#ESPECIALLY when they were in the rukon…..

[yumichikamadarame]

let’s all take a moment to imagine ikkaku and yumichika having a peaceful day lounging about some meadow in the rukon pre-gotei era……

commission by @cha-r4 🩷

ref below:

[yuuuume]

cooking with the lieutenants

| 1 | ?

characters; nanao ise, genshiro okikiba, renji abarai, yuyu yayahara

requested; yes (ty bb this was so cute i'll be taking reqs for the next batch!)

rating; safer than a protected pc

@potatoq-een asked; Hi! New follower. Here to show support and maybe a... Suggestion? I don't like to call it a request... Just... Do it if you like the idea and if it inspires you. After all the rambling the idea: [drums please] cooking!! I'm so curious about how the lieutenants manage that part of their daily life with their s/o. Do they cook for their s/o? Do they let their s/o cook for them? ¿Maybe they do it together? ¿Or let the cooking be done by someone else? Idk, just thinking its a good prompt for some fluff. Do what you please with the idea. I'd be happy to read whatever comes out of this. Thank you for reading and be happy.

伊勢七緒・nanao ise

I am under the assumption that Nanao doesn’t really know how to cook. At least, not full blown elaborate meals. Her rice cooker and crock pot are her best friends before you. Having to deal with Shunsui all day along with her typical lieutenants duties leaves Nanao with little time and patience to cook big meals. However she eats well and you come to learn that when helping her prepare one morning. Nanao enjoys coming home to warm stews in the winter. As for summer, she’ll eat anything that won’t heat the kitchen too much. She doesn’t strike me as someone who would eat out often if I’m being honest. Nanao is a weekly grocery shopper with recipes in mind so she knows what to buy, she’s a bit particular about this aspect of her life because again, she’s typically a busy bee. Your help is a relief to her, especially when you work less hours. A bonus if you know how to cook and don’t mind it either. You get to go with her on the weekly grocery shopping trips and make suggestions for the menu because she’ll always consider your thoughts too. The daily chore slowly becomes one of your guys’ favorite quality time activities. At least, a close second to your first favorite.

沖牙源志郎・genshiro okikiba

I don’t think anyone in this fandom cares about this guy but honestly when I see an old man, my coochie goes into overdrive so I’m including him. Anyways, I feel like since Genshiro is older he’s a bit more traditional, meaning he expects you to stay home while he is the breadwinner. So naturally that means majority of the cooking is left to you. On his days off I like to think he would be by your side as you cook, a spectator. Genshiro may be an older, more traditional man but he is thankful for your work, knowing it is not easy or much fun cooking meals every day. He slowly starts to welcome the idea of takeout and food delivery once in a while since he feels asking you to teach him to cook would be too much of a burden on you. Even if you insist on working for whatever reason, if you two are in a relationship, Genshiro has the same expectation that you’d be the one cooking. Boomer expectations, you know?

阿散井 恋次・renji abarai

Renji is the only King in the Seireitei okay. Soul King? Mid. Renji throws it down in the kitchen like everyday is Thanksgiving. He will take full charge of cooking because he loves you (not because you’d get in the way like… totally not…). If you’re feeling under the weather he has the best soup recipe from when he and Rukia were younger, surviving out in Rukon District. It was one of his survival skills, to be fairly honest and one he never would have expected to become a hobby. He assures you that he doesn’t mind cooking, mostly because he loves the way your eyes practically roll every time he makes that one dish you love so, so much. You can certainly wash the dishes afterward. Also, he totally wears those corny ‘Kiss the chef’ aprons. You’ll do it anyway to show your appreciation. However if one day you insist on cooking, he’ll acquiesce and relax. Just because he’s used to cooking doesn’t mean he won’t accept some of yours! Whether you’re a good or bad cook, he always puts his best foot forward and makes sure you don’t lose faith in your culinary journey. Definitely has an album on his instagram saved tab that is strictly recipes.

八々原熊如・yuyu yayahara

Be so for real, you two would blow up the kitchen just by stepping into it. Or at least Yuyu would. She’s an absolute sucker for delivery services once they pop off in Soul Society. Honestly, that’s what half of her paycheck goes toward every two weeks but what’s not to love about it? On-demand healthy meals are such an insane concept for the soul reapers and once it finally landed in Soul Society, Yuyu has been on it and has no shame. Besides, she wouldn’t be up for cooking after work anyways. The hours are long and even with Lisa as a captain, its not as easy a job one might believe. She has your guys’ orders saved, you just need to tell Yuyu what you want for dinner and it’ll arrive shortly.

do not steal or repost my works anywhere

edit: i fixed renji’s section lol

© yuuuume

[fushichoumomo]

  ━━━━━━ . . 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐔𝐌𝐄.

 ( 飛梅  𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙵𝚕𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙿𝚕𝚞𝚖 𝚃𝚛𝚎𝚎 . ) 

SHIKAI

Tobiume's release command is Hajike ( 弾け , Snap! ) , turning the ordinary-looking katana into a shichishitō ( 七支刀 , Seven-Branched-Sword ) , historically a gift from the King of the Korean Baekje kingdom to a ruler of Yamato , as Japan was then called . It is a ceremonial sword , meaning it was never forged with the intent to be used in battle . 

The Nihon Shoki lists the shichishitō as the blade of the mythological Empress Jingū , a warrior-empress , who is believed to have connections with the kami ( gods ) of Japan ; the first Emperor , Jimmu , is said to have descended from the Sun Goddess , Amaterasu , which translated into all Emperors being descendants of the divine , until Emperor Hirohito in 1945 , who renounced his divinity . 

Implications 

Tobiume's ( the Zanpakutō spirit's ) design itself takes heavy inspirations from Amaterasu . Since Zanpakutō are supposed to represent the souls of their wielders , the implications are that Momo imprinted her divine soul into the Asauchi that would become Tobiume , hence why she would ultimately be the one to remain by Aizen's side when Gin & Tōsen would not . 

Fun fact #2 , both Aizen's & Momo's shikai calls are destruction-themed ; kudakero ( shatter ) & hajike ( snap ) . Love that for them . 

ZANPAKUTŌ SPIRIT

As mentioned before , Tobiume's design is very obviously intended to reference  Amaterasu Ōmikami , the Queen of Heaven and Creation , Goddess of the Sun and ( in some myths ) consort of Tsukuyomi , the Moon God . This , again , is echoed by Momo's name , meaning peach , the symbol of immortality & of the Queen of Heaven in Chinese mythology , the Goddess Xiwangmu . 

Before Momo underwent the process of Hollowfication , Tobiume had the mannerisms & the grace of a royal woman with a strong sense of justice , much like Empress Jingū herself . She found herself frustrated by Momo's indecisiveness in the face of the Soul Society's blatant corruption & splendour , when so many in the Rukon were left to rot , especially since Momo had seen what transpires in the latter districts . Thus , Tobiume would , more often than not , be very condescending to Momo , up until the point where Momo decides to follow her heart's path & sever ties with the Soul Society to follow Aizen . 

Hollowfication

For Momo to survive the process , Tobiume and Momo needed to be of one heart & mind to combat the effects of soul suicide , that would be induced upon breaking the boundary in her soul between Shinigami & Hollow . Tobiume knew full well that her divine self would become tainted with Hollow , yet she consented to the process out of pride for Momo's sheer resolve , which Tobiume viewed as the first step in Momo's true awakening of self . She always wanted to witness Momo's true potential , something that can only come when she abandons all inhibitions and casts herself fully into the flame .

After Hollowfication , Tobiume changed forever . She became much taller , her eyes obscured by two wings , with four others growing from the back of her head . Her hair reached to her feet , with the ends becoming tainted with red .Though she still maintained her sweet , serene voice , her personality became downright fanatic , from the influence of the bird-like Hollow she'd merged with . Tobiume began openly professing her undying devotion to Aizen's Kyōka Suigetsu , as well as the daemon of the Hōgyoku . Her gaze would never reach Momo , for Kyōka Suigetsu & the Hōgyoku are the only ones deserving of it .  Tobiume thus revealed her true self , which is simultaneously a biblically accurate angel with seraphim symbolism , forever serving at Aizen's throne , & a goddess in her own right .

INNER WORLD

Tobiume wasn't the only one affected by Hollowfication ; Momo's inner world changed also . Since Tobiume is meant to represent Amaterasu , it would make sense for her to have an abode that closely resembles the Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture , which is dedicated to the goddess , and Takamagahara , the abode of the gods . Meaning , a lush , elysian-like flower field that stretches far and wide .

After Hollowfication , the abode was consumed by fire ; the skies became awash with blood & orange hues ; the flowers ignited in a blaze that burns eternal . Only a throne remained in the centre of the field , with Tobiume herself sitting atop of it , forever watchful of any event that transpires in Momo's life . 

