Hibiki's Discourse

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Discourse - Part I
50 years ago...

Hibiki took a step out into the Living World and snorted roughly as the noxious fumes arising from the traffic on the roads below assaulted his nasal passage. Thirty years away from the smell of smog had left him quite unprepared for his first long-term jaunt back where he had lived for almost as long again. That wasn't to say that the world hadn't changed without him...

The number of cars on the road had changed, and the cars themselves were looking sleeker than ever. He scowled down at them and jumped down to a nearby rooftop. The world below the mountainside stretched away into the distance and the breeze carried leaves away into that almost unfathomable distance. It amused Hibiki slightly that although he'd never been much of a traveler in life, he'd just traveled a huge distance through dimensions from Soul Society back to the Living World.

Of course, that wasn't to say he hadn't been back here before; training exercises had brought him into some parts of the real world and so he was familiar with one or two locations. He did a quick check of his equipment. His zanpakuto, silent as ever sat in pride of place next to his left leg, the sheathe slipped through a specially made hole in his belt. Concealed in a pocket, his communicator also sat quietly, no Hollow signatures registering. Even more carefully concealed, an experimental tanto that Hibiki was working on. Just as he reached into his pocket to remove the device that would enable him to remove it from his constitution, his communicator beeped, alerting him to the presence of a Hollow.

'Crap, a Hollow,' he muttered under his breath. He pulled out his communicator and flipped it open. A cursory glance told him that the Hollow wasn't far, and wasn't amazingly strong. 'Probably a newlymade,' he observed. 'Time to do my job.' Unsheathing his zanpakuto, he began running in the direction of the Hollow. As he ran, jumping across the gaps between buildings, he chuckled quietly to himself, thinking of all the people who would have no idea what was going on right beneath their noses. He supposed he laughed at his own naivety too; when he was alive he had no idea that shinigami patrolled his town, wiping out Hollow. His sensei had, though. At the time it seemed so far fetched...

The cry of pain that typified a Hollow reached his ears as he drew closer, but as the white-masked monster came into view, it was pierced through its torso by a glowing projectile. Its spirit body evaporated and the particles flowed away towards...Hibiki cast his gaze down the street and beheld a bespectacled man lowering an ephemeral crossbow. As it drew level with his hip, it vanished, leaving a cross in view. A Quincy...

'Too slow, shinigami,' the man addressed him with a derisive laugh. 'You might as well give that Plus a soul burial and disappear.' He pointed with one finger at a young man with a chain of fate shorter than any other Hibiki had previously witnessed.

'Shit!' Hibiki calmly walked over to the plus and placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Are you okay?'

'I think so,' he replied stoutly, in spite of a slight trembling of his shoulders. 'Nee-san has been chasing me in that form for a long time...'

'Well it's time you moved on, my friend,' Hibiki sighed, the end of his zanpakuto glowing. 'You've not got much more of your chain left, so I'm not gonna take any chances.' The hilt met with the boy's forehead with a quiet sound that reverberated a little in the small street. As he vanished, Hibiki noted that the Quincy had also departed. 'Where'd he go...' Hibiki tried sensing the man's reiatsu, but it was a useless effort, he'd not taken the time to get the feel for it earlier and thus found nothing. He at least thought it would be one that was greater than the average, but the most powerful reiatsu he could track down belonged to a local kickboxer.

By the time he'd located that one reiatsu, he'd slain one other Hollow, yet the Quincy had not appeared.

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Discourse - Part II
Once again, 50 years before the present, this time a few days closer to now...

The Quincy still eluded Hibiki. It frustrated him to no end that he could be so outclassed by someone who was still alive, someone whose existence shouldn't relate so much to his own...he knew that there were spiritually aware humans in the world. In fact he'd discovered as much whilst spying on a woman having a shower; not only could he be seen, but moreover he could be slightly injured by an aggravated punch in the face. Hibiki nursed the remnants of the swelling with his hand. He would have to be more careful when selecting his next 'target', keeping a wide berth from the last one would be critical.

It was quite amusing, as he'd always been amused by a dialogue he'd heard from...a book or a movie or some such thing running something along the lines of the dead spending most of their time watching the living while the living bathed. He supposed he wasn't the only man, Or woman, he realized, that watched people whilst they showered. He paused a moment to adjust his shihakusho while the woman in the middle cubicle decided which skirt to try on next. Just as he finished, his communicator had an apoplexy as several Hollow emerged into the Living World at once.

