Journal 9 - Entry 246


Project Athena has finally reached its activation phase. For the first time in a long time I have to say I am actually quite nervous. So before I do this I think I want to run over all the events that led me to this moment. The earliest concepts for Project Athena traces its origins to Project Spearhead. Using human corpses as the container for mod souls and the ethical dilemma that caused was the reason for the project's eventual termination. My solution to this was the creation of an artificial body capable of hosting a soul.

Obviously the first thought was the use of a gigai, however gigai are specifically created for use in the World of the Living. I need a body composed partially of reishi. The mod souls could only be produced in pill form, and only gained a form by being placed in a gigai. Everything related to this remained completely theoretical, and I never had the time to put significant research into the theory.

I did eventually make a partial breakthrough. I was able to make a system based off of theoretical Quincy techniques, as they had fought in the Soul Society centuries before. Unfortunately this would only work on souls linked to human body's and thus would lead to the same ethical issues that killed Project Spearhead.

What I had developed up to this point was a special alteration to a Senkaimon that is able to convert a human body to reishi, then back again. I was given the opportunity to test this technology 5 years ago, when Ichigo Kurosaki's friends, including the Quincy Uryu Ishida, infiltrated the Souls Society. I never did tell them I was using them as an experiment, and I probably never will. I don't need to give Ichigo another reason to want to cut my head off.

The Senkaimon worked to perfection, and confirmed the transmutation hypothesis. But now I needed the next step, and the most difficult. Creating a body in the world of the living capable of holding a soul.

The mod soul Kon was the key breakthrough on that front. The fact he was able to be placed in a stuffed bear proved it was possible, but I couldn't rely on the viability of a stuffed bear, especially for combat. No, I needed to build a specialty body, one built from the ground up for combat against hollows. That was the original intention, because at the time, we obviously had no idea of the Quincy threat. Which is why it is still named the Anti-Hollow Suppression Weapon.

Unfortunately my ability to actually start work on the project was cut short by Aizen's betrayal and the Winter War. My focus had to be concentrated on the Hogyoku and finding a way to deal with that situation. And once Aizen was defeated, my focus shifted to finding a way to get Ichigo's powers returned to him, which was a very involved process on its own. Once all of this was finally finished I began to turn my focus to it again, only to immediately be interrupted by the invasion of the Quincy.

Our defeat and eventual retreat killed any chance to work on it, but once we got ourselves regrouped in Las Noches, I was finally granted resources to work. Another major hurdle I'd faced over the last century was the lack of the resources I had access to as the Captain of the 12th. The Head Captain ordered that I be given full access to the same 12th's resources and that helped immensely. The only issue is that I had to use those resources on other projects. Specifically Project Broken Arrow, the codename for the development of firearms for us in the spirit world, and Project Eclipse, dedicated to finding a way to blind the foresight of the Almighty, at least partially.

When Project Broken Arrow was completed, I was finally able to lobby with the Head Captain to make the start of my project official, and it was given the code name Project Athena. Project Eclipse had not been completed at that point, so Project Athena was a secondary priority, but I could finally start channeling resources to it.

Project Eclipse was being worked on in Las Noches, while Project Athena remained in my shop in the human world. Even then, the biggest thing I was provided by the 12th was access to the declassified research of Kirio Hikifune, the creator of the artificial soul. The main adaptation I needed to make was to give a wider range of emotions to them. The souls used for the basic gikongan are preprogrammed and mass produced. They have a small amount of autonomy, but don't possess true free will. What I needed was replication of Mod Souls, and the documents on that were much more sparse, as much of the research for Project Spearhead was buried.

I was surprised when Kon offered to allow me to examine him. I had been making regular reports to the Head Captain, and I guess the word of it reached Ichigo who managed to convince Kon into helping me out. By comparing Hikifune's notes with what I was able to glean from Kon, I was able to begin reverse engineering an artificial soul.

However, this was only half of the process. The other half is the body. I wanted to make the body extremely durable, light-weight, and heavily armed. It was in regards to this that I got something I never could have expected. I apparently was not the only person in the world attempting to build an artificial person. Yoruichi always did have a habit of oversharing, and she had at some point told Soifon about my pet project at some point. So imagine my shock when she comes into my lab to dump the body of an android Quincy that she had fought during the first invasion. It had apparently identified itself as BG9, and it was the breakthrough I needed in that regard.

It seemed that BG9 was created in the way I was trying to avoid. The implantation of a human soul into an artificial body, but the body itself was more than enough to get the understanding I needed. However, it was much weaker than what I wanted, so improvements had to be made.

From the beginning, the android was being designed to look like a girl in her late teens to early 20's. This was actually a request from Yoruichi. She said that she always wanted a little sister. I decided to refrain from mentioning her brother. I like having my head.

I wish she could be around to see the project reach its end. I miss her a lot. But she would want me to see it through, so that's what I'll do.

Now, the construction of the body was quite the ordeal. I gathered all the materials in the world of the living. I may have stolen most of them, but how are they going to catch a ghost? I may have got most of her components from the American military. She possesses dynamic, thermo-optic camo armor with intra-woven sekkiseki to mitigate spiritual energy attacks. Her body and actuators are made of titanium-vanadium-Kevlar composite. She has a built-in propulsion system that should allow for short range flight by channeling reiatsu. Her weapon systems consist of 9mm automatic guns built into the tips of her fingers, and she is also entirely modular. This allows for the attachment of many additional weapon systems, such as a M134 Minigun that can be mounted to her left arm, a Bofors 40 mm gun over her right shoulder, and a small, personal MLRS system attached to her lower back. Her right arm below the elbow can also be replaced with a rifle if needed.

Lastly, mod souls were kept in little pills like the gikongan, and as such, they produced little to no reiatsu of their own. I used what I learned from creating the blade that restored Ichigo's powers as well as the Hogyoku to create what I call the Papillon Heart. It is where her soul is primarily stored, and not only is it more protected, theoretically, it can produce reiatsu on the level of a captain. But I won't know for sure until I activate her and am able to run diagnostics.

Okay, I've sat here writing and stalling for long enough.

Time to wake her up.

.

Kisuke Urahara

June 13, 2008


Author's Notes:

So, this is what I was talking about in the last chapter. Just let me know in the comments if you think this is too much. But from my point of view, BG9 pretty much entirely justifies the existence of androids in the Bleach universe, and if the Quincy got one, the shinigami should get one too. And if you're familiar with this character, then you know there are plenty of fun interactions that can come of this, especially with Ichigo.

I also want to hear from anyone that has not played Persona 3, without actually looking up what this is, what are your thoughts on the chapter with no prior knowledge? I will await input to see if this chapter stays up or not.

(Note for FFnet readers: I haven't mentioned it in a while, but in case you missed it I just want to say again, the definitive way to read this story is on Archive of Our Own. The formatting options on that site allow more freedom and there is more content in the form of pictures. I'm still going to post here, but I just want to make sure everyone's aware of that.)

Thanks for reading!