[recurring-polynya]

Idk if you’ve answered this question (sorry if you have) before, but how do you think Renji & Rukia first met ? What do you think their life was like originally before Soul Society ?

Pardon me if I'm reading this wrong, but...Rukia and Renji's first meeting is enshrined pretty thoroughly in canon? She rescued him from a water heist that was about to turn disastrous.

This is from Chapter 98/Episode 32: A Star and a Stray Dog, which is the first place you should be looking if you're interested in pre-canon Renruki lore.

As to the second part of your question...you mean before they died? What sort of lives did they have in the World of the Living?

I'm gonna pontificate, so I'll throw that under a cut

First off, I am fascinated with the fact that Kubo gives us nothing about what anyone's living life was like. On one hand, I would like to know everyone's pre-history, but on the other, I'm glad he didn't, like as a literary choice. The slate is supposed to be wiped clean. It doesn't matter. It's maddening, but also correct.

It's also one of those places that is just ✨fanfic free real estate✨ in terms of I think everyone should make up their own version for their blorbos, so of course I have them for Renji and Rukia. I have absolutely nothing to support these, they are just what I felt in my heart.

I have actually talked about Renji's beforedeath quite a bit, here and there in various fanfics, usual under the conceit that, particularly in their Inuzuri days, he would sometimes blurt out some half-remembered thing and then promptly forget it again. Here an excerpt from Chapter 3 of go places:

It’s an Alive Memory, Rukia is nearly certain. Most souls get them. All the boys did, from time to time. To Renji, it’s just brain dust. Whatever it is in Soul Society that makes people forget their lives also makes this memory detritus slippery to hold onto. Renji won’t think of this later, or attach any importance to this conversation. The funny thing is, after ten years of watching him stumble through these moments, Rukia probably has a better idea of what Renji’s life was like than he does. He lived on a farm of some sort. A small one, or at least his family grew a lot of their own food. He died of a fever. Nearly all of his Alive Memories involve his mother. Rukia is almost positive that Renji’s mother is the one who taught him to write. The sewing scissors were likely hers. In Rukia’s imagination, Renji’s mother is very tall and beautiful and kind. Rukia doesn’t need to use her imagination to know that Renji loved his mother very much.

Just to offer a little more detail--doing the math out, where Bleach starts in the early 00s, Rukia and Renji have been separated for 40 years and knew each other for 10 years before that, it would make a lot of sense for both of them to have died in WWII. However, I like to think that time is very wobbly, especially in the outer Rukon, so I like to make their deaths a little earlier-- specifically, I think that Renji died in the 1918 flu pandemic, which may have contributed to getting a plague spirit for a zanpakutou. That being said, my general vibe for his childhood is based on Kanta, the neighbor kid from My Neighbor Totoro, which takes place in the 50s. In any case, he had a pretty small and unremarkable life in rural Japan, aside from the fact that he was loved very much, which will never be unremarkable, no matter how common it may be.

I have written less about Rukia's beforedeath, mostly because she was too young when she died to have any phantom memories. [Note: I know there are some theories out there, based on some arcane clues that Kubo has dropped that Rukia may not actually be a normal soul and may be related to Hell. That's...fine. While I'm never going to say no to a storyline that centers Rukia, I really do hope that it comes to naught. Ichigo has enough Crazy Origin going on and I like the Rukia's backstory the way it is, so I'm just going to ignore all of that for the sake of this post]. Ahem! So, infant death is not anything surprising, or even really interesting, but what makes Rukia's kind of compelling is the fact that her much-older sister died at the same time. To me, this indicates either a natural disaster or a death-by-violence.

As I said above, there are infinity ways you can go with this, but to me, there were two important things I wanted to capture 1) given Renji's descriptions of Rukia having an inherent grace and nobility, and the idea that something about Hisana caught Byakuya's eye, I thought that maybe they should have been noble, and 2) I wanted them to live by the sea. I do not actually remember how I landed on this, but in the 1850s, a bunch of sea fortresses were constructed to protect Japan by attack from sea (see here for more detail). This was the tail end of the Edo period and I liked the idea that maybe Rukia came from an old samurai family, and her father was sent to oversee one of these coastal forts. Did they die in a bombardment? A bad storm? The Kanto earthquake? I never got that far. I'm not even sure if this is a realistic scenario, if they had civilians living there, etc, this was just a half-thought-out thing I came up with for a bonus chapter of a fanfic that someone requested once. The one other detail from that that I came up with and stand by is that I think there were more siblings in their family between Hisana and Rukia. I also like that this idea that makes Rukia somewhat older than Renji, even though the math is impossible and the points are made up anyway.

[aurvmz]

bleach by tite kubo, review, small description of characters and story, and thoughts

MASSIVE BLEACH SPOILERS!!!!! BECAREFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

small description : i started bleach around 7 or 6 months ago, mainly cause of my friends, the main character is this person called ichigo kurosaki, he's a high schooler who's known for being able to fight and see ghosts (this is important later), one day, he's in bed doing whatever when a girl in some black robes jumps in through hiswindow, after he thinks it's a robber, he kicks her in the back and she's suprised he can see her. she introduces herself as rukia kuchiki , a soul reaper (she is also VERY important later), and she's from this place called the soul society where they exercise lost souls and sends them to the soul society (this place is VERY VERY important later), where the souls can live a happy afterlife in the Rukon District, which is a village for exorcised lost souls to enjoy, and later, sometimes become soul reapers, similar to rukia, these ghosts are the ghosts which ichigo was able to see. rukia later explains that there are some souls that aren't exercised in time that turn into hollows. hollows are flesh seeking brainless creatures which have immense strength, soul reapers are also made to kill and exercise these creatures to stop any harm reaching lost souls and regular humans.

after this, a hollow breaks loose and grabs ichigo's sister, about to kill her, remember, most humans CANNOT see hollows and soul reapers due to not having any reiatsu or spiritual pressure. in order to keep ichigo from harm, rukia uses a kido spell. kido is a certain type of power that soul reapers can use to help them exercise hollows better. she uses a kido spell on ichigo which immobilizes him as she goes to kill the hollow and save ichigo's sister

, ichigo breaks loose from the kido spell due to his father being a retired soul reaper. ichigo's siblings and him were able to see hollows and soul reapers due to reiatsu passed down from his dad, isshin kurosaki (who is actually isshin shiba, the kurosaki comes from his mother), ichigo's mother was killed by a hollow named grand fisher ( I THINK I DON'T REMEMBER WELL ), ichigo's mother was a quincy,

a group that existed alongside soul reapers in killing hollows, before being driven to extinction by soul reapers. back to rukia and ichigo, rukia wasn't able to kill the hollow, and in a last resort, gave ichigo her soul reaper powers, which intended to be a bit of power, he ended up somehow stealing all of it

and killing the hollow in a power he didn't know the name of, called Getsuga Tenshou,

which starts his journey with soul reapers, Arrancars, and the Quincy. review : world building : 5/5 there's ALWAYS A NEW PLACE, FIRST SOUL SOCIETY, THEN HUECO MUNDO, THEN WANDENREICH, and the squad 0 palace i can go on and on, no complaints about the world building (Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, and Wandenreich)

power system : 4/5 reiatsu and spiritual pressure, bankais, ressureccions, vollstandigs, all super interesting and cool but it can feel a bit eh sometimes and a bit too complicated especially with reishi with quincies and stuff (Ulquiorra's Ressureccion, Segunda Etapa, Bambietta's Vollstandig, and Unohana's Bankai)

female cast : 4/5 so many cool and strong women in bleach that aren't overly weird like yoruichi shihoin, rukia kuchiki, senjumaru shutara, retsu/yachiru unohana, nelliel tu odelschwank i can go on and on, all have powers that are really cool, and yoruichi just going left right , but there are some characters like rangiku matsumoto and orihime inoue that just have unrealistic physics... (Nelliel Tu Odelschwank's Segunda Etapa and Rukia Kuchiki's Bankai)

pacing : 3/5 pacing is a lil slow at some times but it goes well MOST of the time, not really much to say on this.

conclusion : 4/5 i love you tite kubo, so much detail and good background on characters, AMAZING plot twists and introductions, and there's never "main character plot armor" (except for ichigo vs ulquiorra , ichigo should have NOT won that tbh!!) overall, definetly an AMAZING watch

[wild-pineapple-butt]

[ 🫀 ]ㅤ.ㅤwho taught them what love is ? did it hurt ? [ 🪞 ]ㅤ.ㅤwhen have they looked at their reflection and hated what they saw ? [ 🎐 ]ㅤ.ㅤdo they have a sound, like a song or voice, that they associate with peace ?

[ ☂️ ]ㅤ.ㅤdo they crave touch or fear it ?

