Journal 9 - Entry 247
Her awakening went smoothly, thankfully. I was nervous she might try to attack me as soon as she gained consciousness. She was being born, and birth is a stressful experience for any infant. However, human infants are small and weak. They can only cry and flail around. The Anti-Hollow Suppression Weapon was a machine built with battle in mind, if her first instinct was to attack, it could have been bad.
Oh, I don't call her Anti-Hollow Suppression Weapon anymore. I need her to adapt as a human, to gain a personality, and the first step to doing that is a name. I decided to name her Aigis. A shield for the spirit world.
But right now, she's still essentially just a child. I implanted memories, so she knows about hollows, Soul Society, shinigami, Quincy, the war, etc. The issue is just inherent knowledge of what it means to be human. Unfortunately that's the one thing I can't just use science to solve. It's something she'll have to discover on her own. I took her for some brief stints in the World of the Living, but that only helped a little.
On the other hand when I took her to Hueco Mundo to test her combat capabilities, she passed with flying colors. As I intended in terms of raw power she's already captain level. She just lacks experience. Currently she lacks a fundamental ability to adapt, only following set routines and patterns. Fighting mindless hollows is easy, but I fear what would happen if she fought a Sternritter as she is right now.
The next step is getting her a Zanpakutō, but I don't think she has enough "humanity" yet to shape a Zanpakutō spirit and imprint on an Asauchi. The fact that her soul is artificial makes her too, for lack of a better word, "blank", to imprint onto an Asauchi. I haven't even fully figured out what exactly I'm going to do about her Zanpakutō. A sword doesn't fit well with her combat style, so my plan is to find a way to shape a unique Asauchi, one built from the ground up with her in mind. I was granted access to Nimaiya's notes, but the man wasn't very thorough and kept most of his techniques to himself. I do have one thing to go off of though. Head Captain Soifon managed to expand her Zanpakutō's influence to make the rifle I built for a part of it. That is what I'm using as a baseline, but progress is slow.
But when it comes to giving her experience and emotions, I do have a solution in mind. Like so many other things over the past 7 years, that solution involves Ichigo. Him being officially given a role as a captain is still very recent, so much so that he hasn't picked a lieutenant. The solution is pretty straight forward. I get her close to Ichigo. I can get the Head Captain to assign her as his lieutenant. If there is anyone in the world that can teach a girl like this emotions, it's Ichigo. His natural empathy and protectiveness is exactly what needs to rub off on her. I won't lie to him, I'll give him the full story. I know him well enough to know exactly how he'll react. His big brother instincts will kick right in.
I already know he won't like bringing her to the battlefield at the start, but when he sees what she's capable of, he'll relent. He's already let Karin join his division, so as long as Aigis proves capable, I don't think there will be an issue. He still hasn't found out what Yuzu's been up to, but I won't be in the crosshair when he learns about that. It was the Head Captain's idea, so she gets to deal with it.
But as I was saying, by being around Ichigo, she'll also be around his family. The Kurosaki's really are an ideal family environment for a child to grow up in. I have no doubt that with their help Aigis will be able to find what she needs.
At the same time, the fact that I know the lengths Ichigo will go to in order to protect her is… comforting. Maybe it's just a symptom of getting old, the weight of the stress the war has put on me, or maybe it's a result of how much time and effort I put into her, but the way I feel about Aigis… I haven't felt any kind of attachment like this since Yoruichi.
Watching her learn, fail, but get back up. The worry I would feel when we went to practice against hollows. Logically, I knew there was no danger. I built her after all, and I always have the utmost confidence in my creations. But that illogical feeling remained. The same one that would crop up whenever Yoruichi went on missions.
I went and got drinks with Isshin. I told him everything, and he just laughed in my face…I should've expected that, but he slapped my back and told me something that really threw me off. He gave me that annoyingly smug smile and said "that's just having a daughter". I guess I never thought about it that way. Aigis was always a project, a goal, but in the weeks since she awakened, the time I've spent with her, watching her grow, well, Isshin just called it the pride of a father. I guess no matter how much knowledge I gain, there's always more to learn. Even in places I would never expect to find it.
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Kisuke Urahara
June 17, 2008
Author's Notes:
OK, so I can already hear what ya'll are gonna say. "Zero, it's been 5 months and all you give us is a chapter that's barely a thousand words, and is just a follow-up to the previous chapter?!"
Yeah, I know, but writer's block is a bitch, and I've gone from hyperfixation to hyperfixation (first it was Eighty-Six, now it's Re:Zero), so it's been tough to find a way to pick this back up. On top of that, my Eighty-Six fixation led me to start writing a fic in that world. Shameless plug: if you're a fan of Eighty-Six, go read it, it's called Ice Queen and I am quite proud of it.
But this fic is like a comfort zone. When I do get an idea it's nice to just sink back into, even if it's brief. So, on that note, I am writing the next chapter, and it will come out sometime next week. No promises for after that though. Glad you guys have stuck around though!
Thanks for reading!
