you so much, Arisawa-san?"
"So we could ask one of these others – " Szayel began, before being cut off.
"We could not."
"Why not? If they could help – "
"Those that might be benevolent would be bound by more laws than the Spirit King, or unable to touch us with their power. There are others which are capable of such a thing, but I strongly suspect they are aiding Aizen."
"If they aren't, would they help us?"
"I would rather kill you all myself than see such a thing happen. You saw what happened to so many of my people. That is the nature of their 'aid'!" Avir spat with some considerable anger, before recovering himself. "To enlist such a thing would be to grant the world a fate worse than Aizen as the King of Heaven. It is not something we can allow to happen."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Shiro broke it. "So we're stuck here?"
"Actually…" Szayel adjusted his glasses. "I managed to perfect a time-distortion kido in the last week."
"But that's not possible!" burst out Hitsugaya, staring.
"Really? Nobody told me."
"Wow… something like that… you're scary, Szayel." Kyoraku tipped his hat.
"Thank you… if it was meant as a compliment."
"Does it work?" Tatsuki asked.
The door opened.
Grimmjow lifted his head fully off the table to stare.
"Evidently," Szayel replied, smirking slightly as he stepped through the door.
"… there are two of you now? Wonderful." She groaned.
"You actually managed to create a kido like that and get it to work…" Hitsugaya muttered to himself, still disbelieving.
"Actually…" began Szayel II (the one who'd just entered).
"The creation of the kido was successful mainly because it had already been successful," finished Szayel I (who was still sitting down).
"What."
"Because I already completed the kido itself in the future and went back to aid my past self in the process-"
"-so I already knew the kido would be a success."
"As if we didn't have enough insane scientist-ness around the place."
"'Scientist-ness' isn't actually a word."
"Shaddup. It's a word now."
"And it works perfectly, right?"
"Well." Szayel I hesitated. "It works perfectly…"
"But?" Jyuushiro prompted.
"The incantation required takes five minutes, excluding the extra time it takes to prepare the area first…"
"But that isn't the major problem," continued Szayel II. "The difficulty lies in the fact that the amount of reiatsu required is proportional to the mass of the body required to be sent back, cubed." He coughed. "That's if the body is constructed of spiritron. If there are atoms involved, that just drops to a square/cube proportionality, and if you know what you're doing, it's possible for the actual subject of the kido to accelerate the process and make it considerably easier, but even so – "
"…Pinky-chan's being weird again."
"Cut the jargon. What does it mean?"
Both Szayels looked put out.
"Roughly speaking, from the model we've run… the amount of reiatsu we'd need to send one person that far back would be approximately equal to 380 gigathaums." Szayel I winced. "Just to send myself back two days drained my own reiatsu entirely. I had to spend most of the first day recuperating."
"380 gigathaums…" Raito muttered, as Toshiro's eyes widened at the figure.
Half the table contemplated the quantity in awed silence.
"And that's a lot?" asked Shiro, currently contemplating the measures necessary to get Szayel to say something understandable.
Szayel II pulled a face. "Yes. It's a lot. If, say, we managed to replicate Ichigo twenty times over somehow, each clone having identical reishi to the original, then used all the reishi produced and harnessed their power completely, we might have enough to be able to send someone back that far. Might," he added.
"Okay, I get the picture. It's a lot," Shiro muttered.
"In other words, we can't go back." Hitsugaya glanced at the scientist.
"…probably, although – " began Szayel II, before being cut off by a noise from the butterfly.
"Grantz-san… he appears to be asking for your presence right now."
The two Szayels exchanged a look, before Szayel I muttered, "You can go. I'll just do this myself. It isn't as if you'll miss anything, after all."
Szayel II left gratefully.
"The only alternate possible solution I could come up with was… well… her."
Tatsuki stood up, sliding her chair backwards forcefully.
"No."
"I wasn't going to suggest it, obviously," Szayel continued. "Orihime isn't in a fit state to help anyone, let alone with something so major." He paused. "How's she been recently, anyway?"
"She doesn't even recognise me any more." Grimmjow scowled.
"It's been that bad…" Szayel mused. "Well, in that case, I have nothing more to suggest regarding that matter, so – "
"Tatsuki-chan?"
Heads turned around the table to the door.
A young woman stood there, grey eyes wide and anxious.
"Tatsuki-chan… what's happening? Who are these people – " She caught her breath. "You!"
Grimmjow winced, and cursed mentally.
"I think we'd better call it a day there," Ukitake said quietly.
Tatsuki stood up and made her way across to Orihime, holding her tightly as everyone else filed quietly out of the room.
"Tatsuki-chan… you're crying."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Szayel pause just behind Orihime and take a sample jar out of his pocket with something of an apologetic expression on his face.
"I am not crying," Tatsuki replied fiercely.
"Of course." Orihime pulled away slightly, giving the other woman a watery smile. "Tatsuki-chan never cries… it's raining instead."
She stared, considering this logic. "We're inside, 'Hime."
"Then there must be a leak in the ceiling. Right?" Orihime pulled Tatsuki into a tighter embrace.