[ 🖐️ ]ㅤ.ㅤwhat do their hands feel like: soft, calloused, trembling ?

Pineapple Headcanons ||| Accepting @bleachbrainrotbro

[ 🫀 ]ㅤ.ㅤwho taught them what love is ? did it hurt ? Growing up in the Rukongai, Renji was jaded by this concept of love. He thought it silly, unnecessary, and stood in the way in advancing his career. He only saw the downsides of love, in how it made people stupid, complicit, and weak. Witnessing it firsthand in the Rukon, he swore that he would never become someone who allowed love to change who he was.

In a way, he still hasn't found "love", or what it means to him. He holds a lot of affection for his friends, his teammates, his colleagues. But he still doesn't quite understand the type of love that leaves one unable to breathe, unable to speak. There's been times where he thought he might have found someone that he could love, only for that person to not reciprocate fully. So it's left him heartbroken a couple of times, which makes him even more wary of finding that person and falling in deep.

[ 🪞 ]ㅤ.ㅤwhen have they looked at their reflection and hated what they saw ? Oh. A lot! Especially during those years without Rukia. It was hard. He felt like he lost an essential part of him. He didn't regret doing it, he still thought he did what was best for her, but clearly, she didn't think the same. And that part really ate him up from the inside out. It was rare that they were never on the same page, and so for this to be the first incident that it happened, it left him lonely and broken for a very long time. He hated himself during those years, and poured all of those emotions into training. Hence his quick rise into lieutenant.

[ 🎐 ]ㅤ.ㅤdo they have a sound, like a song or voice, that they associate with peace The sound of the river. It was one of his favorite places when he was a kid, somewhere he could go to escape the horrendous Rukongai scenery. Surprisingly it wasn't well known amongst the locals, and so he spent many days there, just sitting and enjoying the sound of the water as it rushed past him.

[ ☂️ ]ㅤ.ㅤdo they crave touch or fear it ? Both. Sometimes they yearn to be held, within someone's arms. Feel the warmth that another body has to offer. Yet, the intimacy of someone else is never guaranteed, especially in his line of work so he fears getting too close. Because tomorrow, that touch might not be there, anymore.

[ 🖐️ ]ㅤ.ㅤwhat do their hands feel like: soft, calloused, trembling ? Hard and full of callouses from their training. He always makes sure to take good care of his hands, because after all, it is his moneymaker. But no matter how much he moisturizes, his hands stay hard and calloused. They are soft in the palms, where the callouses aren't so apparent, but they're strong, and full of resolve.

[0bitvaries]

this post was getting much longer than i thought it would, and i gotta run out soon to do laundry. so here's a little rundown of the major plotlines with my bleach muses. please keep in mind my muses are all multi-verse so this is just sort of their default state. also beware of bleach spoilers, especially for the thousand year blood war and after.

gin / chiari / rangiku -

these three have a lot of stuff going on with each other! their main verse together is my biggest plot happening on this blog, and it has multiple alternate verses. parts of this plot are usually chopped up to be used for gin and rangiku's solo verses.

this plot follows canon for the most part, with my own little additions and flair. gin discovers chiari during aizen's experiments in the rukon while he is a lieutenant. discounting the vizards which came before her, she is the only known survivor of the hollowfication virus. he finds the feral woman interesting. tending to her until she is strong enough to be brought to captian unohana. chiari becomes a shinigami here, training with squad four until gin is promoted to captian and takes her as his third seat. both his shadow and beloved pet.

gin abandons her when he leaves the soul society. found by rangiku later, having been locked in a supply closet with kido. while the two have interacted before, this is where their relationship truly blossoms. 

this is usually where the verses start dividing up in this plot, the usual alternate plotlines being:

- chiari goes with the group to karakura to investigate before the winter war, but is captured by the arrancar. aizen uses his beloved pet to punish him, forcing him to chose between her death or allowing her hollowfication, which had been laying dormant, to save her. 

- during the winter war. chiari manages to follow gin with rangiku. just barely managing to save his life with the skills she learned in the fourth division. however, as a traitor gin is still to be punished. thrown in the maggot's nest... chiari soon follows him. unwilling to be apart from his side.

continuing to follow canon... rangiku and chiari lay him to rest in an unmarked plot out in an abandoned graveyard. it had once been a place where the executed were laid, but now it is only a field with a small persimmon tree and stone marking where gin lay. the only place they were allowed to place him. 

unable to bear remaining in her squad under a new captain, chiari transfers to the 11th division. though she takes a demotion with this, becoming the fourth seat. during the fullbringer arc, rangiku and chiari finally start dating.

during this time gin's soul is slowly being claimed by the underworld. while other fallen captains are given the honor of a konsō reisai to release their soul cleanly to hell, gin is given no such honor. leaving hell to claim him piece by piece. the pain twisting the snake into an evermore ferocious beast. when finally the time has passed and gin awakes in hell, he has transformed into a demon. left to wander hell with nothing to hold but his grief and guilt. 

in the soul society chiari and rangiku continue their lives. praying that the man they'd both loved had found peace. though they were happy together for some time... following the konsō reisai of captain ukitake and the revelation of hell's door being opened, an unrest grew in chiari. 

never having been at home in the cold white walls of the seireitei... chiari disappears into the world of the living during a mission. leaving the three now seperated across worlds. that is until chiari finds her way through hell's gates and back to gin's side once more. 

there's way more and i've sort of got my own hell arc i've come up with... but a lot of that is still really rough and not too figured out. these three also have just a pure fluff verse where they're all super adorable and in love from the start... 

anyway, gin and rangiku's plots don't change much when they're on their own. they both follow canon for the most part, but i've expanded on it in many places. such as in their childhood, or before they even arrived to the seireitei. gin is a bastard child of a noble's wife and a kitsune, while rangiku comes from a small fishing village that was cursed by a bakekujira. gin's lore also expands to after canon as well, having become a demon trapped in hell. in any verse where he survives the winter war he typically ends up in the maggot's nest. during the thousand year blood war, like aizen he is released to help save the seireitei. after which i usually have him joining squad 12 as a seated officer.

unohana -

on her own it's much the same as gin and rangiku, in that she follows canon but there's a lot of work i've put into expanding her character. especially in the post-canon, as she is one of the captains to perish in the thousand year blood war. the deathblade, as she is more often referred to now, can be found in the northern regions of hell carving a path of blood and destruction. once again trying to find a fight that will satisfy her hunger. at times, when their paths cross, she will spend her time hunting down the traitor gin. eventually, upon receiving the call from the former head captain, she will enter the court of hell.

( the court of hell is basically my answer to the seireitei's gotei 13, and is where the former captains will gather to carve out some order in the chaos of hell. if it's not obvious yet, i've not watched the hellverse bleach movie yet and it probably isn't going to come into play with my storylines. )

[madaramee]

@rangikuxmatsumoto: ⚔️ I DEMAND PROTECTIVE IKKAKU

How'd this happen? --Ahh, right. He's just lucky.

The war never ended with Yhwach's defeat. Remnants across time surging on the very rare occasion, dispatching the best of the best to the scene to prevent any potential damage. It may have only been the King of the Quincies' remnants, though the danger his mere presence posed a year ago was enough to sound an emergency of the highest degree in the Seireitei.

It just so happens that the first to arrive at the scene was the only vacant Fukutaichou at the time; sent as the vanguard to the scene. Natually, a Fukutaichou that's been in service as long as she was, would manage to hold her ground; especially considering the urgency of such alarm would garner the arrival of several others, as well as Captains to boot. In other words, help was on its way.

Despite that... This wasn't the first time this alarm struck, though a tad too close to the last one. And strangely enough, specifically when she happened to be nearby with a group of nobodies. He trusted in Rangiku's abilities, of course. She was well-rounded in just about enough fields to protect herself and her squadmates should anything happen, and should be able to hold the remnants enough for the reinforcements to arrive. In this instance, it happened to be himself, Iba, the Kotetsu sisters and Yadomaru. All others were, unfortunately too far; though that roster by itself, including Rangiku, was enough. Under every circumstance observed on surface level, this was well within manageable scope. And even so, Ikkaku couldn't shake the feeling that something was, off. And not only him.

Speed was never in his best attribute. Even now as a Fukutaichou, he had trouble spamming Shunpo the same way his peers probably preferred to during combat. Though the uneasiness urged him to push faster, eventually finding his girlfriend within sight - the same time as the rest of the team. What laid however was, much less desirable. The sight of at least one of her subordinates downed, laid alone by a single tree in the outskirts of this Rukon district. As he observed her form rushing to their aid, her protectiveness over her squad members apparent as one who would take responsibility for their injury; the swirling black energy began to form behind her.

The other squad members weren't around; this was this nobody kid and her, alone. By every means, this was perceived as a targeted assault. But not one they wouldn't be able to interc--

"RANGIKU--!!!"

