Disclaimer: The ideas and concepts used in BLEACH belong to Tite Kubo, as well as any regular characters. Most of the characters in this story belong to me. Thank you.
To keep madness sealed away was the only remaining answer. In order to cure Ishin of his madness, of his sword's bloodlust, Rei sealed it all away. She contained the powerful aura in the swords and did her best to absolve Ishin's ailing mind of its memories. She would make sure he could no longer recall that night of horror, when his family died under his own deathly strokes, and let him live a serene life with her. She would shoulder their deaths for him, knowing that a man such as Ishin, a soldier removed from the war, was incapable of shouldering anything anymore.
In time, the powerful aura suppressed within Ishin's blades had warped them. They were no longer the clean cleavers they were, but blunt and stone-like, as if hammered from the natural elements with crude and primitive techniques. Their monstrosity had taken a new shape and depth, and their influence of madness had become tenfold amplified. Thankfully, they stayed out of Ishin's grasp. They were sealed within his own body, within kido-crafted shells of binding paper. To keep them there, Rei took a drastic step in her curing of Ishin's body and embarked on a forbidden practice. To cross the threshold that separates a shinigami from his element, to allow the reiatsu to dissolve into the natural world so much was a sinful process. However, after crossing so many thresholds already, Rei never thought of the taboo she enacted and made Ishin's body like clay.
The swords within him never spoke. Ishin's mind was thrown back to his youth, before his swords had ever manifested, an innocent and naïve child. Without a mother or father, Ishin was declared an orphan of war and lived in the wing with the others as the biggest and strongest. He saw himself, though, as simply himself. A short, young boy with auburn hair and bright eyes, rather than the murderous giant he had become. The children around him feared him and the soldiers all pitied him. He was trapped, unaware, between the worlds of innocence and irrevocable horror. He was living one while having forgotten the other, trying to pass himself off for a kid in a world full of soldiers and beasts.
However, none could argue that he wasn't happy. Somehow, despite all that he had experienced, he managed to forget it all and negate all his memories. He lived in the manor with Rei and all her guards and staff and all the others whom she had taken in as if it were his own born home, and he was always happy about it. He would go to the garden and play in the flowers. He would sneak out into the forest and run around until he got tired. He was a jovial, care-free boy again, and each time his simple ways led him to a fault Rei would be there to dote on him. They were like sister and kid brother, or even like mother and son sometimes. She shouldered the weight from him of his family, and replaced it outright eventually.
One day, all that weight seemed lifted. A group of men claiming to be officials of the Seireitei's military government came, having heard that a warrior of theirs had somehow wound up under Rei's care. She did not deny anything and showed them to Ishin. As he was a child in mind and an orphan of war, Rei declined his ability to serve in any further fighting. His swords were gone, after all. His time as a soldier was gone. The officials argued for his safety, given the report of events that had led to his family's death. After much consideration, Rei relinquished control of Ishin and let him be led away by a man under the name of Guy Rose. She hadn't heard from him again until after Shin arrived, when news of a man of Ishin's exact description were filling the tales of widespread terror in a far-off land of the region.
To know that the one she cared for had been thrown back into the hellfires of war, and that he again chose to be thrust into the pit after meeting with a single man.....
In the calmness of the evening, Rei opened her eyes and looked out into a clearing behind the mansion. A field of stones, all marks for bodies never buried, lay before her. She looked down to the three closest to its edge and knelt down in prayer. Her solemn mood paid a graceful respect to the deceased of Ishin's life. His innocence was likewise buried with his family, as now he existed as Jin, a warrior once again. Despite all her efforts to take the fight out of him, fighting found him and rebirthed him as a warrior again.
"Feeling down?" asked a voice as light as the breeze. Rei looked over and stood from her spot. Her confidante, the man cloaked in bandages from head to foot, stood near her with his arms crossed. Rei sighed and turned her head down.
"Is it fate" Rei began "which tells us what we must do? How can I save someone from being a soldier if they were born as one? Is it possible at all for me to reach to a man's heart when all he knows is the coldness of steel and the warmth of blood and fire on his flesh?"
"War is terrible" the man said. "I won't argue for it. I feel like, at this point, I can't. However, it is necessary. If it weren't, we wouldn't be stuck in the middle of one. If things could go to peace easier than war, this feudal state between the major empires wouldn't exist. Men would fight, certainly, against Hollows or each other out of boredom or spite, but there wouldn't be war if peace was our first- no, our best option." Rei kept her gaze fixed to the ground. The man understood her feelings from what he had said, but he couldn't take his words back.
