Prologue - Deity
"He will never survive there!" a figure of light snapped, their arm-like appendage, glowing in red fury, swung through the air and creating powerful gusts of wind. Somewhere far below, a small village was hit by a powerful tornado that decimated everything in its path.
The catastrophe was so sudden, it happened so swiftly, that the villagers couldn't see it coming until it was knocking on their doors. They were scattered around like rocks on a dirt road, some were running for safety, clutching on to their treasures and loved ones while praying to the Gods for mercy. Others weren't so fortunate; their bodies hanging on top of trees like livestock in a slaughterhouse, some villagers were still twitching where they lay on the ground, their wounds gaping and red from the impacts their body suffered when they were strewn around by the force of the wind. In a matter of minutes, the once peaceful village was no more.
"Calm your mind," an imposing figure spoke, Their voice a low timbre as if to soothe the figure shrouded in fuming vermillion light. They lifted both of Their hands in the air and started to move said appendages this way and that, creating a large orb glimmering in a dim, green glow. On the surface of the orb showed the village destroyed by an Act of God.
"You are hurting the humans."
The figure of light snapped out of their wrathful thoughts, as if in realization, and the red light they emitted grew dim and then faded into nothingness, replaced by a dull white glow. Their feature showed remorse, however, a hint of restrained anger visible in their eyes.
"Forgive me, Father." they spoke, quietly bowing their head in petulant obedience.
The other Figure remained silent as They concentrate on the green orb, Their right hand splayed on the surface, fingers moving around the orb in a counter-clockwise motion. For a while, the Figure remained still, waiting.
A bright green light shrouded the orb for a split second, and then it disappeared like mist, taking the orb with it. As if time was stopped, and winded back by an invisible hand, pieces of matter emerged from under the rubbles caused by a natural disaster that once struck the land. Scattered bits of wood and metal zipping through the wind, slowly but surely mending together to form the beginning of manmade structures as the sun seemingly inched East. And just like a fetus's first heartbeat, slow and sure yet decidedly miraculous, life bursts throughout the entire area. The sun was back on its path of sure descend to the West, and a small village was bustling in peaceful ignorance of what their would-be fate.
"Father—"
"Silence." the Figure said, finally facing Their errant progeny. They remained unblinking, Their glowing feature showing disappointment and understanding. After a moment, They reached up to the displeased youngling and patted their bowed head.
"It is necessary." the Figure said quietly. The Childe stiffened and observed their Father's calm mien.
"Then I will go. In his place."
The Figure gazed sadly at the young one. How desperate they were, ready to charge headfirst into what was causing the problem in the first place, to protect what cannot be, yet.
"You know why you could never, my child."
The youngling closed their eyes in silent frustration, knowing their Father was right, no matter how badly they wished it to be the opposite, for once.
"He will not know us." the young one whispered.
"He will. When the time comes."
"He will live among monsters!" the Childe insistently countered, "They will taint him, corrupt him, and turn him into one of them!"
"You need to put more faith in him," the Figure said quietly, taking the youngling in Their arms in an act of comfort. But the young one was having none of it.
Brushing their Father's arms away, the youngling walked to a large pedestal. The Figure sighed and followed Their Childe.
On top of the pedestal sat a cradle of pure white, its rim frivolously decorated with glowing red gems meticulously crafted in the appearance of flowering plants, while the outer surface was painstakingly carved with elegant curves and dips to heavenly perfection.
A small babe lay within, its small body seemingly engulfed by the soft, billowy material supporting its vulnerable body in the bottom of the cradle.
"I do," the young one murmured in reply, their expression morose, stroking the soft cheek of the sleeping cherub. They smiled as the babe turned in its sleep, a head full of glowing red hair shifted to hide sweet features under tiny arms.
"I just don't trust them," they finished, piercing red orbs gazed into their Father's eyes.
Chapter 1: Perception
Abarai Renji knew.
Abarai Renji was not blind.
Abarai Renji understood that his presence can bring a certain degree of unpleasant feeling to some people, especially those who barely knew him, or those who incidentally glanced upon the red-headed lieutenant. Those who saw his fully tattooed body when he was relaxing in the bathhouse, and those who accidentally saw his shark-like grin when he was excited for a new headgear.