Without warning, the black swirl protruded one sharpened edge in almost perfect timing, directly aiming to pierce her. Though the attempt thankfully failed; as the blond was forcefully pushed to the side, forced to smack against the floor as the freshman from the 10th knocked over as well. The attack thankfully missed. It could have been bad if she took that -- it's a good thing they got there in...

"..."

...Looking down, his vision failing for a split-second, registering what had happened. Watching the shadowy appendage piercing through his abdomen, red tainting his Shihakusho and splattered over his golden plated arm. Wincing as the urge to vomit turned stronger than him, coughing out blood. The strong scent of iron overtaking, before it disappeared entirely; as the black appendage sharply exited his abdomen and back, only to be assaulted by the aiding troops. At least, that's what he perceived as his hearing dimmed out.

--Oh, right. That hasn't happened in a long time. Maybe the peacefulness of daily life dulled his blade, perhaps the sense of urgency dissipated at once and left him dizzy; though the bald man found himself unable to stay on his feet, giving in and falling to his knees with a gaping hole in his abdomen bleeding profusely - spilling red further down his Hakama. Very quickly, he could feel himself losing his consciousness. He's been there far too many times to mistake this. Dulled, dimmed voices, maybe calling his name. Maybe calling for a medic. Maybe chasing the shadow. Alone with his thoughts, strangely regretting putting himself in such misery; but not for the outcome. Rather for how pathetic his demise ultimately ends up being.

Her voice eluded him, but acknowledging his throat would fail him - Ikkaku remained only wishing in his mind, and strangely, being grateful. If somehow he wakes up from this, he'll undoubtedly get his head chewed off. But... He made it in time, after all. In the end,

He's just lucky.

Lucky that she's safe.

[bleachbleachbleach]

Damnit you just triggered my writers brain. The way I see it is that part of why the Shino Academy takes so long isn't just training the potential shinigami, but also covering things such as literacy. (Aizen had taught a Calligraphy class there before being made Shinji's lieutenant)

Part of that I think would be speach training and language. Think about how in the British army their officers were/are trained to carry themselves like a gentleman, including the king's English. Put simply, they are speeking in a generally agreed upon subset of language so that everyone can understand eachother. There are other languages used in rukon, as well as dialects, and shinigami use their natural language in like company. (It being tokyo Japanese is probably solely for the convenience of the one consuming the media)

[This is in response to musing from this post!]

If we’ve said something that triggered your writerly instincts, when we have carried out our life’s mission! <333333333

As someone who’s spent way too long in school, part of me is like "6 years isn’t that long given that they’re starting from 0" even as I also know that most military training is not that long by any means. One day I’d LOVE to put together a bunch of potential course curricula for the Academy, because 1) I am obsessed with Aizen’s calligraphy class to an unhealthy degree, and 2) I do think they take The History of Soul Society and Hollow Biology 103, etc. though I suspect all of this is sorely lacking in the way that all curricula are—especially because every shinigami we’ve met knows a lot of things while simultaneously knowing absolutely zero things.

Below the cut, some of my thoughts on the Academy's auxiliary curriculum:

Entrance Exam

My co-blogger pointed out that the Academy has an entrance exam, and one that’s difficult enough to fail—though it makes me wonder what the nature of the exam is. Is it rote memorization of concepts? Is it testing your logical and spatial reasoning? What else are they screening for besides reiatsu? Regardless apparently it’s a written exam, which I imagine puts you at a pretty distinct disadvantage with you’re from most of Rukongai, because first you have to go find someone who will teach you how to read and write well enough to sit the exam, before you even get to go to shinigami school.

Calligraphy Class

My headcanon for Aizen’s calligraphy class (besides it being one of the many way he cruises for new recruits) is that it has both practical and artistic components. The artistic part is self-explanatory. The practical part is basically just penmanship training, which comes from the fact that all the handwritten reports we see seem to basically be in the same handwriting, even though we see in Colorful Bleach that if they’re not writing those reports with their inkbrushes, everyone’s handwriting is different. The two pieces of this class are DEEPLY divorced from one another, because one is deeply personal and the other the exact opposite of that. But when Aizen sent his course proposal to the Faculty Executive Committee, he probably said something about how practicing artful calligraphy imbues young potential shinigami with a mindset better suited to successful kidou and zanjutsu training and he's probably not wrong. Everything is utilitarian/practical in the end.

Report Writing 101

It would make sense that everyone take Report Writing 101, but part of me feels like that might be a more on-the-fly skill, or Continuing Education, because most of these guys aren’t writing reports anyway, and the number of reports written increases with rank, and since the Captain is going to have to sign off on everything anyway, they probably ether fix anything that’s amiss or give no fucks about whether anything is amiss before sending it on. So maybe that’s beyond the purview of the Academy. I mean, if most people don’t graduate with shikai, I guess they probably don’t graduate with Report Writing either. Maybe it's one of those "if you get fancy enough, there's one more thing you'll have to learn on your own!" deals.

Language Preserves Hierarchies Class

So that’s penmanship and written language, both things that Soul Society seems very invested in. What of the spoken language? The Gotei, for all their… whole thing, really, seem perhaps more permissive about a lot of things than a company might be IRL. Crazy hair, uniform customization, pretty informal language (though there is definitely still some preservation of language register based on rank). I could definitely see the Gotei wanting their trainees to have at least like, a 1-credit practicum in keigo, just because that helps preserve the power dynamics/hierarchies the Gotei runs on. I could also see them staring imperiously at potential new shinigami until this information was magically pressed into them, LOL.

Maybe my big interest here is "what does the Academy teach" vs. "what does the Academy just expect you to just know" (regardless of how much or how little sense these expectations might make). This is in regards to life skills as well as reiatsu skills. I'm convinced that there's a lot a lo a lot of room for improvement when it comes to this curriculum, 2000+ years in the making or not!

We basically said the same thing re: language variance in Rukongai, though oh MAN now I’m curious about like, to what degree standardization within Soul Society makes it out into Rukongai. Because on some level maybe it shouldn’t at all, because the Seireitei doesn’t seem to really care what’s going on in Rukongai except sometimes when whole swatches of souls go missing, but who’s doing all this teaching? To what end, besides Academy entrance exams? Is this a linear process where the resident Literate Soul needs to train the next one, or are there souls coming in from the Living World with different versions of this knowledge all the time? GAH I LOVE IT.

Unpaid Internship Class

I also wanna know, like, how much of Academy training is in situ vs. ex situ. Like, the Advanced Class leapt up to "field trip" really fast. Are the last year or two basically just Gotei Lite, except you don’t get paid (or get paid a lot less), even though you might die? Do you get TA credits if you’re like Hisagi et al, leading first-year field trips? Honestly I feel like a lot of Academy training is probably JUST learning how to interpret, control, and manipulate your reiatsu, and JUST trying to communicate with your sword and make it a true zanpakutou. Jinzen class is probably the hardest class series. If those two things happen to come easily to you, I imagine that’s mostly what fast-tracks you through the Academy curriculum.

But I’m coming at all this from a very contemporary, more-school-than-military, pretty Westernized perspective. Part of me wants to learn about how "school" has worked across the last 2000 years and part of me just wants to make it up in accordance with my own desires and interests because IT’S MAGIC GHOST MILITARY SCHOOL. 

Truly, I just want fandom’s 370 different versions of how this school works. There are so many great options. I want them all.

Anyone wanna do a "36 Views of Shinoureijutsuin" with me where we all make different potential curriculum plans lol. WHO WANTS TO DO FAKE ADMIN PAPERWORK WITH ME.

[talesofsonicasura]

Ichigo/Hichigo/Zangetsu's Pokemon Trainer s/o in Soul Society

Here we go with Part two of this. It took awhile to figure out what to do but I think I found it. I need to come up with a shorter term for the three. This can be read as preferred gender or gender neutral.

You remained at your home in Karakura Town instead of going with your boyfriend(s). As much as you wanted to help, you didn't have any protection against spiritual attacks...at the moment.

Truth is you were working on something to fix that issue. Instincts flaring that something big was going to happen and preparation was needed.

So, with some help from your Gengar and other Ghost Type Pokemon, your project was finished. An enhanced version of the Magma Suit, capable of not only blocking reishi but also dish out your own attacks.

Once you had everything ready, it was time to set off. And thus bringing out the very Pokemon that made such travel possible, your Lunala.

How were you going to reach the Soul Society? By using Ichigo's Spiritual Pressure as a guide. Your Gengar been around the orangette and his other halves long enough to track them.

You had good timing as well because once you crossed the threshold into Soul Society, it was a literal battlefield.

Soul Reapers fighting each other on top of a hill, specifically everyone against three. And it was one-sided for the larger group.