"In a way" he continued "we can suppose this is all fate."
"Can we?" Rei said. "What cruel fate would allow this to happen?"
"Cruel?" the man said. "Well, he's alive, isn't he? And he's happy too. He's found a family again, one that lets him explore the grand world and expand his childish mind. In a way, I suppose finding Shin Kenpachi wasn't just a proper, graceful mission of ours. It was something we simply had to do. To keep the peace in an age of endless war is the job for a soldier who knows no limit. Shin Kenpachi could very well be our ultimate ticket to a lasting peace, couldn't he?" Rei turned toward the manor and started walking back, leaving her confidante to himself. He knew she heard him but couldn't respond.
It's a lot to take in he thought. For a woman like you to accept, nay, justify war....I hope you're not too stubborn to try. The man took a glance at the cemetery and vanished away, back to the manor with impeccable speed...
Rei returned to her manor and immediately went to the infirmary to check on the others. While Jin was healed in the cavern spring, his comrades were laid in separate rooms to heal on their own. The first Rei visited was Suichi. His palms had grown rough and calloused from the accelerated healing that the kido nurses applied but most of his body was still in a poor shape. His wounds had closed, but somehow the icy buildup all around him hadn't left. There were spots of his skin that were perpetually cold and where blood flow was minimal. The nurses knew his aura was ice, but if he was unconscious it shouldn't permeate his being as much, thus they assumed something was wrong.
He hadn't yet awoken. He was still deep in a dazed comatose state from the harrowing battle he had fought, unconsciously collecting his knowledge and sharpening his mind. Within the darkness of his soul, Suichi quietly meditated on the only length of chain that existed in the endless dark void of his spirit. It extended endlessly forward and back but coiled around nothing and led to nothing. It was an uncommon but familiar place to the assassin, and he knew how to control himself while there.
Breathe and relax Suichi thought. His soul had transferred into the body of his sword, the chained realm of Haganerensa, for safety. Breathe and relax. Slow the flow of life to a near-death point. This is the Gisei-shigai technique. Freeze the body like icy steel and wait....eventually my enemies shall leave....Suichi's meditation was deep and persistant. The spell he had brought was one that chilled his very veins and blood to flow slower and hardened his skin into a hardened, icy shell. It was a kido that controlled his body through deep concentration.
Rei saw through it and understood his caution at once. Rather than heal him quickly by using her sword, Rei attempted to connect to Suichi's mind by sitting at his bedside and concentrating on projecting her reiatsu into his sword.
Warriors will always take to their swords when scared for their life Rei thought. Suichi, you are no different. You have the sophistication of an assassin and the budding courage of a fierce warrior. Feel proud, and feel safe. Let others be your shield for the time being, because now, there are others around you with the will to protect. You are in a safe place now. Release your shell.... Rei opened her eyes to see if her communication got through. Suichi's skin started to steam and was harshly cold to the touch for a moment. Then the shell began to melt. Suichi's icy barrier of flesh started to warm up. The icy concentration gave way to sweat and a warm red burn over nearly all his skin. He was well again and the nurses rushed to help him further.
Rei left Suichi to them, knowing that they were competent in healing arts, and went into the next room to check on Hoji. She found his bed surrounded by a crowd of mostly young women and a few effeminate men.
"This guy" Hoji boasted "was beastly tall, alright? He had dark brown skin and fire-red hair, a weird looking dude, a whole half of my own body taller than me! And I punted his ass into the air, then danced around him with a flurry of punches and kicks. I blew a fierce wind into him! I must've broken nearly every bone in his huge body!"
"Wooooow!" one of the girls awed.
"Was he a strong guy?" another girl asked.
"Tch" Hoji scoffed in arrogance. "If he had wielded a real sword, then yeah, he might have even been stronger than me. But faster? Hell no! I ran around him so fast that the black of his robes meshed in with the black of the shadows. I could barely even see him, I was moving so fast! But right when I got up close to him I could see his face, all stupid and surprised, and I kicked it! I kicked him so many times I can't even remember how many!"