Abarai Renji knew that he did not look 'nice'.
'Nice', in the most conventional, purely physical, superficial, kind of way. 'Nice', in the way that Rukia, Captain Unohana, and Captain Ukitake, or even Kurosaki Ichigo could be described. 'Very nice' would be how his captain was categorised by most women in Soul Society, as was Captain Kyoraku by most of the 'mature' women (as Renji traumatically found out), and his friend Lieutenant Matsumoto Rangiku by practically all the hormonal men. 'Nice' in the way normal people would look; sans the tattoos, the unnecessarily 'intimidating' muscles, and wild coloured hair.
'Nice', in a way that Renji just couldn't be.
He loved his tattoos. He spent hours upon hours perfecting them in painful agony of reiatsu-imbued needles. It was the latest tattooing method in Soul Society, you see. The ink was embedded in to the shinigami's reiryoku layer on their skin, and can only be removed when the bearer specifically released their reiatsu to principally 'attack' the foreign reiatsu. Renji had been saving for years since his first admittance into Shino Academy to get his ink work.
Not a lot of people knew this but Abarai Renji possessed a certain degree of artistic talent. It was a shame that he never got into developing those skills further since he was always ever so busy at the Sixth Division barracks and on missions. At least the weekly Calligraphy Club meetings—headed by Kuchiki Byakuya himself—was enough to ease him into some sort of art form—and it helped to improve his handwriting if nothing else. The fact remains, the entirety of his tattoos were designed in a well thought out manner by the redhead himself. They made him look 'bad-ass' as Ikkaku commented later on.
He didn't have much money, however, and the cost of tattooing his entire body turned out to be too much for him in his time in the Academy. Thus, the savings he accumulated could only be used for the tattoo over his brows, the beginning of the many he would eventually bear all across his body throughout his career as a shinigami.
But no matter how 'bad-ass' he knows his tattoos were, they ended up making him 'difficult' on the eyes of strangers. One glance and a group of rowdy teens in Rukongai would scamper away from his path, an elderly couple turned their faces from his sight, and merchants would quiver in their boots as he sought to bargain for groceries he needed for that weekend spent in his Rukongai apartment—a residential choice he preferred on the weekends when there were not as much workload that he had to sleep in the Sixth Division's barracks.
Granted his friends didn't think much of his tattoos, seeing that they each also have their own quirks, they didn't really have any right to say what he should do to his appearance and behaviour. Matsumoto Rangiku has her alcoholic, and sometimes near-nymphomaniac tendencies, Madarame Ikkaku with his proudly bald head and the predatory glint in his eyes with his overall craziness and knack for chaos (not forgetting his lucky dance, which was in a league of its own), Hisagi with his sentimental yet borderline inappropriate '69' tattoo smacked right on his face, and of course, Rukia with her crazy Chappy obsession. Not forgetting the 'colourful' personalities of all his friends in general, he knew that he fit right in.
But he still didn't look 'nice'.
The overall image that he wanted to strive for was simply 'bad-ass'. He wanted the tattoo, he wanted the body, and he already got the hair. Once he got the tattoo for the first time, he knew, he had to work on his body too.
Most people would see that Abarai Renji was a very muscular man. His friends would sometimes comment on how well-developed his muscles were. Ikkaku would obviously be antagonistic about it, mostly out of playfulness and his tendency to pick fights. Renji would, sometimes, comply. And he was happy with the fact that his hard work paid off.
However unnecessary it was.
In truth, Renji was not a big-boned person. Due to the fact that a regular-muscled body would make him look more like Kira Izuru—no offense to that ever gloomy guy, again, no offense—than Captain Kyoraku—bless him for his naturally large body—he trained and worked his muscles out every single day for hours on end. It wasn't really to gain 'strength' though, since even Captain Hitsugaya could lift boulders over his head with little effort due to his tremendous reiryoku. So the fact that a strong reiryoku was more efficient than packing on muscles was not lost on most shinigami, making them train more in a sense of developing their spiritual prowess instead of physical strength.