The moment you saw your boyfriend Ichigo on the floor bleeding with an injured Zangetsu and Shiro on guard...count yourself extremely pissed. The brunette looking down on them was the last straw.

"Get the hell away from my lovers, you fucker! Dark Pulse and Moongeist Beam!" Shock hit everyone as the glasses wearing asshole, Aizen, was sent skidding across the ground.

All eyes on you and your two Pokemon who stood protectively over Ichigo and his other halves.

You didn't even give the rogue Shinigami any room to talk as you, Gengar and Lunala continued on the attack until all three traitors fled the scene, scathed.

With the threat gone, everyone who has been injured were patched up by the shinigami or Gotei 13's medical corps. Well, all accept Ichigo and his other halves.

You tended to their injuries as you didn't trust the Shinigami to do their job without doing something extra or invasive. Especially when one of the Squad Captains, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, approached you.

"My! What interesting creatures, a peculiar invention and a unique human all in one! Especially a human in 'love' with a Zanpakuto, Soul Reaper and Hollow. I wonder what child between the four of you will be like. Oh the experiments I can conduct!"

Let's just say that creep got a dose of paralysis from Gengar's Thunder Punch for it.

It didn't stop the visits from various Soul Reapers than just Ichigo's friends. Especially the battle craved Zaraki Kenpachi who wanted to fight your boyfriends.

Luckily you were able to compromise with Squad 11's Captain by allowing him to battle your Purrserker instead.

Let's just say those two had a good time fighting as the Viking Pokemon and Soul Reaper laid on their backs completely spent at the end.

You also got visits from Rukia and Renji, the latter apologizing for all the trouble he caused. Can't forget about the Squad 10 Captain and his lieutenant or the lieutenants from other squads.

Otherwise it was just you, Ichigo, Shiro, Zangetsu and your Pokemon. Gengar had to settle for less strenuous games like Rock-Paper-Scissors since everyone is still recovering.

Once Ichigo was back on his feet, Gengar, your boyfriends and you spent the rest of the time in Soul Society looking around.

Mainly spent most of it in the Rukon District since the Seireitei just felt too stiff. Definitely earned a reputation with the townsfolk, mainly a good one.

To sum it up, the visits somehow became you guys playing games with the younger souls, repair homes and help set up gardens across the Rukongai.

You did visit the Shiba family, mainly to thank them for helping Ichigo and his friends. Ganju had been gobsmack about his rival actually having a partner while Kukaku was bemused. The two of you somehow got into a discussion about fireworks once you complimented the huge firework cannon.

Overall, it had been a good time in the Soul Society before all of you had to go back. You definitely left a huge impact especially for the Rukongai.

The residents will forever pass on the tale of four peculiar strangers and strange beasts that brought growing prosperity. A truth as the poorer districts began to thrive unlike the approaching tragedies of the Seireitei.

The Rukongai really deserve some justice just like Ichigo does. Believe me, there were so many problems Soul Society could've avoided if they treated all souls equally and not be partially genocidal assholes.

Trust me, it's a big red flag if the afterlife is split the noble and poor. Karma is a bitch and she knows when to take stuff like this slow before hitting hard.

I still trying to think of a shorter name for the trio when it comes to later headcanons. The Magma Suit is actually a canon item used in Pokemon Omega Ruby and thought it would be a perfect thing when this particular s/o has to fight.

I'll reveal the Pokemon Trainer's rank in the next headcanon. Just know that they can throttle full power Ulquiorra with the right setup.

Until next time folks! I'll see you later. Here's Perrserker and Lunala alongside the Magma Suit.

[littleeyesofpallas]

オレと同じルコン街の出でありながら大貴族の朽木家に拾われ

Like me, picked up from out of Rukongai by the great noble house Kuchiki

死神としての英才教育を施された朽木ルキアともあろう者がァ!

Given a Shinigami's gifted education, surely that person is Kuchiki Rukia of course

そんな人間みてーな表情してていい筈が無えんだよ!!

Good, should have nothing to do with making that sort of human looking expression(Face)

Like I mentioned in this random post, Renji makes this super curious comment about he was picked up by the Kuchiki house.

The Viz translation reads, "I grew up in the Rukon district, but I was taken in by the illustrious and noble Kuchiki Family. Rukia Kuchiki, you were trained to be a soul reaper!" As if those are two separate and juxtaposed things: He was picked up off the street, BUT Rukia got a special education...

But the line as I'm seeing it, the two things follow one another: She was picked up by the family, like him, thus she got a privileged education (like him). And that's in the context of him berating her behavior of showing human-like expressions/emotions.

In any case, the point being is that this early line seems to indicate that Renji is a retainer of the Kuchiki family, in the traditional feudal samurai fashion. Given that that suggests a structure with pretty distinct rules unto itself, that suggests that while Renji may not have been directly adopted into the Kuchiki head branch family the way Rukia was, he is basically the sole member of a deputized branch family of the Kuchiki clan.

Not unlike how, relatively late in the samurai caste's history, some peasants were granted samurai status and land as reward for fighting under certain more progressive or just desperate daimyo, even if the land title itself didn't really confer functional political power in court or even real social status beyond what could be demanded at the end of a sword. But between this and that initial Kuchiki-sama bit, the hints at this dynamic are never brought up again.

Any way, another fun detail, since I had to stare right at it to get the above bit, is that Kubo's doing weird furigana stuff here, as if of course his distinctive M.O. I never really noticed it before, but Renji says "facial expression/countenance​" with the kanji hyoujou[表情], but he pronounced it with the katakana KAO[カオ] as in kao[顔]: "face/look/expression."

It's an interesting way to write that out and I'm not sure if that's something that's done normally or not? It's being used in such a specific way here that I'm not sure I'd even know where else to look for similar examples in other manga.

He speaks in a pretty regular way, kao isn't an especially informal way to say "face" or anything... But he means hyoujou, which I also don't think has specific formal or informal connotations but seems like it's a slightly more complicated way to say the same thing: "face." And either one would read fine, and in isolation basically exactly the same, even... but you put them side by side and it makes it sound like Renji is trying to speak in a more complex manner than he's capable of?

何番隊の所属だ...!?

What number corp. are you from...!?

(Where are you from...!?)

He does it again when Ichigo shows up to try and rescue Rukia and Uryuu and at first glance mistakes Ichigo for just another shinigami. The kanji here is [何番隊]: "What + Number + Squad" but the furigana reads the whole thing as just DOKO[ドコ] as in doko[何処]: "Where/What Place." So read aloud the only thing Renji actually asked was "Where are you from?" but we're being told what he means is to ask what Gotei division Ichigo belongs to.

There's actually quite a few of these sorts of things peppered into this first appearance...

What he pronounces as KOCCHI[コッチ] here is the word gense[現世] meaning, "this life/this world/this way of things" or even "this era" it's sort of a heady abstract concept of reality as it is. But he pronounces it as kocchi[此方]: "this way​/this side/here" which is much more literal indication of a physical place.​

And then he actually calls three different things CHIKARA[チカラ]

[能力]: ability/faculty

[死神能力]: Shinigami Abilities

[霊力]: Soul Power

where as chikara[力] just means "Power/Strength/Force"

I don't actually know if this carries forward at all once Renji reappears in the Soul Society arc, let alone his many other appearances throughout the series... I get the sneaking suspicion he'll have dropped it if not by the time Renji reappears then by the end of the SS Arc. It's a neat quirk to slap on your rowdy new villain/rival but it feels like it'd be a pain to actually keep up with for a recurring semi-central character.

[kotonoba]

ISYT (Jushiro/Fem!Reader) Ch. 29

Cleaning up your apartment and packing everything was a breeze, especially with Jushiro helping out and teasing you as you separated your items, ones to be thrown out and kept. Even though he said you should keep them, you didn’t feel the need to keep them. Especially now, since you’ve lost practically everything except for your fiance. Thinking back on everything, you’d pity yourself too if you stood from an outside perspective looking in.

As you made several trips with Jushiro from your apartment back to his Ugendo, he could see you decrease in mood as time went on, his brows furrowed, though you weren’t entirely looking at him when you handed your keys to the landlady. She thanked you for being a great tenant, but you took that with a hint of salt; after the whole ordeal with the massacre in your hometown, everyone kept giving you a masked reaction. They would pity you and feel sorry or bad for you, but the moment you turned your back, they would mock you and say things like, 

“It must have been her. She must have killed her whole group and everyone in her hometown and said she got hurt. And then she disappeared, and now she’s back? It must be her, and she’s bewitched such a nice captain. What a vixen.”

Even if they don’t need to be said, or even if you met them with a smile on your face, there was still lingering damage. The looks they gave you, the whispers of ill intent befalling your shoulders; they hurt so bad. It hurt so bad... 