"You're so manly, Hoji" one of the men with pouting lips said. He scooted his way up from the crowd and brought a hand up to feel Hoji's mostly-bandaged shoulder. "Oooo!" he said. "You're muscles are still so hard!"
"What can I say?" Hoji said, feeling proud of another man's admiration while being totally oblivious to his true intent. "I'm just the kind of guy who's undaunted by fatigue, you know?"
"So what happened after you beat him?" another girl asked.
"Well" Hoji began, "after I drove his giant ass into the ground, one of his buddies came out of the woods and started swinging a glowing sword at me! Turns out, he was after Suichi since Suichi'd run away from their fight when he was losing. I couldn't just let him kill my friend, you know, so I challenged him to test his power against me. Even with my wind-powered fists and feet, this kid's sword was simply no match! He swung his sword around and around, like he couldn't even wield the damn thing, and I just ducked and dodged it! But then, just as I was about to start up a real brawl, right when I was ready to kick this new guy's ass, I felt this big blast of energy. I took Suichi outta there and met up with Jin. Anyway...who wants to hear about my battle again?"
"Oooh!" a girl called, raising her hand. "Hoji, what was the name of that super-attack you did?"
"Hmm?" Hoji grunted. "Oh yeah! My up-until-then ultimate move. It was.....erm, wait a sec. It was all sort of spur-of-the-moment for me."
"Joushou Toraou Bokusatsu-Kiba Shouri Ouda" said Rei. The room turned to her and all of her staff respectfully bowed. Hoji looked around at them and was stricken suddenly with realization.
"Ah! That was it!" he exclaimed. "Nice memory, Rei! I'm glad I told you first or I would've forgotten about it entirely!"
"You never told me" Rei said "but you do tend to talk about your battles in your sleep." Hoji was suddenly silent from shame. His pupils had shrunken back and nearly faded into the whites of his eyes out of embarrassed shock.
"......tch?"
"I'd like you to accompany me somewhere" Rei explained. "Please, get dressed and meet me outside the infirmary." Hoji nodded and scrambled underneath his bed covers to try and find a semblance of clothing.
"Uh, where are my clothes?" Hoji asked. Rei left the room and waited outside the hall of healers with a very serious and stern air about her. When Hoji finally joined her, wearing only the pants he managed to find and carrying his sheathe and broken sword at his side, he felt a great gravity in her face. There was something in Rei's eyes, half-drawn with worry and pity, that told him something was wrong. Some kind of trouble had become apparent.
"Please come with me" Rei said. "I cannot penetrate the barrier around his room alone."
"We going to see....Shin?" Hoji asked. Rei nodded. Hoji sighed. "Alright, lead on." Suddenly, the fear and emotion left him. He became just as stern and serious as she. Rei led on, through the manor, to its central room, the greatest point of spiritual concentration in the entire estate. A sacred room that only a privileged few had been able to access: the Unohana Laboratory.
The Unohana name had been spread throughout most of the world as the first and foremost authority on the knowledge of Hollows. It was Rei's own father who had first pioneered the research to understand the nature of Hollows and observed their creation in the Human World. His reports led others to understand fully what Hollows truly were: corrupt human souls. Those ghosts who died and left great attachment to the world were bound by chains of fate to their graves and left to stir and fester in their own miserable emotion until their grief and anger invited a mass of monstrous change to their form. Once a human soul had been taken to the depths of darkness, to the Hueco Mundo where all Hollows spawn, it became a monstrosity that fed on the innocent souls that wandered about.
The role of the shinigami in this Golden Age of power is divided according to the kingdom from which a shinigami hails. All are expected to participate in war, but many are also expected to go out into the human world and perform soul burials, or konso. The warring regions managed to train their shinigami in such a way that their konso would result in the saved human soul being reincarnated as a shinigami within the reaches of their own kingdom. A shinigami of the Seireitei would absolve a soul and bring them, sans their human memories, directly to the Seireitei. The ability to do such a thing, to specific-region konso, had been researched by Rei's father and perfected by her mother.
The realization that Hollows, when killed, reveal and dissolve the souls of the humans they used to be, never fazed the warriors who hunted them. Most though they were doing so on a righteous zeal to complete the cruel circle of reincarnation. However, many regions faced dissonance with each other regarding the exact terms of soul revival into their world. The Seireitei believed that absolute order under a properly governed authority was needed if there was to remain a visible balance between both worlds. However, others just wanted to take as many souls as they could to amass their own armies while killing off Hollows as sport. The leaders of such empires were branded by others, specifically those allied with the Seireitei, as barbaric and purely fanatical. No standard has yet to stay between all different peoples. Many mistakes can sometimes be made, and the methods between shinigami are never the same.
