HALCYON DAYS
Volume One: Reap What You Soul
Chapter One
Nestled in a nondescript cliffside on the Seireitei's northeastern flank was a cemetery reserved for Gotei lieutenants who had perished in action. It housed dozens of gravesites, attesting to the high casualty rate for high-ranking officers. Byakuya Kuchiki's father rested there, along with Kaien Shiba. The latest casualty to be interred was Momo Hinamori.
Tōshirō Hitsugaya sat before her grave, knees scrunched up against his chest and eyes fixated on the epitaph inscribed on her shrine.
Momo Hinamori – Dedicated Subordinate and Unwitting Pawn.
Needless to say, Hitsugaya hadn't chosen the epitaph. It was dictated by the nobles who always had a hand in shaping the legacies of high-ranking Gotei officers. They clearly wanted to communicate a message: serve your superiors loyally, but never more loyally than the overall Gotei 13. Hinamori's judgment had been clouded by her infatuation with Sōsuke Aizen and she lost her way. The authors had not officially condemned her a traitor, but they could not resist humiliating her. One last insult added to the pile.
Hitsugaya missed her horribly, but he hadn't managed to summon any tears for her yet. He felt lousy about it; she deserved tears.
There was a tremulous pulse across the ground: a member of the Inner Court Troop had flash-stepped behind the captain.
"Captain Hitsugaya, the Captain-Commander has called for you," the messenger announced with a dutiful bow. "He is convening a meeting between all captains."
Hitsugaya's turquoise eyes narrowed in annoyance. He let out a heavy sigh, his breath blasting out in frigid wafts.
"I'll be there," he replied.
The messenger felt a frail crunch beneath his feet and realized that the whole ground was crackling with ice. Hitsugaya's power was seeping out from him and blanketing everything in chill. It was unnerving, as if the captain was externalizing the despondence he felt inside. With nary another word, the emissary hurriedly disappeared in a flash.
Hitsugaya got back up on his feet and gazed wistfully down at Hinamori's shrine.
"I will make it right," he promised.
Frost seeped out from his beneath feet and surged across the ground, reaching Hinamori's shrine and crawling up its face to obscure that horrid epitaph.
Aizen will pay, Momo, Hitsugaya swore.
"HOLLOW! HOLLOW!"
Ichigo Kurosaki was sitting on his bed, trying in vain to focus on homework while his Shinigami Deputy badge blared out yet another alert that a Hollow had been detected in Karakura Town. The medallion was hanging off his bedpost, buzzing like a pager.
You've gotta be kidding me.
He had already dealt with a Hollow that afternoon; a nighttime slaying seemed excessive. After a summer spent fighting his way through Soul Society, the least he could do was finish his homework from the first day of school.
"HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW!"
"Alright, I got the message!" the Strawberry barked back at the badge, his face turning pink. "Enough already. Sheesh."
He leaned over and snatched the badge up, the purposeful contact with the placard bursting him out from his human body. Now in his spiritual form, clad in Shihakushō and only visible to those with spiritual awareness, he rove his neck to work out a crick.
The top shelf of Ichigo's dresser slotted open and up popped Kon with his lion plushie face, a patch of stuffing protruding from his cartoonishly leonine features. He had been hiding in haughty protest after Ichigo failed to enlist Uryū Ishida to patch him up.
"Hey! If you're gonna leave me looking hideous like this, then at least put me in –"
Ichigo smacked his badge square against Kon's face, prompting the plushie to upchuck the Gikonkan marble that contained his Modified Soul. Ichigo picked up the Soul Candy and plunked it down into his corpse's mouth, prompting the vessel to reanimate with Kon's dazed articulation.
"Yeah, yeah, quit it with the pouting," Ichigo sighed. "I told you already: Uryū's busy tonight, but he promised to patch you up before school tomorrow. Now stay out of trouble until I get back."
He wasn't actually sure whether Uryū was in fact busy; all he knew was that the Quincy blew him off at school when he asked for a favor. After all they had been through together, the jerk better have been busy to be that brusque.
Kon rubbed a hand through Ichigo's spiky hair and let out a relieved sigh.
"Much better," he grinned. "Just don't get yourself killed out there... at least until you fix my other vessel."
Ichigo, readying to leap out from the windowsill, looked back at Kon with a skeptical glare.
"Yeah, you'd really hate that, right?" the Strawberry muttered sarcastically. "If I got myself killed, wouldn't that just mean you get to stay in my body forever?"
Kon shot him an incredulous look in response.
"What?" the Mod Soul cried, shocked by the ignorance of his master. "It doesn't work like that. If you die, your body dies, too."