The muscles were simply for 'aesthetic' purposes. Something that the Eleventh Division squad were crazy about, which made sense for Renji to also be swept on that line of thought, considering his past affiliation to that particular division. The division that prioritized brute strength and a sense of machismo more than refined control of their spiritual prowess, as demonstrated by the captain of said division, Zaraki Kenpachi, the biggest brute of all.
Renji wanted to be strong, and the big musculature would make him look the part, as he was taught on his days in the Eleventh. He still couldn't understand how his current captain would still be one step ahead in the 'bad-ass' department though, no matter how hard he trained to gain those muscles. That man exuded aura that just screams 'power' that rivaled Captain Zaraki himself. Must be part of the reason why Renji respected him so much, if not sometimes fearful.
And there came his hair. His bloody, crimson red hair. The hair he had since he was a baby, the hair he hated as a child but came to love as he grew. The hair that, really, was always the center of attention above all the things that made him 'not nice'.
As a Rukon dog with his scrappy group of friends decades ago, he would often ask Rukia to cut his hair short. He didn't want his hair, they attracted too much attention, and he always thought about dying it black, or even go bald. He actually did go bald for a while as a child, but as an adult, he realised the only one who could pull that look was Ikkaku, and he did tremendously regret the decision that made his late Rukon friends laughed and point at the hairless top of his head for days on end, until he whacked them up the top of their heads, of course.
He only came to learn to appreciate his hair as a teen, growing up with Rukia and eventually entering Shino Academy. Which was around the same time he came to discover his 'aesthetic' choices of attracting attention while giving off 'bad-ass' aura, which he pulled off excellently, for a while, until his 'aesthetic' choice went crazy on him.
He grew his hair long and tied them up in a high ponytail. However, because of his past of coming from Inuzuri, the more… 'poor' area of Rukongai, he never really learned to take care of his hair, even though he grew fond of it. He used to never really washed his hair with products due to unavailable budget at the time, and once he did have some money in his time as a shinigami, he used them on styling products that may or may not have the desired effect on his high ponytail—that signature spiky ponytail resembling a pineapple head was definitely NOT what he expected his hair to be, but what it eventually became due to improper care.
All things considered, the combination of his tattoos, his unnecessarily developed muscles, and his red hair, made him look, 'not nice', compared to the generally accepted aesthetic standards.
He didn't know where all these thoughts came from, but he definitely was considering another 'aesthetic' change, he actually was getting sick of himself, at that point.
Not drastic, but at least something that wasn't so… unsubtle.
"So… what? You want to dye your hair?" Matsumoto Rangiku lifted a skeptical eyebrow. Her right hand was loosely holding a bottle of sake as the other rested on her lap in her seated position by an open door leading to a dark and empty training ground.
In the background, Hisagi Shuuhei, Madarame Ikkaku, and Kira Izuru were seen wrestling for the last bottle of sake which was sitting precariously close to the edge of the low table. They were obviously and pathetically drunk beyond salvation, and the sun just barely set.
The five of them were lounging in the Tenth Division barracks. They invited the rest of their friends, but the ones who really had nothing to do that evening were just the five—and Matsumoto obviously always made time for drinking with her friends. Excluding Hinamori Momo who never joined in her self-deprecating state ever since Aizen's betrayal, and Rukia who didn't really join their drinking sessions anymore since Kuchiki Byakuya took it upon himself to actually care for his sister in his own overtly protective way. He deemed drinking the night away to utter intoxication an un-'noble'-like behaviour. In his exact words, "a disgraceful state for the most ignominious beings."
Renji shifted in his seat, leaning back against the sliding door frame he was also sitting by, across from the blonde lieutenant, his eyes drooped and his cheeks were slightly flushed from the chilly air and the alcohol he consumed. He scratched the back of his head and shrugged.
"Not that major," he said, his lower lip jutted out in contemplation, "I was thinking of… maybe my tattoo?"
"You realise your tattoo is all over your body? That's NOT major?" the Tenth Division lieutenant snorted incredulously. She was not as drunk as anybody else in the room, except for maybe Renji who was still holding his third cup of sake, but she was drunk enough—or maybe it was just her personality—to reach for the opening of Renji's white yukata and yanked it open to reveal the rest of his tattoos.