You yelped a little when a tight embrace met you as you unpacked your things in Jushiro’s Ugendo. Reflectively, you embraced him back. When you glanced up at him, his features were quite serious, a frown on his delicate features, “what’s wrong, ‘Shiro?” Although he smiled at the nickname you called him by, he shook his head and continued to frown.

“Something’s bothering my lovely fiancee, and I’m not buying that she’s just ‘fine,’ so will she tell me?” You tug at his sleeves a little, asking him to sit before you sit beside him. You smiled a little when you were met by a soft nuzzle to your cheek before that soft nuzzle turned into a light kiss. 

“I just keep thinking about everything people have said to me after the massacre, and then after I’ve come back from the human realm, and I…” you sighed a little, unable to verbalize your feelings correctly. It was tough. You felt wronged for something you didn’t do, and now – even your childhood friends from a rukon town that no longer exists don’t trust you. They’ve joined in to belittle you. 

“It’s tough, and I understand that. Can I tell you a little secret?” You perk at the word secret. And it was rare that Jushiro even had any secrets to share to begin with. He seemed like the type that could be read like an open book. “When I was little, I contracted a deadly lung disease that destroyed my lungs,” he seemed sad when he spoke about it. Your features instantly lit up with worry, “my parents did everything they could; they heard about a fallen god in Rukon District 76, Sakahone,” your face lit up a little.

“I came from that district.”

“That, you did. I call it fate,” you smiled a little as he pulled you into a tight embrace, “my parents had no choice but to offer me as a sacrifice to the fallen God, Mimihagi. And thanks to that God, I survived my fatal illness. My lungs are no more, but the God keeps me alive. I disappeared from Seireitei for a short period. When I returned, my hair had turned white, and I got a pitiful little look from my peers. Often, I would fall sick and would not appear in my classes. When I would return, those whispers and rumors of misfortune would befall me.” A soft whine would escape your throat, “don’t be sad, Y/N,” he chuckled at your sympathy, “people said I wouldn’t be able to become a soul reaper, but I proved them wrong. When I was a seated officer, I was posted in the human realm, and that was when–”

“When you met me before my death–”

“You remember!?” 

“Yeah, I did for quite some time, but I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, so I didn’t bring it up,” you puffed up your cheeks, and he moved to kiss you quickly on the cheeks.

“It’s a good thing. Trust me, and I’m glad you remember. After I lost you, I was promoted to becoming a captain. I often hear rumors of my frail body giving out on me one day. It’s hurtful knowing people have such thoughts about me, but I’ve lived so long, and I’ve finally found the love of my life; I know I will be able to hold out longer,” he smiled a little as he leaned in for another kiss, you stopped him.

“The fallen God, why would it live in your body and help you maintain your body? What are the consequences?” Something just didn’t sit right with you.

“If the time comes, and the Soul King is no longer, I will activate Kamikake and allow Mimihagi to replace the Soul King. But until then,” he looked you in the eye, you didn’t want to lose him at all, “I would like to be able to love you as hard as I can, even if you don’t–”

“Don’t say that, Jushiro,” he perked at the seriousness of your voice, “I want to be with you forever, as long as time will allow us. I will do my best to protect you,” your arms wrapped around his neck, you pulled his head against your chest where he pressed you closer to his body as he relaxed into your body, “if you allow me, I’d like to–” you choked back your tears. He tensed up in response, “I’d like to be with you, be it life or death. I’d like to be with you forever; I’ve finally found my solace,” you felt him shift to look you in the eyes, tears welling up in his gentle orbs. You reflected that tears glazed over your eyes, “I’m not leaving my solace, in sickness and in health, no matter how treacherous the path may be, or how painful, I’ll always be by your side. If you allow me,” you move to wipe his tears away as he began to nod, moving to wipe yours too.

It took him a second to gather his voice, and when he spoke, it was full of emotions, they sounded happy, “yes, I hate to sound selfish, but that sounds good; I want you by my side no matter what happens. Please don’t leave me, and in turn, I will do the same thing,” you smiled and nodded. Overwhelmed with joy, he pulled you into a long and meaningful kiss. 

What felt like an hour was only a few seconds as he pulled from the kiss, “I love you, ‘Shiro, forever.”

“I love you too, Y/N, forever as well.”

------------------------------------------------

I’ve been slacking.

Cloudy's AO3

[recurring-polynya]

Thank you so much for these additions! I love all of this, mostly because it's got me thinking about the soundscapes of the Seireitei. I think I have always thought of the Seireitei as a quiet place (possibly in part because one of the translations of its kanji is "Quiet Spirit Court").

I love the idea of all of these regimented noises though--meal times and curfews and shift changes. I think some of these items were also simply used to mark the time (chiming on the hour or whatnot). I loooooove the idea of people on night patrols clacking out a pattern. Ukitake ABSOLUTELY has that wooden fish. No, wait! He has two! They keep them outside the dining hall, and bang on them when soup's up. This is canon now, I said so.

This must be jarring for shinigami coming in from the Rukon! They've been told that the Seireitei is a civilized place. It's got decorum! And it's true, there aren't boars stampeding through or people hawking water on streetcorners. But on the other hand, there are all these (very orderly) noises going off all throughout the day and especially the night.

For shinigami who have been in the Gotei for a long time, it just becomes a thing you get used to and I bet nighttime out in the Rukon is immensely, terrifyingly quiet.

Sorry to be insane about Soul Society once again, but does anyone actually know anything about those boards they are always banging on whenever there's an emergency or a wartime exemption or whatnot?

This thing:

Does it have a name? A historical precedent?

I wasted a portion of my morning trying to figure this out, and the closest thing I could find was the hanshō (半鐘), which is a bell that was struck with a hammer and were used for fire alarms. (You can read more at this interesting article about fires and firefighting in Edo-era Tokyo; there's a section about halfway down specifically about the bells).

That's a bell though. The thing above is definitely wood; I left it as a video so you can listen to the banging. If you want to listen to what an actual hanshō sounds like, here's a news piece about the one at the U.S. National Arboretum. There is a lot of bell ringing in that video but they ring the actual hanshō about about 1:25, and it's got kind of a muted reverberation, but it definitely goes "bong", rather than the distinctly wooden "clack clack clack" from the video above.

At some point while I was down deep in this rabbit hole, I learned that most hanshō were melted down for their metal during WWII. Does the Seireitei have a metal shortage? I feel like there is not a lot of metal/mining in Soul Society generally and while this might be fun enrichment for my terrible brain, someone chose to draw these bang-y boards all the time and I am absolutely sure it was not for the purposes of alluding to Soul Society's otherwise-uncommented upon metal shortage.

There was also the weird slide-y board, cursive alert tiles that B3 posted about once. We saw it exactly once during that early period where Kubo was absolutely wilding on Soul Society worldbuilding. Weirdly enough, if you look up that part in the anime (the opening moments of episode 21), you can hear a bell being struck in the background. Maybe they just liked the wooden sound better??

In fact, the sound effects they used in the manga were "BONG BONG BONG" and "KLANG KLANG KLANG."

I don't even know anymore.

[lo-55]

Shattered Chains of Fate Ch. 14

Moon on the Water

The first thing Sōsuke Aizen has memory of is hunger. A dull ache in his stomach that grows to pain the longer it goes unsated.

(He will learn, decades later, that only those with high reiryoku are able to feel hunger)

He doesn’t remember, he’s never known, if he was born in Soul Society or if he’d merely died young. He doesn’t recall if he had parents at some point, or if he’d been a hollow once. It doesn’t matter, for he doubts very much that he will ever know the answer to these things. There are some things that are simply impossible to find the answers to.

All he knows for certain is the hunger that he had become aware of.

Then the dust on his skin. Grit in his eyes. Dead grass beneath his hands.

The trees that stand as witness to his beginning are bare of greenery. They are nothing more than skeletons and dead wood, pressed in close and strangling each others roots.

There are no other humans around, only empty clothes laying on the earth around him.

He doesn’t know his name. He doesn’t know where he is or what’s happening.

Hunger gets his legs up under him.

Hunger drives him, stumbling and new, into the dull light.

*

It’s barely a town where he spends the next two decades. It’s all adult men and women covered in bruises or scars that grip knives with white knuckles. He is the only child among them, and he keeps that title with bloodied fists and teeth.

His ribs hurt and his stomach aches fiercely. Food is in scarce supply, whether people feel the same hunger as he does or not. What little there is is jealously guarded, and nothing is taken without a price paid for it. Gold and silver are worth nothing here. Only steel and bone make a difference.

There is something inside of him that tells him he could be stronger.

It’s a whisper in the night, a breeze on a pond in his dreams.

Grow,  says the moon in the water.  Grow stronger. Grow smarter. Grow.  

It’s something in the way he walks. To tall, too confident.