Ichigo's brow perked up, surprised by the information.
"But I thought... when my Chain of Fate...?"
"Until your meat sleeve goes completely kablooey, you're still tied to it," Kon clarified. "It'll stop functioning when your soul kicks the bucket. If that happens, it'll spit me out and start to rot. If you die, your body dies, too. Got it?"
"Huh, well then I guess I can stop worrying about you trying to bump me off and assume my identity," Ichigo grinned. "Alright, you just hang around until I get back. Later!"
With that, he flew off into the night, leaving Kon to stay put.
As if I'd actually wanna be stuck in this carrot-headed body forever, the Mod Soul frowned. Why couldn't I have been swallowed by a chick magnet? Like that Chad guy – now there's a vessel I could get comfortable in...
"Haaaaaaaaaah!" Orihime Inoue sighed happily, sticking her nose into a ramen bowl for a savory sniff.
She split apart her chopsticks and dipped them inside, fluffing up the noodles and letting the steam rise out in sensual wafts. Her heart swelled with gratitude.
"Thank you so much, Tatsuki-chan!" she cooed. "You weren't lying: this is the loveliest-looking ramen I've ever seen..."
Tatsuki Arisawa had suggested the restaurant and even preemptively offered to pay for their meal. Her treat. She sat back and watched while Orihime slurped back a hearty clump of noodles.
"Slurp!... Oh my!" Orihime squealed, the savory broth sending her tastebuds up to heaven. "That's really something!"
"Told ya," Tatsuki smirked, scooping up some noodles and taking her own slurp. "So, Orihime... slurp!... how's about you tell me what you and Ichigo and Chad and Ishida were up to this summer?"
"Eh?" Orihime blushed, turning a shade of pink. "What do you mean –?"
Tatsuki nonchalantly reached over with her chopsticks and clamped Orihime's lips shut.
"Don't play dumb, Orihime," Tatsuki advised while dexterously holding the squirming Inoue's mouth in a supreme grip. "The four of you went off on 'different vacations' this summer, only to come back to school a close-knit unit? You're hiding something, and I'm not gonna put up with secrets between us."
"Mhmmmmwaaaaahahahammmmhhh!" Orihime squealed, struggling to wriggle her puckers out from their vice-like trap. She cast a pleading look. Tatsuki, after waiting a few seconds, finally relented and drew her chopsticks back.
"Okay, okay," Orihime sighed, gingerly patting her lips and wishing she could just dunk her face into her ramen and hide. "But you have to promise to keep it a secret..."
While Uryū Ishida was out for a stroll to clear his head, he gradually became certain that a Hollow was hunting him.
All alone while trodding through a dimly-lit corner of Karakura Town, he felt something with malicious intent lurking above. He cut into an alleyway and hugged the wall, slowly peering his bespectacled eyes up at the skyline. There was a rotund shadow prowling overhead. It was a Hollow, he was sure of it. He may have lost his Quincy powers, but thankfully he could still see Hollows.
Why is this one singling me out? Uryū wondered, a bead of sweat running down his temple. I don't have Reiatsu anymore to distinguish myself from anybody else, but this guy's been stalking me for several blocks now. If it wanted to attack from the jump, it could have. But instead it's just following me.
There was only one conclusion: the Hollow could somehow tell that Uryū was a Quincy, but it wasn't sure whether he had lost his powers or was just suppressing his Reiatsu.
If it becomes certain that I've lost my Quincy craft, I'm a dead man.
"Quincy looks yum-yum," Bloodmaw grunted, greedily huffing Uryū's scent from afar.
The Hollow was a globular array of teeth standing on two bent haunches, like a lumpy jellybean with insectoid legs. He was bleached white with black stripes arraying his fleshy paunch and tiny yellow eyes tucked behind flaring nostrils.
The scent of Quincy Reikyō flitted through Bloodmaw's censors. He snorted with excitement, savoring the taste.
"I wish I could smell it," Bloodfang piped up. "Quincy blood run thick."
"I get first bite!" Bloodmaw greedily proclaimed, breaking into a serrated grin.
"Just leave morsel this time, Maw..." Bloodgums lamented.
Bloodfang and Bloodgums were two fleshy mounds pulsating from Bloodmaw's back, resembling barnacles with teeth. They chomped aimlessly at the air, desperate for any leftovers their primary mouth might give them.
Bloodmaw's endless tongue flickered out and licked across his fangs.
"You can each get arm and a leg," the Hollow declared with guttural relish. "But I eat Quincy's heart."