Renji glared and pushed her grubby hand away, pushing her back to her place across the open door as she giggled in a drunken haze, slurring "don't be shy Ren-chan~" as she did whenever she got tipsy enough. Renji hated that nickname.
"Obviously I didn't mean those, Rangiku-san," he snapped, shrugging his yukata back in place and tightening the sash. He then untied the white headband covering his forehead and pointed at the intricate tribal tattoo on his forehead.
"I meant these. I thought maybe having these things right on my face is a bit too much for some people, so I was thinking of removing it."
Matsumoto blinked lazily and brought her fingers to her chin, stroking it in a caricature of an old man deep in thought.
"Why do you even care, anyway? You never thought about those things before," she finally said, waving the half-empty bottle of sake to Renji's direction.
"Of course not," the redhead huffed, "'s just tha' 'm gettin' bored with this 'scary image' I made fo' myself, ya know, I wan' try somethin' new but I wan' do it lil' bit at a time ta see if it's good or nah," Renji explained, his slurred voice courtesy of chugging the entire cup of sake he was holding, making his sloppy Rukongai accent showed through the years of perfecting his pronunciation.
"Yer not 'scary, Renji, yer cuddly~" the busty lieutenant drawled as she tried once again to huggle her fellow lieutenant. Renji pushed her head back with his hand as he drew his body as far away from the dangerous woman as possible.
"Stop it, Rangiku-san! And you know what I meant, don't you dare lie," the redhead managed to force the words out as he was pushed to the floor by the strong and drunken lieutenant. Matsumoto sobered a bit and pulled away to look at her colleague in the eye. Renji eyed her suspiciously as he inconspicuously tried to pull away from the drunken blonde's reach.
Matsumoto hummed at that and shrugged her shoulders.
"Well It's yer decision, Ren-chan, I mean—"
"What wha-at, whatcha mumblin' an' bumblin' 'bout o'er 'ere huh?"
Suddenly Renji was glomped by a very intoxicated Hisagi Shuuhei, his face was so close that Renji had to wrinkle his nose in disgust when the man breathed his stinking, alcohol-ridden breath on Renji.
"Get off, Hisagi-san!" Renji groaned, pushing the heavily intoxicated lieutenant's face away from him, squishing it to the floor. After a while, a loud snore could be heard.
Matsumoto was guffawing at Hisagi Shuuhei's embarrassing state; his head was to the floor with his lips squished by the side of his face, making him look like a fish, his entire body was still in a kneeling position from his previous attempt at glomping Renji, his arms sprawled in front of his head while his butt was high in the air. All in all, a good blackmail moment.
Unfortunately for Hisagi, Matsumoto always carries a spare camera, courtesy of Shinigami Women's Association. A drunk but still semi-alert Kira Izuru added to that by pulling out a permanent black marker from his sleeve.
The morning after, Abarai Renji was spotted fumbling over his uniform as he jumped and skipped across the roofs of Seireitei. Fellow shinigami who were doing their own business, running errands for their supervising officers and whatnots, stopped to look at what was causing the commotion on the rooftops.
Captain Kuchiki is going to kill me, worse yet, he's gonna give me half of his paperwork on top of mine! the redhead thought as he clumsily tied his hair on top of his head in its signature ponytail, albeit slightly skewed to the left side of his head. He didn't notice the looks he was receiving for the noises he was causing early in the morning.
"Morning, Captain!" Renji almost shouted as he skidded in front of the door to his and his captain's joint office, very nearly slamming the door open.
Safe! he thought, looking at the clock hanged on the wall beside his captain's desk.
Kuchiki Byakuya remained silent as he signed a piece of paper containing a maternity leave permission for one of his unseated subordinate. Apparently, her partner in field missions was also her partner in bed. It was the third time he signed a maternity leave just that morning. Had he been a lesser man, he would roll his eyes and snort in annoyance. As the nobility he was, the raven-haired captain simply furrowed his brows. He had to establish some rules on office affairs, it would seem.
The captain noticed that his loud-mouthed lieutenant was still standing in front of the door by the lack of clumsy footsteps to the lieutenant's designated work station.
