Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, nor make any money from this fan-made fiction.

2. Experiments Failed Successfully

"What is that?" Ichigo asked, looking into a cylindrical tank filled with a slightly green fluid. Inside, connected to loose wires and tubes, was something that looked like a chalk white ball of skin floating in the centre and held there by nothing.

"This amorphous blob," Kisuke began, empty syringe in hand, "is actually my next breakthrough in gigai technology. Real bodies in a very short amount of time. I call it the 'clone-base'. It should help us grow custom organs according to each persons DNA from a filtered blood sample, so we aren't relying on generic parts."

Ichigo eyed him warily. "And what do you want from me?"

"Your instincts are astute, Ichigo. I just need a bit of your blood to get this started."

Ichigo crossed his arms to protest the scientist in front of him. "Why not use your blood?"

"I already have," he replied, "but one test is not good enough, and you're already here trying to earn your medical license."

Ichigo hated when Kisuke brought that up. Yes, he was on track to get his license and the necessary knowledge in only 4 years as opposed to the normal eight to twelve—or so Kisuke had promised. But that also meant he had to do things no sane person would do, like take part in dubious experiments. Though in all fairness, this experiment seemed very straightforward compared to a few of the others.

"One day that's not going to work on me," Ichigo said, lifting his sleeve to let Kisuke draw his blood.

After getting the sample Kisuke inserted the syringe into a hanging receptacle that directly connected to one of the tubes that was stuck into the clone-base. The blood flowed through the flexible tube and into the clone-base and disappeared from sight.

"So how long will this take?" Ichigo asked.

Kisuke went over to a computer in the corner of the room and started checking the data it was receiving. "It will take about an hour, hopefully. However, you'll be watching it. This is your next assignment: I want you to observe what happens and write out a short study; I'll look it over when I come back. Until then, I'll treat the patients that come into the clinic."

Ichigo nodded and Kisuke left the lab. Once the door shut Ichigo went over to the computer and started making notes until he noticed movement from the clone-base itself. For the next two hours Ichigo studied what happened with the forming body, unable to look away unless writing something down on a clipboard. He also felt his power drain, and while it wasn't too concerning, the fact he had noticed it was noteworthy due to his reserves.

He was fascinated but also horrified: the body was most definitely not male. He would have gone to get Kisuke, but as had been drilled into him, observation came first. It was only after the body stopped developing and he completed the report that he sought Kisuke out (after using the tank's built-in glass froster to give the body some privacy).

After asking Jinta—an artificial human with red hair who was created and raised by Kisuke—who was taking care of patient intake, Ichigo went to the clinic's main examination room on the first floor to let Kisuke know not to take another patient until they were able to talk. Knocking on the door, he heard a muffled "Come in Doctor Kurosaki."

While Ichigo was not yet a doctor by the technical definition, being called a doctor had become protocol for various reasons, though mostly for keeping the patients at ease. It was acceptable because, by all means, Ichigo was getting proper training and consulted Kisuke whenever something was outside of his knowledge. Kisuke had even printed a fake certificate that couldn't be told apart from a real one, just in case someone was paranoid enough to demand evidence.

Walking in, Ichigo saw the patient Kisuke was attending had a very bloated shoulder. "I finished the observation and want to discuss the results with you. Let me know when you're done."

Normally Ichigo would yell at Kisuke, and he planned to do just that once they got back to the laboratory, but in front of a patient it was vital to act like a professional since it kept up the illusion that Ichigo was fully qualified. And Kisuke made for good practice in trying to remain professional.

"Why don't you help me then? I need to operate and an extra pair of hands will make this go much faster." The patient looked very concerned. "Oh, don't worry Mr. Murakami, it's routine and won't take more than an hour before you're out the door. You'll be completely healthy after this; it's very minor."

Once the patient was out, Ichigo helped Kisuke remove what had been categorized as a fungal tumour: this one was about as hard as a golf ball, looked like bone and formed a cage around the joint. After using a pry bar to break large parts of the fungus, an aggressive and corrosive anti-fungal was used to kill and remove what remained of the growth. After confirming there was no threat of regrowth, lab-grown muscle was attached to the bone to replace the corroded muscle; the skin was sewn back together as the bio-glue set. The stitches would dissolve in three hours leaving no trace.

Then, once both Ichigo and Kisuke were back in the lab, Ichigo let him have it. "What the hell Hat n' Clogs? It turned into a girl!"

Kisuke's eyes widened and he deactivated the frost-effect on the tank and saw for himself what had happened. "I see..." Kisuke said, looking to Ichigo's observational study. "Well done on the assignment, by the way. I'll mark it later." He then went back to the computer to look up the notes of how he made the clone-base in the first place.

