Soft White Chapter 5 (Patreon)

Bleach parody: Tier 1/Patreon Reward

Chapter 4 

Chapter 5 Miracle

Orihime wasn’t one for miracles. She wished for them for other people, never herself. Things were hard for her and her brother, and they only got harder when he died. She’s stayed positive, and did her best to keep living.

Knock Knock

“Coming!” She went to the door and opened. “S-Sora…”

Her brother stood before her, but that wasn’t possible he was dead. “Am I dreaming? This can’t be real…”

“I know, this must seem crazy. I’m back Orihime!” She moved over to him and touched him, he was real. Sora felt warm, she could feel his heart beat.

“How is this possible?” She began to tear up.

“Would you believe...a miracle?” He rubbed the back of his head. Orihime cried, this was a dream, it had to be, but she pinched her cheeks and it hurt.

“Soma!” She cried and hugged him.

“I’m back Orihime and I’ll never leave you again!” He hugged her back.

-x-

“Are you sure about this?” Urahara asked, looking at the naked arrancar.

“I’m not sure about anything, him transforming came as a surprise to me too.” Ichigo said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

-x-

He felt the spike, and things became a scramble to get Sora out of sight.

Ichigo got an earful from Kisuke about causing trouble. The arrancar was adamant this wasn’t his fault, though it kinda(totally) was. “You can help him right?”

Kisuke had developed gigai technology, one capable of hiding vizards. So setting Sora up with a gigai was an easy matter. Then came the problem of what to do with him. Sora had both shinigami and hollow powers, but had no training in either. “While you could defend yourself against hollows easily enough, I could train you for that, but your unique spiritual pressure will be detected and it’ll only be a matter of time before Soul Society comes snooping.” Kisuke said, talking behind his fan as usual.

“Well this is partly my fault right? Why don’t you train him, let him keep the gigai, and let him return to his family?” Sora gasped.

“Is that possible?” Sora asked.

“It isn’t normally, we can’t go around giving souls gigai, most souls can’t even sustain a gigai and would extinguish trying.” Sora eeped.

“This is a special circumstance and he’s not a normal soul anymore. Isn’t there some kind of Soul Society loophole you can work with?” Ichigo asked crossing his arms.

Kisuke stroked his chin. “There is, an old one, it’s rarely used anymore. It’s called the Second Chance at Life.” Sometimes Soul Society enlisted strong souls that died from hollow attacks, giving them a second chance at life. They were allowed to return to the lives they had lost using gigai, if their bodies were no longer viable.

Soul Society had access to memory altering technology, usually used on civilians after contact with hollows. Using this technology on a grand scale to simply alter any death signs and memories. The simplest way was the coma story, they didn’t die they were simply in a coma and woke up after some time passed. Even those with spiritual power would be effected by the shift, then erasing the thought he had died altogether.

Kisuke was able to replicate the technology. “I’ll do it, but you’ll owe me a favor!”

-x-

“Now you owe me a favor, helping out a total stranger.” Kisuke chuckled.

Ichigo sighed. “Relationships are a give and take so they say.”  Their current arrangement wasn’t a problem, Ichigo could have his territory, and Kisuke wouldn’t interfere in his business so long as he didn’t attack humans or souls. Ichigo did him one better and hunted the hollows sneaking about. “Besides…” He looked down on the two reunited. “I think it is worth it, look how happy they are.”

“I’ll call on this favor some day, I like to save my favors for a rainy day.” He chuckled.

“Just make sure he’s covered.” Ichigo stands up from his squatting position.

“I got Tessai on it, it’ll be done by morning. Sora will be back among the living.” Ichigo nods. “Soul Society might investigate, if I sensed it I’m sure they did too.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” He yawned.

“I’m curious though, why go so far to help him?” Kisuke eyed the naked arrancar.

“Dunno, something about him made me wanna help him is all. Like we are kindred spirits. Besides, if he gets strong enough, he can help with patrols and I can spend more time with my mates!” Ichigo smiled.

Kisuke chuckled. “You are an interesting one.”

“Speaking of curiosity…” Ichigo pumped his length. “Are you curious what might happen to you if you take my seed?”

“Vizard or Arrancar, can’t say I’m not curious, but I’d like to get some form of clue before I test on myself.” Ichigo shrugs and takes off.

“Suit yourself!” Kisuke watched him go. ‘Isshin...your son is a wild one!’

-x-

Soul Society did take notice. Mayuri had called another Captain’s meeting to discuss his “findings”. Grimmjow was annoyed. ‘Does that man ever relax.’

The blue haired Soul Reaper wasn’t interested in his research. For years now he’s been pulling the captains in to report on the status of Hollows. The research team he employs and the dummy hollows tasked with scouting the world of the hollows have been noticing weird spikes of reiatsu. There was a sudden surge in hollow evolution, which while odd wasn’t anything concerning in Grimmjow’s opinion.