"Would you rather stand there all day looking like an idiot, or come and actually do your share of the work, lieutenant?" he deadpanned while picking up another piece of paperwork. The Captain-Commander was entrusting a joint-training between his unseated officers and the Sixth's to Byakuya's capable hands, it would seem.
"Oh! Yes, sorry Captain," the redhead said sheepishly and stepped into the office. He sighed and grabbed a piece of paper from the already towering paperwork to be done that day. He just barely made it in time, but he could see that his captain was already working on his paperwork for a while, judging from the number of papers on the 'signed' tray.
Ever the workaholic, Renji thought, almost grumbling under his breath at the lack of care his captain gave on his own personal life to constantly work all the damn time. Renji bet on his homemade lunchbox that the Head of the Kuchiki household hadn't even had a proper breakfast, and Renji loved his lunchbox.
Around an hour passed by as both the officers worked through their paperwork in silence, until a particularly familiar sound could be heard.
Groo—wwl!
The red-headed lieutenant turned his head so swiftly that he thought he heard his neck cracked.
Silence.
On his desk, Kuchiki Byakuya's cheeks reddened, before he coughed into his fist and composed himself.
"You didn't eat breakfast, did you captain?" Renji asked, exasperated but amusement could be detected from the twinkle in his eyes and the smirk almost breaking through his facade. He looked at the clock, still a few hours before lunchtime.
Kuchiki Byakuya almost blushed again, which he turned into a sharp glare instead, but paused seeing his lieutenant ruffling through his cluttered desk.
"A-ha," the redhead muttered as he found a pink cloth wrapped box underneath the messy papers and brushes on his desk.
The captain narrowed his eyes as his lieutenant got up and walked to his workspace.
"What are—"
"Here ya go, captain,"
Renji put down the wrapped box on a clean surface of his captain's desk. The Kuchiki looked at the redhead with one of his sharp eyebrows lifted delicately.
"It's my lunchbox, you can have it," Renji looked pointedly at the box sitting innocently on his captain's desk, the white flower pattern on the pink wrapping cloth daring the raven to not open it.
Seeing that his captain still looked skeptical, if not jarred in surprise at his lieutenant's offering, Renji sighed and untied the cloth, revealing a lacquered cherrywood box, stacked in two separate layers. The lacquered lid decorated intricately with a flowering cherry blossom trunk, its mother of pearl petals twinkling in the sunlight that shone into the office.
"Food, captain," the redhead said simply, opening the lid.
The Sixth Division captain looked at the food revealed within the box and almost gasped. His stomach rumbled in protest looking at the glistening and beautifully arranged lunchbox. The top layer consisted of umeboshi rice, a quarter of the space on the left reserved for golden, sweet omelette rolls and steamed broccoli. He watched in silent anticipation as his lieutenant lifted the top layer to reveal the second box underneath. His mouth watered at the sight, bite-sized pieces of cutely decorated sausage octopi (octopuses? Byakuya couldn't be bothered to remember the proper term), glazed chicken fillet bites wrapped in perilla leaves and skewered one by one into perfection, and a side of root vegetable salad. It was enough for his stomach to rumble once again, demanding him to put those delicious morsels into his mouth and down his gut.
"There, no suspicious stuff going on, as you can see. Just a normal lunchbox," Renji huffed. His captain was still looking silently at the boxes laid out on his desk, his right hand was still clutching on the brush he was using to sign his paperwork with, albeit the ink was steadily dripping on the paper. The raven-haired captain was still as a statue, as if contemplating whether he should use his ink-laden brush or the food-filled containers to throw on his lieutenant's head.
"Did you make it yourself, Lieutenant Abarai?" the Kuchiki finally inquired, eyeing the food spread out on his desk idly.
"Well yeah, I figured since yesterday was the weekend I got some time to prepare for today's lunch…"
The red hair watched as his captain went silent once more. Unbeknownst to him, his captain was silently at war with himself. On one hand, he was pleasantly surprised that his lieutenant can cook, a skill that slipped past Byakuya's noble fingers time and time again on his quest to surprise his late wife and Rukia's older sister, Hisana—rest in peace sweet love, not to mention he was rather hungry and felt like he could eat a whole boar—not that he would do such a crass thing. On the other hand, his noble upbringing—which made him more prissy and arrogant than most people would deem normal at times—told him to refuse such… 'commoner' offering the lunchbox was.