"Yeah." Tatsuki's voice was somewhat muffled, her face buried in Orihime's shoulder. "A leak."
The man for whose sake you would willingly lose those memories…
Ichigo... you'd better not have died... or I'll kill you.
The OMAKE Theorem: How To Tame Your Zanpakuto
[KISUKE URAHARA is visible in a dark room, sitting on a chair in a spotlight. His hat overshadows his eyes as he fans his face.]
[With a fwip, the fan snaps shut and KISUKE stands up, shifting so his eyes are actually visible under the hat.]
Kisuke: Good morning!~ [with a smile] I suppose you're here because you want to learn how to tame your zanpakuto, yes?
[The door to the inside of the closet opens to reveal light from outside, and TESSAI.]
Tessai: Urahara-dono?
[KISUKE turns around.]
Kisuke: Yes?
Tessai: There is a customer, Urahara-dono.
[KISUKE sighs, and rubs the back of his head.]
Kisuke: Damn. Could you deal with it?
[TESSAI gives KISUKE a reproachful look, but nods nonetheless before closing the door again.]
Kisuke: Better. Now, the first difficulty with taming a zanpakuto is getting it to communicate with you. In some cases, your zanpakuto may make its prescence... ah... known to you.
[Switch to a scene of KISUKE, lying in bed as a doorbell rings. An almost invisible wire can be seen, apparently threading itself out just above ground level as KISUKE groans and gets out of bed.]
Kisuke: ...why do customers have to get up so early -
[KISUKE walks into and trips upon the wire. Laughter is just audible from an invisible source.]
Kisuke: [face flat against the ground] Ow.
[Return to the closet.]
Kisuke: Of course, the first thing you must do is dominate.
[KISUKE slaps the fan against the palm of his hand, closing it with a whap. Faintly visible in the corner of the closet (insofar as there is a corner not occupied by KISUKE) is the zanpakuto that will remain referred to as ICHIGO for now.]
Ichigo: [sweating] ..you make it sound like something sexual.
Kisuke: [leering] Only if you want it to be.
Ichigo: Dear Kami NO! [gesturing frantically] We're just friends, okay? I really don't swing that way! How long have you friggin' known me, Kisuke?
Kisuke: [snickering] Just kidding.
Ichigo: Asshole. [lobbing a box at him] If Yoruichi found out, she'd kill you. Actually, maybe I should tell her -
Kisuke: [urgently] You really don't have to! It's fine!
Ichigo: [glaring] Then stop making me do the washing up.
Kisuke: [aghast] Never!
[ICHIGO smirks widely.]
Ichigo: Then prepare to die. [opening the door] Oh Yoruichi-chan~
[KISUKE attempts to slam the door shut in desparation, before it is blown completely off its hinges. YORUICHI appears in the doorway.]
Yoruichi: Kisuke? What're you doing?
Kisuke: Ah... well... that is to say...
[ICHIGO snickers, before letting a photo flutter to the floor in front of YORUICHI. She picks it up.]
Yoruichi: Kisuke, what is thi-
[Switch to the photo. It features KUUKAKU, an unknown blonde and YORUICHI, all looking extremely drunk with their arms slung over KISUKE and a young boy looking remarkably similar to KAIEN. KUUKAKU appears to be attempting to suffocate KAIEN-lookalike with her cleavage; YORUICHI, on the other hand, is giggling and hugging KISUKE, as is the blonde.]
Kisuke: ...
Yoruichi: ...
[KISUKE is beginning to sweat.]
Yoruichi: [calmly] I thought you told me there were no photos of graduation night. You said you destroyed them all.
Kisuke: [sweating] I must have missed that one.
Ichigo: Actually... you missed seven. I'm sure I can find them for you... since I'm the one you forced to clear out the back room.
[ICHIGO glares at KISUKE. YORUICHI is still staring at the photo, apparently unable to hear his voice. KISUKE is now sweating a lot.]
Kisuke: Look, I can -
Ichigo: Ooh, look, here they are!
[ICHIGO lobs another three photos into the air. YORUICHI manages to catch two.]
Kisuke: Ah... actually, I think I have customers to attend to -
[KISUKE attempts (and fails) to sidle through the door, which YORUICHI is still blocking. Her expression is thunderous.]
Yoruichi: Bankai: Shining God of Flash.
[A golden light surrounds YORUICHI's form, just before she vanishes. KISUKE blanches.]
Kisuke: Oh holy sh-
[Cut to later. KISUKE is tending a considerable number of cuts all over his body.]
Kisuke: On the other hand... any attempts at domination of a zanpakuto may seriously deteriorate your health. Particularly if that zanpakuto has blackmail material.
Ichigo: Does that mean you'll let me off kitchen duty now?
Kisuke: ...
Ichigo: Yorui-
Kisuke: Fine.
[ATTEMPT NO. 1: FAILED.]
[END OMAKE]
Graduation ceremonies... I'd rather be the photographer. More fun watching everyone else embarrass themselves. Plus, think of all the blackmail opportunities!