Somehow, the Unohana Estate is able to exist as a haven for the war while being an inherited part of how it had worsened over the years.
The nexus of all of the Unohana's efforts to understand the spiritual world was a forbidden zone on most occasions. Rei herself rarely went there due to the obligations she held with the rest of the mansion and estate as an orphanage and place of rest for the injured and decommissioned soldiers. It was guarded, just like any other important room, at all times. Beyond the doors, however, was an arcane area that seemed removed from the rest of the mansion all-together. Rei and Hoji approached the door, locked and holding back a dangerous aura, together.
"You put Shin back there?" Hoji asked. "What for?"
"The spiritual concentration" Rei began "or reiatsu is higher there than any part of the countryside. It's the best place to bring someone back to life, if that is at all possible."
"Tch" Hoji scoffed. The guards parted their way from the doors as Rei opened them. Even they had no desire to bear witness to the contents of what they guarded. Rei opened a gate to darkness, it seemed. Whatever room was beyond, Hoji couldn't see it through a thick mask of darkness.
"Stay close" Rei said. She entered the darkness, disappearing as if swallowed by a thick, black mist.
"Hey, wait up!" Hoji said. He entered the darkness as well and stopped mid-step.
Holy hell Hoji thought. My heart, my chest, my legs....this is weird. I'm stunned with pure fear! This place is like stepping into the realm of Hell!
"Come" Rei said. Hoji heard her somewhere nearby but couldn't see her. As he looked around, he realized that he couldn't even see past his abs. It was too dark, and the darkness was too thick.
"What are we walking toward?" Hoji asked.
"A spiritual field" Rei said. "What you're walking through right now is a lingering of preserved reiatsu from roughly a hundred dead Hollows."
"Tch" Hoji scoffed in fear. "That explains why I feel like the air is trying to kill me! How is this the best place for Shin to rest?"
"That feeling" Rei explained "is not simply one of fear. It is one of healing. The lingering reiatsu is forcing its way into your body to repair the injured reiatsu that you are composed of. It feels strange because it is technically a conglomeration of entities that are fusing with your body and soul, becoming a part of you. A collection of discontinuous beasts, mindless and dumb, allowing their bodies to be breathed like air."
"That's sick" Hoji said. Suddenly, he was hit with a blast of white and jolted forward. He ran into Rei and fell backwards. Half of his body scrambled within the pure darkness while the other half tried to scramble back out. He got a grip on the floor and stood up to look around. Before him was a walled room with a roof, like a small royal abode. It was surrounded by an elevated floor and connected by four separate walkways that led over the black mist that gathered on the ground. Hoji looked up but could see only darkness. He tried to feel the wind of nature blowing, as even through the thick darkness he could hear the wind rustling leaves from outside, but he felt nothing.
"Are we inside right now?" Hoji asked.
"Yes" Rei answered. She had already gone further ahead and was at the entrance to the house. Hoji rushed up and followed her as she went in. Hoji entered the room and looked about as Rei shut the door.
There were scrolls hung everywhere. The very interior of the building seemed to be made of well-preserved scrolls that supported the roof and held fast to the floor. Whole rows were scrolls of incantations that exuded a powerful light. Others were charts, writings, drawings, notes, information; a whole house of pure knowledge. In the center there was an arrangement of tables. From the ground Hoji could tell what shape they were placed in mind for: a Madala, an eternal symbol of power. On each outer table he could see something resting. On the closest one, a sword that held a terribly powerful aura. It was Shikei. On another outer table, Shin's clothes were fully repaired and folded well. On the table across from the clothes Hoji saw a scroll that was rolled out that was pulsing with its own energy. Then, across from Shikei, Hoji saw Shin lying in rest with his back firm to the table.
"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "He looks like he's doing okay. I'm...shocked, honestly."
"His condition was critical" Rei said "but this way he'll be able to recover in virtually no time at all."
"I'm actually surprised that Hollows aren't attracted to this place" Hoji said. "I mean, Tch! There's enough energy here for a Hollow to eat so that he'd never have to eat again, right?"