But he was so very famished, and the food within the lunchbox was extremely invigorating to his saliva and teased his nostrils with its sweet perfume that likened the lunchbox to a well laid out feast on a holiday dinner. It looked exquisite enough, and it was homemade, rather than one of those 'convenience' lunch boxes bought from common shops in Rukongai, something he'd rather die than being caught buying.
During his silent contemplation, unfortunately, his lieutenant was rather short on him, and the fact that his expression looked like he just saw someone harassing his beloved little sister in front of him didn't help the matter.
"If you don't want it then I'll take it out of your hands," the redhead moved to retrieve his lunchbox, annoyance clear in his voice at his jerk of a captain. It was a simple lunchbox, okay, but his captain didn't have to be so condescending about it that he kept staring at the food in disdain!
A hand shot up to still his wrist.
Renji blinked and looked at his captain, who was looking particularly concentrated at an area somewhere above the redhead's eyes.
"Did you do something to your tattoos, Abarai?"
Renji's eyes grew at the random topic change and snatched his wrist from his captain's cold hand, fingering his red eyebrow.
"Uh… yeah, I did," Renji mumbled sheepishly. His captain was bound to notice, but he didn't expect to feel so naked when someone looked. And he opted out of his usual headband too, so he was kind of hoping for people to notice.
...
After going home from the Tenth Division barracks the night before, he stood in front of the small mirror in his bathroom, contemplating his option on what he confessed to Matsumoto Rangiku earlier that night. Hie tried to picture having a different coloured hair, as the strawberry blonde lieutenant suggested in passing, but couldn't imagine getting rid of the colour he had grown to love over the years. He considered cutting his hair, but as he twisted a lock of hair in front of his face and running his fingers through them, he decided he couldn't let go of his hair. Maybe a more proper hair care was due, but he definitely wouldn't change his hair.
He pursed his lips and untied his white headband from his forehead.
Yeah this is definitely over the top, Renji thought, grimacing. He didn't even remember what he was thinking when he went and got that first tattoo on his brows. Didn't imagine he would actually tattoo across his whole forehead. Rukia even made fun of it once. After several decades of having those tattoos on his forehead, Renji had taken into wearing headgears or headbands as his latest fashion preference. So having those tattoos there was rather redundant now that the redhead thought it over. Not to mention the exaggerated widow's peak that was once a tight hairline. He decided to get to work if he wanted to have at least a few hours of sleep, rather than tossing in his bed feeling anxious about it all night.
...
"Go back to your station, lieutenant, your work awaits," with that Renji snapped out of his musing, he fumbled over his words before nodding and scrambled back to his desk, vaguely disappointed that his captain didn't even comment on his new look other than the initial inquiry.
As he was getting ready to work on the next document, his head almost shot up indignantly as he remembered that his under-appreciated lunchbox was still left on his captain's desk. The redhead bowed over the paper he was working on and peeked under his lashes to his captain's station. His eyes widen at the sight.
Kuchiki Byakuya, his cold-hearted and holier-than-thou captain was plopping (plopping!) a piece of sausage octopus to his mouth as he was reading a document, and then signing it with a brush on his left hand (that multi-talented captain of his was ambidextrous, for Soul King's sake!), while his right hand, which was holding the chopsticks, was reaching for a piece of sweet omelette roll. Renji felt his stomach did the happy dance when he saw his captain closed his eyes in bliss as he chewed on the morsels of food.
He smiled and puffed out a quiet laugh under his breath and went back to finish his papers.
Definitely need to have him bring food to the office more often, the 28th Head of the esteemed Kuchiki Family, one of the Four Pillars of Soul Society, Captain of the Sixth Division Squad mused as he devoured his red-headed lieutenant's homemade lunchbox in barely contained delight.