The men find him when the moon is gone from the sky and can’t float on the water any longer.

“You think you’re better than us, just because you’ve got a little bit of reitsu?” he reeks of sake and years gone unwashed. He’s flanked by three others, all of them red faced and unstable.

That doesn’t stop the hits from hurting.

“You’re no better than we are!”

“You’re just a brat no one wanted, that’s why you’re here.”

“Where’d your whore mother leave you anyway huh? In the woods? Fucking bush runt.”

When he lifts his head to spit on one of them he’s slammed down again so hard he sees stars. Blood roars in his ears and pours down his face with the tears and snot. His lips split. He screams.

It’s over.

When he looks up there’s only clothes on the ground, and he learns how to keep his head bowed and mild. Even still, people start avoiding him. Fear leads to isolation.

* *

He is only just an adolescent when people begin to vanish. They leave blood stains on the ground and screams in the night. There have been other children in the years. None of them last long. Even the ones that he tries to protect can’t take as many hits as he can, or go as long without. The latest dies not a month after he meets them. Adults have stopped speaking to him entirely. He is too smart, to vicious, to strong.

It takes four months for the shinigami to arrive.

One woman faints at the sight of them, the pressure of their souls so intense she can’t take it. He scoffs quietly. He is just as strong, and they don’t drop to their knees for him.

He watches them with solemn eyes. They wander like sparrows, with no direction and hardly any drive. Merely being in their village is a chore for these people, never mind the dead.

They are only people in the outer districts, he hears them whisper. Unmanageable and unwashed. They don’t even have shoes.

Sosuke bites his lip so hard it bleeds. That is not enough for him. He will no be contented to this life and fade away or be torn apart by monsters, those with and those without masks.

He walks up to one shinigami and points him to the hunting ground. The place by the river, where everyone must go eventually. That’s where they will find the monster that they barely bothered to look for.

Someone calls him clever. Someone else notes his energy levels.

None of them look back when they leave again.

He looks at the stick and stone huts that make up his village for a long time before he follows their foot prints. He is worth more than dirt and dead grass and bloody teeth. Regardless of what they tell him. He will find people who recognize that he is a person, that he deserves to be seen, that he deserves to eat and wash and live.

* * *  

The first time he sets sight on the seireitei the only thing that over rides his anger is his hunger.

He wants it. He wants that place. He wants his place in its wall and all that it entails. Shoes, soap, food.

He wants all of it. And he hates these people for hoarding it. He’d worked his way through the rukongai, and he’d made his way to the first districts with calloused hands and a mild smile. He’d seen people throw food away. He’d seen them discard perfectly good clothes and tools simply because they were old.

All of this waste, and yet he’d gone hungry for so long. For what reason?

He’d learned to read in return for months of hard labor, and he’d gotten himself accepted into the academy on work alone.

By then he was still young for the academy, but not the youngest. He had learned to be mild and polite. He’d learned to hide the blood in his teeth and wear his sleeves long enough to hide calloused palms and scarred knuckles.

He’d even started to wear glasses, to give the impression that he was smarter than people thought. And he was. Smarter. Smart enough and savvy enough that he lost his accent and polished his edges so swiftly that anyone who didn’t know before hand where he’d come from never would. Kido came to him as easy as breathing. All of his classes did. It just made sense, like fitting together pieces of puzzles. History and law, mathematics and management.

Poetry especially became a passion of his. It was elegant and beautiful, it opened a window to the soul of the writer.

The stroke of the brush and the stroke of the sword was the same. Once made it could never be undone. There the true intentions were laid bare to the world.

He chose a poetic name for himself. One that was just as unassuming at his smile and his eyes.

Sosuke Aizen. ‘Clever’ and ‘mediator’, and ‘love’ and ‘peace’. Something that he was and something that he wasn’t. Truth and lies.

He had barely graduated when the moon finally spoke to him a name on the water.

  Kyoka Suigetsu.  

“ You have grown, my Sosuke.”  

She is lovely and insubstantial. She ripples at the edges and her long white hair flows like water around them. Her blue eyes are so dark they’re nearly black, and her kimono swims with black and white koi.

She is like him, everything seemingly dripped in finery and hiding the callouses beneath. She is as beautiful as the truth is ugly. Sosuke loves her, suddenly and fiercely. He always has. She is the changing moon that has always watched over him.

She is alone in that.

Even in the academy, surrounded by others, he realizes quickly that he is cut from a different cloth.

He is smarter, stronger, he adapts faster. It leaves him standing above students, a pedestal they cannot reach, but below shinigami who are even weaker than he by the simple merrit of he has not yet graduated.

He asks one of those shinigami one day, when they are visiting to scout new recruits for their squads, why no one has ever tried to make things better for the outer districts.

(why no one ever tried to make it better for him)

They laughed at him, and the notion that anyone would care for mere rukongai trash. Someone all the way from Akaiha was worth less than the dirt on the shoes of someone like a Kuchiki. One person from Junrinan was worth more than eighty people from the eightieth districts.  Why bother with people like that?

If they really hated it there so much they should have worked harder to get out.

If their lives were so terrible they should just hurry up and die and move on.

Another answer comes, years later. It’s given to him by Shinji Hirako, his new captain, but the words aren’t really aimed at him. They stand on a balcony above the graduation class after him. He’s a fourth seat, fresh himself, and prepared to claw his way higher with grace and smiles.

The difference between the people below them is stark. The rukon seeds, the nobility, and the mercantile. It’s in the slope of shoulders, the set of jaws, and the dark eyes. Even their uniforms bear the marks of their origins. Some are new, even in the last days of class. Others are threadbare, grown out of and patched messily in places.

“It’s the same every year,” Hirako says to Rose. The two blonds are shoulder to shoulder, flanked by their underlings. Hirako has no lieutenant, so his entourage is larger.

“A shame,” Rose’s usual smile is faded into a pensive frown.

“Don’t look like that. There’s nothing you can do and you know it. They keep the rukon full so when the Soul King needs to lighten the weight no one with any power does anything about it. That’s how it’s always been.”

“I know that.” Rose’s frown deepens. “That doesn’t mean I like it.”

“No. None of us do.”

Sosuke thinks of cruel smiles and sabotages. Finery hides the sickest hearts. He’s not sure that Hirako is right. Plenty of people like the system just fine. All the ones with power do. The nobility does nothing because it keeps them safe and it keeps them living in luxury. They like living above the common riff raff.

Sosuke starts looking more into history. There have been attempts at change in the past. Rebellions and insurgencies, all crushed. Each time things got worse for the citizens of the Rukongai. More resources were taken, trade was restricted, business taxes increased until the squalor of the outer districts encroached until it reached all the way to the fifty first. The nobles owned the Central 46, who all Shinigami would obey without question. They cut down citizens they should have protected.

After that it stopped. Fear held them in place. They were no more than sheep.

Sosuke would not be a sheep. He refused.  

* * * *

Isolation was a deadly thing.

To be alone, even when surrounded by other people, was the worst sort of torture. He may not have shown it, but he struggled to resign himself to the world as it was. Why should he? He had been born strong. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but the empty clothes around where he woke up were people crushed by his mere presence. He had learned, quickly, to hide himself inside his own skin.

No one saw him. No one saw what he saw. A king that never knew his subjects, a ruling class that revelled in the suffering of those beneath them. There was a king with no face, no name, no influence. No king at all.

The throne in the sky was empty and Sousuke still knew the hunger. It still clawed at his chest and stomach.

Hirako was suspicious of him. He’d never done anything to warrant it, but the captain watched him like he was waiting for an explosion.

He was the last of his graduating class to be sent to the human world. The senkaimon was acting strangely, and they were going to put it off a few more months, but the head captain insisted, over Hirako’s protests. He said Sosuke needed to get his feet wet.

So he went.

He stepped out of the gate and onto a beach, where western troops marched in the dying red light.

This was not right. It wasn’t right at all.

Where were the thick wooden walls and tiled roofs of Kyoto? Surely it couldn't have changed so much since the last paintings were brought back from the human world! There really must have been something wrong with the Senkaimon. It dropped him somewhere he was certainly not meant to be.

There was something weird here too. The air was dense, like the atmosphere had suddenly compressed without room to expand. And the soldiers. Most of them weren’t just in identical uniforms. Some of them had the same face!

They were all alive, that much he could tell, and none of them paid any mind to him.

He touched the hilt of his zanpakutou, a curl of worry and a thrill of excitement coursing through him before he brushed them underneath reasoning and logic.

  Is it an illusion?  

He knows she is the best when it comes to such things. No one else could compare, and once he has someone snared there’s nothing else. The game is over and he has won.

She thrums under his fingers a small denial.

No. It’s real. Everything is real, but everything is also...