If hollows are getting stronger or evolving rapidly, they just needed to be get stronger so they could fight them, easy as that. His tests were always inconclusive anyway, sure it was happening but he didn’t know why it was happening? Mayuri wanted to establish a base in Las Noches, to expand his research and find out what was causing the influx and new phenomenon.

What Grimmjow found odd/boring was that these evolved hollows weren’t making any noise. Whatever was helping them evolve was sustaining them so they didn’t need to attack humans, or maybe they were just going after other hollows. Either way the number of hollow attacks in the world of the living was still low.

Old Man Yama wasn’t investing in an invasion of the land of hollows. Not only would it take time and resources, but the threat of the Vasto Lorde made it so that a minimum of two captains would need to be stationed for protection. There were reasons why Soul Reapers didn’t just go and invade the land and wipe out as many hollows as they could. Creating a base and sustaining it was frankly too dangerous and a waste in his mind. While the information was mildly troubling, Yama continued to shoot down Mayuri’s requests.

His focus was on protecting Soul Society and guarding the new Spirit Point in the land of the living. That didn’t stop Mayuri from bringing more and more requests, sharing his findings over and over.

Grimmjow wanted some action if anything, he saw hollows evolving as a way of livening things up around here. He often sent his squad members to deal with the reports, but not today.

He was gonna take a nap, but someone snuck into his office. Sching! Grimmjow attacked the intruder and crossed blades with another captain. “Gin you bastard, what have I told you about sneaking in here!”

Gin smirked. “Nice reflexes Grimmjow-kun.” The two traded slashes before Gin was forced back.

“I swear I’m gonna kill you one of these days.” Grimmjow sheathed his sword.

“You can try!” Gin chuckled and sheathed his blade. “You are late for the meeting.”

“My squad covers that for me. If that’s all you can leave.” He tries to lay back down, and put his arms behind his head.

“Not this time.” Grimmjow got tied up with a white clothe.

“Hey!” He struggled but couldn’t escape. “Gin you fuck!” The clothe covered his mouth. “Mfff mrr rrfffgn!”

“Not this time Blue, Old Man Yama read Mayuri’s latest report and made this meeting mandatory!” He dragged Grimmjow out of his office and to the captain’s meeting.

Kenpachi started laughing at the state of Grimmjow. “Was that necessary?” Ukitake asked, before coughing.

“Yes, yes it was!” Grimmjow escaped his bindings.

“Gin you are so dead!” Before he could lunge at him, Yamamoto entered the room.

“Enough!” He banged his cane and released his spiritual pressure. Everyone got quiet and stood at attention. “We have received some distressing news.”

Mayuri came in. “Ah so the other ruffian is here.”

“Watch it clown!” Grimmjow growled.

“I doubt you’ll be much help, sending your peons to meetings all this time.” He waved Grimmjow off. “We have detected strange reiatsu spikes in the world of the living. Also hollows have been purified when we have no shinigami stationed in Karakura Town.”

That peeked Grimmjow’s interest. “I feel whatever has been happening in Las Noches has spilled into the living world. This would not have happened if you had granted my proposal.”

“Get on with it Captain Kurotsuchi!” Mayuri huffed, but didn’t wanna press the old captain further.

“This has become a problem we can no longer ignore. We must form a team to investigate at once.” The captains began discussing it with each other. They couldn’t risk the safety of Karakura Town as it was, so that pushed Mayuri’s motion forward.

“I’d like to volunteer Rukia Kuchiki from my squad for the task force.” Ukitake suggested.

“Out of the question,” Byakuya Kuchiki spoke out. The raven haired man was her brother, and he was very over protective of her. “Rukia hasn’t properly learned her shikai yet, we can’t leave this task to her.” He made a good point, but everyone knew the real reason why he didn’t want her to go.

“I do suppose having shinigami of lieutenant and above would be favorable to the mission.” Ukitake relented. He had hoped to get her some experience and put her on the rotation of those to monitor Karakura Town, but this incident put a damper on that.

“No need, me and my boys will go sounds like fun!” Kenpachi said. From the wild smirk on his face he looked ready for a fight.

“Out of the question, we can’t get any good data if we let a barbarian like you loose!” Mayuri countered.

Things spiraled into a pissing contest of pride. After hours of arguing they hadn’t gotten anywhere. Though the Seireitei was protected by the 13 court guard squad, each captain was their own individual. Head Captain Yamamoto and Captain Unohana were the oldest and wisest of them, but the other 11 had trouble agreeing on anything completely. It would take a miracle to get them to cooperate.

“If I may?” A brunette raised his hand.

“Yes Captain Aizen, what do your propose?” Aizen stepped forward. “I’d like to nominate Captain Grimmjow to lead the task force.”

“What?!” Grimmjow looked to Aizen, and the brunette smiled at him. The bluenette narrowed his eyes.

‘What’s this guy thinking?’

To be continued...Meeting the Mates