"No quite" Rei said. "Hollows do eat other Hollows on rare occasion, but for a different reason than simple hunger. Hollows eat human souls and shinigami to fill the void of despair in their hearts that made them into monsters. Eventually, they lose sight of ailing their sorrow and focus only on consuming, becoming mindless and ferocious beasts hellbent on nothing but finding their next potential meal. At that point, Hollows start to eat other Hollows, constantly adding to their own spiritual bodies, until a Gillian is formed." The image of a Gillian came into Hoji's mind at once. The terrible, huge being that Shin had once slain.
Those things Hoji thought are a bunch of Hollows put together? Some kind of super giant-Hollow?
"Gillians are truly mindless" Rei explained. "They simply exist somewhere in Hueco Mundo, removed from the normal environment of Hollows, totally numb and devoid of all thought. They are, however, very powerful. As they are the conglomeration of hundreds of different Hollows, their consciousness is a stream of chaos and incoherence. However, some Gillians can exist with a specific personality, a very dominating drive left as a remnant from one of the Hollows that went into its forming, and gain a minor degree of consciousness. They then eat other Gillians and ascend to the rank of the Adjuchas, ascended Hollows that take a more beastly form than regular Hollows. The Adjuchas exist in a constant struggle for survival, for if one goes to long without devouring another of its kind with substantial spiritual energy, it permenantly devolves back into a Gillian."
"And just how did you figure all that out?" Hoji asked.
"You've seen a Gillian before, correct?" Rei asked. Hoji nodded. "They were giants wearing pitch black with bone-white faces and long, pointed noses."
"It was just one, but yeah" Hoji said. "Aren't they rare, though? It'd be strange for a Gillian to make its way on its own to this world if it has no mind."
"But what about an Adjuchas?" Rei said. Hoji was hit with realization. "The Gillian you and Shin encountered may very well have been an Adjuchas that went too long without eating other Hollows. Adjuchas are a rarity, to be certain, but not as much as their ascended forms."
"Wait a sec" Hoji exclaimed. "When do Hollows stop growing, exactly? More importantly than that, how does this all relate to Shin, exactly? What is this room? Explain it clearly! I ain't all that smart!" Rei stared Hoji down for a moment, reading his animal-like panic, and nodded to calm him down.
"The darkness outside" Rei explained "is what was once a Gillian." Hoji gasped. He turned to the door and sensed the presence on the other side, like a stranger was waiting outside that door for him. "This room is where my father and my mother brought Hollows to research. How they thought, how they moved, what they were made of, and so on. Upon researching and interrogating an Adjuchas, they spent too much time and it reverted into a giant Gillian. It nearly leveled the manor back then, but my father managed to destroy it and seal its reiatsu into this area of the manor. The Gillian continued to exist, however, and would devour the Hollows that wandered into its mist-like body. It still lives, in a way, as a huge collection of discontinuous parts. It is the mist now. La Niebla. It's energies are attracted to Shin, but it isn't powerful enough to consume him. Instead, it becomes a part of him, as an instinct, taking shelter in a superior being."
Hoji walked around the tables and stood at Shin's side. He looked down at his friend's face. Hoji shivered at the look of it, for there was no struggle or strain or emotion in Shin save for a painless sort of peace that relaxed all of his body. His ribs had been set, his wounds all closed up and the black patches of his skin were shrunken down into scars of red.
"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "So now he's eating Hollows in his sleep...." Rei nodded. Hoji smirked. "As expected of a man like Shin. He's not the type to let something like Death do him in...."
"Indeed" Rei agreed. "There is nothing remaining to do here. Even when he wakes, he will be unable to act too much. We must let him rest until he recovers on his own, and he will. I shall monitor his progress daily as a part of my own research."
"So why did you bring me here, then?" Hoji asked.
"I feel it would be wrong" Rei said with a smile "to leave Shin's friends in the dark as to what was happening to him." Hoji broke a grin out of his arrogant smirk and started a timid laugh. Even with all the darkness and pressing power around him, in such trying times he saw his strongest friend pulling through. To see a man so close to death, and to carry him across the field of battle with no hope of his recovery, and then to hear that he would be fighting before he even knew what had happened; indeed, Hoji could do nothing but laugh in his joy. To know Shin was truly immortal was the best news he'd ever heard.
Gisei-shigai: Fake Corpse
La Niebla (Spanish): The Mist/Fog