"Ichigo, I've left the documentation on how I made the clone-base on the computer. I want you to go through it and tell me what you think happened. I'll come up with my own theory and we'll compare notes tomorrow." Ichigo was more valuable than just a student at this point and an extra mind was always welcome.

Kisuke briefly felt for spiritual power but only felt Ichigo's, which left his hypothesis pointing to the base material of the clone-base; more specifically the insect abstract used to bind everything together during the transformation. "In the meantime, let's get the body out of that tank: the fluid needs to be changed. We'll store it in an empty room on a ventilator and have the system monitor it. Examination room five should be empty for a quite a while."

Taking the body out of the tube, it coughed, convulsed, and breathed but had no conscious life. Still, Ichigo found himself thinking it looked like a real person despite the fact it felt like nothing when he tried to sense any spiritual energy. He didn't like how it confused his senses. He covered it with a hospital gown and took it up the stairs to the third room on his left, again feeling some of his spirit energy drain. After placing it down on the room's examination table, setting up the ventilator and pulse monitor, and putting a few sheets over it to keep it from getting too cold, he closed the examination room door and locked it behind him.

Getting back to the clinic, Ichigo continued to treat patients until closing time; he would examine the notes on the clone-base and write his conclusion after dinner in his apartment. He lived in one of two penthouse-sized apartments on the top floor; Kisuke was living in the other one. Originally Ichigo was against it, but once Kisuke explained the situation he understood why he needed to be as close to the patients as possible: the clinic may have had closing hours but emergencies would always be let in.

Early in the morning Ichigo was torn from his slumber by the alarm from one of the patient rooms. Looking at his phone, he saw that it was examination room five: all of the readings had gone flat. Still in his pyjamas and barely remembering a lab coat, he rushed down the stairs and quickly unlocked and opened the room. Inside was the body, crawling around on the ground and disconnected from the monitoring equipment. The body, now very much alive in every sense, made noises as it clumsily moved towards Ichigo. He approached the... woman, he now supposed, who seemed to calm down as he approached her. She was wide-eyed but surprisingly compliant as Ichigo checked every part of her to make sure she hadn't gotten injured in the fall from the bed.

Soon after, Kisuke arrived. "My-my, Ichigo; this is quite the little mystery. I can't wait to see your hypothesis on it tomorrow—though perhaps we should forego the sleep and get to testing as soon as we can." He tried to get closer to the young woman, who ducked away as best she could as she tightly clung to Ichigo.

"It seems you'll be administering the tests." Kisuke then did the first thing that came to his mind and tried to sense the soul inside the body; he only felt Ichigo's. "Take her to the lab and we'll begin."

The next few days turned into a week, and as Ichigo found out, the recently created woman—named Fuku by Kisuke out of jest before it stuck—showed an innate knowledge of someone Ichigo's age and also had a grasp on basic general knowledge. It was only muscle memory and more specific knowledge she lacked. Walking only took a day to figure out, and by the seventh, she could speak clearly. She was eager to learn as much as she could and explore everything. She knew what a country was, but not their names. Math was something entirely new, but she picked up the logic easily.

It was the process of trying to categorize Fuku that caused Ichigo to give up his remaining preconceptions of normalcy. She was him and she was not, with more in common with a zanpakutō spirit than a regular soul, but still thinking and feeling fully independently from him. He understood her on an instinctual level but could not put it into words as he felt her the way he felt himself, which was not very much.

Kisuke defined her as a 'superpositional soul' in his notes until something more suitable could be found. He also discovered what happened when he tested another clone-base in Ichigo's presence, though with blood from someone else: the clone-base would attempt to take in more spirit energy, but due to the blood and Ichigo's spirit energy not being compatible it turned into a hard black ball that was useless.

Ichigo's blood was taken for one more try but with the cloning machine moved into room in the basement of the building next door. After confirming the extra physical separation resulted in a perfect, soulless clone of Ichigo, the space was rented and blocked off from public access. A new tunnel was constructed overnight to join the two basements and Ichigo was barred from crossing into the next building—at least until his control over his spiritual pressure was much better.

A/N:

That's right, Ichigo has a clone now... sort of. It's all very complicated. I think Lilynette and Stark are the closest thing to Ichigo and Fuku in this alternate universe. This is kind of what I expect Kisuke's most interesting experiments failing would be: not just a failure, but a subversion of what it means to fail. I suppose any experiments that do so would be quite interesting.

Have a great 'until next time' and may God bless you,

SomethingAncient