- to be continued -
Additional notes:
Reiatsu-imbued tattoo: A popular way for shinigami to get an essentially permanent ink work. Conventional tattooing method works well, but may fade over time or get removed when the skin is sustaining damage or injuries, which happens a lot when you're working in a military organization that is extremely active in terms of fights and battles like the Gotei 13. With this new method, the ink is embedded in to the shinigami's reiryoku layer on their skin using a special inking needle that releases small pulses of reiatsu. This makes it possible for the tattoo to remain when the skin sustains and heals from injuries, since the tattoo is 'needled' into the shinigami's reiryoku layer and not the skin itself. It can only be removed when the bearer or the tattoo artist specifically releases their reiatsu to 'attack' the foreign reiatsu embedded in the bearer's reiryoku, or when the whole reiryoku layer on the shinigami's skin is completely gone, which can only mean the shinigami's death.
Removal:
Removing ink work created using this method requires a significantly large amount of patience and precision in one's control of his/her reiatsu, due to the fact that the removal process involves 'needling' out the foreign reiatsu out of their reiryoku layer in a similar way that they were needled in by the tattoo artist, only this time without the use of the special reiatsu needle. it is done by carving one's reiatsu needle-thin within the perimeter of their reiryoku layer and pushing it out in accordance with the location of the tattoo, doing this multiple times until all the foreign reiatsu has been removed completely, or as desired. This process may take several hours to weeks depending on the amount of inkwork needed to be removed. Due to the complicated process, only those with refined control of their reiatsu can comfortably do this process on their own. At a small fortune, a shinigami could also hire the tattoo artist's expertise to remove the ink work for them. Some shinigami claimed that the process is like pricking the skin with thorns or plucking facial hair near the brows area. The skin may be reddened for several hours after removal.
Special property(s):
Using this tattooing method on an area of the skin that is not bare, such as the hairline area or an old rough scar, would diminish the 'obstructing' object wherever the tattoo is needled in, also one of the reasons why this method was popular among scar riddled war veterans of the Gotei 13. Lieutenant Abarai Renji, for example, requested his forehead tattoo to go high up and tapered into a sharp point on both sides of his hairline, removing the hair obstructing the reiryoku needle for as long as the tattoo was not removed, creating his signature widow's peak. Upon removal of the tattoo, the 'object' would gradually go back to its original appearance before the tattoo was present, over the course of a few hours up to several days, depending on the size.
Cost:
Since this method requires the use of reiryoku, and it comes with some more appealing properties than a conventional tattoo, the charging fee of getting a tattoo using this method is very high compared to the conventional method. Someone in the position of an unseated officer may get an entire arm tattoo at the cost of a year of salary, while lieutenants such as Abarai Renji confessed that it took him three decades to complete his whole body tattoo, considering the design and work area were particularly unique. Over time, the cost may lower as better procedures are developed to reduce errors and increase efficiency, or new tattooing methods are discovered.
Reiryoku: spiritual energy within an individual, human or spirit. A human with higher than average reiryoku can sense or even see spirits, and may develop spiritual powers and abilities. A spirit that has higher than average reiryoku may apply to Shino Academy to become a shinigami/soul reaper to further refine and develop their spiritual prowess. Reiryoku acts like a spiritual immune system, existing within one's core and as a layer on top of their skin; the stronger reiryoku someone possesses, the more strength and stamina they possess, and the more durable they become to both internal (i.e. less susceptible to illness and toxins) and external damage (i.e. blunt and sharp force trauma).
Reiatsu: the physical manifestation of an individual's reiryoku. It can appear in different forms, such as simple auras emitted by an individual, and can be manipulated into deadly battle moves or even wound-healing, life-saving energy.
Umeboshi: Japanese pickled plum, usually paired with rice in a lunch box (bento) or rice balls (onigiri). Has a distinct, extremely sour and salty flavor. It is an acquired taste for foreigners.
Weekends in Gotei 13: shinigami still attend to their duties on weekends, as they are a combat-ready military organisation. However, since day-to-day and administrative workflow are usually fewer and less intense on the weekends than any other days, some shinigami—of particularly higher ranks—may be excused off their work if they are deemed completed for the day. However, infantry personnel is readily on standby 24/7, and ranked officers are constantly connected by hell butterflies or soul pagers.
*note: Shinigami on missions are not permitted off duty until their missions are completed and reports are submitted.