Wrong.  He can feel it. There’s something very, very wrong in the air. A thickness, a blanket over the land. The edges of the horizon somehow seem more like a cage than an invitation to find where they lead. As if they lead nowhere.

What is this?!

Sosuke forces himself to calm down. He’s never understood people who let their anger cloud their judgement, or fear decide their actions. Nothing good ever comes of that.

He needs information.

He tries, first, to open the senkaimon again, but to no avail. He stabs the air at least five times before he gives up on that option. Panic thrums under his skin. He sets it aside yet.

An investigation begins.

He follows troops and listens to orders. People are fighting, a war between americans and the clan Connacht.

Soldiers for it march to a prison, where a high profile captive it being held under a general. Seeking information he follows after.

Inside, he finds a tragedy and a miracle all in one.

* * * *

A human who can see him. A man who travels through time in a desperate attempt to save the world he lives in. A boy who has no power on his own but can empower into other people.

He’s an interest ( amazing ) human.

At first glance he’s just a moody teenager. All scowls and harsh edges. Sosuke gets to watch them soften around his people. Mash, a girl of tremendous resilience and knowledge. Cu Cullain, a magician who is two people at once, gentle and fierce in equal turns. Medusa is a vicious contender, with sharp teeth and serpents in her hair. The only smiles she has are reserved for pretty girls, and Ichigo himself.

It’s not his intention, but Sosuke starts to get attached.

It’s not his intention, but Sosuke starts to trust them.

Ichigo feels like his first and final chance. He sees the same injustices, he encourages Sosuke’s anger.

He tells him to change the world.

For the first time in his life Sosuke blossoms. He doesn’t need to hold himself back, or pretend to be anything other than what he is. Ichigo sees through his facade anyways. Ichigo keeps up with the twisting paths and whip quick leaps Sosuke’s mind makes. He’s a match for him. Never has Sosuke felt anything like what he felt when Ichigo placed his hand on his shoulder and shoved his very soul inside his skin.

Fire and moonlight, an ocean of power rushing into Sosuke’s swollen lake of reiryoku.

For the first time in his life Sosuke begs. When Ichigo tells him that he’ll forget him, forget them, he tells him secrets. He lets him touch Kyoka Suigetsu and offers him only truth. He will never be able to hide from Ichigo again, and he will give up every mask and tempered smile he has if it means Ichigo will restore him to how he is in America.

Free.

The empty throne in the sky doesn’t exist anymore. There are only stars and the sun.

It’s a war. Bloody and desperate. Every hollow in hueco mundo has brought themselves to the feast, or to run from the end of their home.

It’s still precious to him. Ichigo’s roughness manages to sand away his edges and hard corners, in the best ways.

It can’t stay. He clings to Ichigo when the battles are over and the light starts to shimmer around him. If he could he would follow him all the way to Chaldeas, no matter the consequences. If he could.

He can’t.

He loses everything, and he can’t even mourn it.

* * * * *

He stepped out of the gate and onto a beach, where western troops marched in the dying red light.

He stepped out of the gate and onto a beach, where western troops marched in the dying red light.

He stepped out of the gate and onto a beach, where western troops marched in the dying red light.

  Onto a beach-  

  Onto a beach-

  Onto a-  

Into carefully planned out streets lined with high wooden walls and roofs tiled in blue. Souls wander, forlorn and clinking with the chains of fate. Somewhere off to the east there’s a hollow hunting for dinner. The living are just as down trod as the dead, trudging through their daily toil.

Sosuke stumbles forwards. He blinks several times. He had just been reaching for something, hadn’t he? He’d been trying to hold something in his hands…

Something in his hands.

He looks down at his clenched fist. There is something cool and powerful held in his hand.

The one constant in Sosuke Aizen's life is hunger.

* * * * * *

[lucxns]

( @xyuuken​ said:  i could do the meme thing or i could just....... ask you to imagine rukia and kaname on some mission and he just scoops her up under his arm and runs off before some attack hits-- )

He’d asked for her, specifically and especially -- and something about that had her a level of nervous she’d not been on a mission since, well...

Since she’d gone on her first one, ever.

The stark change of operating under a different captain, that was nerve-wracking enough -- but something had shifted between them ever since that day he’d spoken so extensively with her. She ran into him more now in her little trips around the Gotei barracks, and now this? Rukia was not worried about ill-intent, in fact, quite the opposite. Her walls were lowering again, the idea of healing, of having a friend...

It was a simple Hollow elimination, he’d explained, when she’d met him that morning on the outskirts of the Rukon. And yet, now, in the heat of the battle, she was struggling greatly to keep up.

She was outside of her skill-range, clearly, and that frustrated her more than it usually did. Like it was embarrassing for it to be so glaringly obvious in front of Tosen. Rukia tried to square up, to face off, to try and prove--

And that’s when she felt an arm loop about her, a quick shunpo, hey, wait! She looked up to see that, of course, Tosen had been the one to carry her off (who else?) and that a crater was now where she’d been standing. A little huff, a frown, that crushing disappointment in herself weighing down immediately.

❝I’m... sorry.❞

( @njnth​ )

[rukia-kuchiki-divided]

Continued from [[X]] @dragonsdance

Offering his gloved hand to her to help her off of Nimbus while he certainly would have loved nothing more for them to continue onwards on their journey together as there was so much that needed to be done he wasn’t going to ask her to endure this. Nor was he going to ask Nimbus to endure these blisteringly cold winds either for the sake of getting them to their destination faster. The golden, magical cloud had been shivering all the way through the very moment they had entered this colder climate but all in all…it wasn’t that often that Mt. Paozu would get inundated with harsh winter storms like this.

They certainly weren’t impossible either, especially considering that his home, the one that he had shared with his beloved grandpa gohan so many years ago was situated higher up then most of the dwellings in the area.

It stood to reason that when there where storms, his home in particular would get hit the hardest but this house of his had endured plenty of storms in his younger years and as long as he was around he would be certain that she would in the future as well.

The moment that his guest stepped inside he waved a thankful farewell to his cherished friend as he knew that Nimbus was more than likely just itching to head to a warmer climate and he wasn’t going to take up any more of it’s time.

“ Thanks again Nimbus! I’ll call ya when we’re ready to go! “

Turning around to follow her inside he closed the door soon afterwards, lightly sighing aloud as he was happy to finally have some respite from the seemingly never ending barrage of snow and wind.

“ Whew! Sorry about all that, this part of the world doesn’t normally get storms like this but when we do we tend to get buried. Take a load off, I’ll get the heat going alright? “

Removing his outer coat he moved to start a fire in the hearth. Thankfully he always had the forethought to have some kindling inside of the house to avoid having to step out to grab some before he had originally left.

He was certainly thankful that she had decided to tag along on this trip, as there was much he needed to go over with her.

“ How does a cup of tea sound? “

When Goku had first suggested she accompany him, Rukia had been a bit hesitant. She did have duties to perform after all. But it was difficult to deny the earnest expression on his face and so, after her request for a few days off duty was approved, she agreed. Her violet eyes were wide when he had summoned a cloud for them to travel on. She’d seen cars, buses, taxis, even planes. But travel by cloud?  

Despite her protests about simply following him with a flash step, Goku insisted she attempt to step on. Thoroughly expecting her foot to go through the air, Rukia was shocked when she felt resistance. The cloud was solid?! The world of the living seemed to be full of surprises! 

The weather had progressively gotten worse, the temperature quickly falling as they moved higher in altitude. Rukia’s spirit soared, her expression delighted as they were high up in the sky. She’d always had an affinity for high vantage points and this travel by cloud couldn’t have been more suited to her. Violet eyes closed  as she felt the wind across her face, only shivering slightly in the cold chill against her warm cloak. Her zanpakuto hummed at her side, seeming to reverberate in the ice cold weather. 

Rukia took Goku’s hand when offered, nimbly stepping off the cloud and seeing the small structure that stood seemingly alone against the wind and snow. Stepping in the door, she could see at a singly glance that it was well kept. Goku must come back her frequently for everything to be in such decent condition. 

She smiled at his apology, waving a dismissive hand. “Weather is unpredictable at times. It would be silly to blame you for it. Besides.” Her fingertips lightly brushed the hilt of her zanpakuto. “The cold isn’t entirely unwelcoming to me.” Actually, training in this kind of environment might help me master bankai...

Rukia returned her gaze to Goku who was already working to set up the fireplace. “Tea sounds lovely.” 

She removed her cloak, draping it over a seat near the fireplace so it would dry more easily. “Did you build this place yourself?” Her voice was slightly hushed as she admired the sturdy walls. Though simple, this shelter was very well built, the howling of the wind not seeping through any cracks. There was an almost reverent air about it. 

“What I would have given to have a shelter like this in the rukon district back then...” She murmured more to herself than to Goku as she ran a hand along the wall, lost in thought.