'Damn it, always at the worst times,' he hissed. Jumping up out of the skylight, Hibiki hazarded one last glance down at the woman, and was rewarded with the sight of the woman he'd had the run-in with earlier, looking up at him. 'When it rains, it pours...' He dragged his sights away from her and landed softly in one of the trees in the carpark. Leaping from the branch as his knees buckled from the impact, Hibiki took off through the streets, once more headed toward his ever-constant enemies. As he reached the halfway point, he vaguely felt another presence with high reiatsu, different from the kickboxer's. Different in that it not only had a different quality, being much more refined, but it was also far more massive.

He arrived to find the Quincy engaged in combat with almost 40 Hollow. A faint aura of bait lingered in the area, and he guessed that the Quincy was training. He seemed to ignore Hibiki's presence, and was instead focused on shooting down as many of the Hollow as possible. It was interesting to watch him fight, as he used projectiles he didn't need to get close to his enemy. After three or so minutes, Hibiki dashed up and joined the fray, decimating the group of weak Hollow until no more came.

'Not bad, shinigami,' the Quincy teased as the last Hollow fell to Hibiki's blade. 'Even with a head start, we've nearly broken even in numbers.'

'How about in strength of opponents, Quincy?' Hibiki replied with a chuckle. 'I distinctly recall your attacks obliterating the majority of the weaker Hollow, but the stronger ones you liked to leave for little me.' The Quincy smiled.

'You have a sense of humor, that's good.' The spirit bow vanished from sight, once again leaving the Quincy Cross in view and affording him his first good look at the Quincy. 'I'm Morimotou Kaede, it's a pleasure to meet you.'

Wha...a woman? HER!? I could have sworn-! 'Koizumi Hibiki, shinigami and clumsy pervert,' Hibiki replied, with a wan smile and a chuckle. 'Don't shoot me Kaede-san...' Kaede burst out laughing. 'H-hey!'

'It's alright, don't worry about it!' she laughed. 'Plenty of shinigami have spied on me over the years, I'm used to it. Actually, it's rather flattering, to be honest.' Something wasn't adding up in Hibiki's mind. This woman was obviously a kind, free-spirited type. So why had she been so short with him last time?

'I can't help but wonder-' Hibiki began.

'Probably my younger brother,' Kaede cut him short. 'Itsuki is often short with strangers, especially shinigami. We're difficult to tell apart during the night, and even during the day at a distance.' Hibiki nodded in agreement, noting that they both wore their hair bobbed and at the same shoulder length. 'There's a marked difference in our attitudes, though,' Kaede continued, while Hibiki observed the marked difference in their chest size. He realized that he had been focused on the bow, rather than the wielder beforehand. 'Staring again, little pervert?'

'Sorry Kaede-san,' he chuckled.

'Never mind,' she sighed, somewhat exasperated. 'It's not like it'll kill you. Let's go get something to eat, I'm starving.' As she turned to start walking, Hibiki grabbed her by the shoulder.

'I don't have my gigai yet,' he mentioned with an embarrassed cough.

'Not a problem,' Kaede replied. 'Follow me.'

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Discourse - Part III
Moving forward a few hours, we find Hibiki and Kaede talking after food...

'I know that Soul Society dislikes the way Quincy deal with Hollows,' Kaede rebutted calmly over the top of her bowl, chopsticks poised and ready to be used again. 'But threats get us nowhere.'

'That's a good point,' Hibiki replied as Kaede polished off the last of her noodles. 'Though it seems to me that it would be best if the Quincy found a way of adapting their powers to purify Hollows, rather than kill them outright. Don't forget, a Hollow is only sent through the gates of Hell if it's committed sins during its mortal life. The rest all end up in Soul Society. If a friend of yours were to become a Hollow, would you destroy him or her?' Kaede looked down at the Quincy Cross she wore.

'Itsuki and I have already done both of those things,' she mumbled, barely audible. She lifted her gaze and stared levelly at Hibiki. 'It was the latter that made us decide to tread a different path to the rest of our brethren. Didn't you notice the difference in the composition of our spirit bows?'

'No, actually,' Hibiki admitted, embarrassed. 'You two are the first Quincy I've come across. Before now I'd only heard of you by hearsay. It was chance that the two of us met on friendly terms; and even then, I'd seen your brother first and he just...irritated me. Why is he like that?'

'It's not really anything. He just hates being proven wrong.' A long silence fell over the room. Hibiki shuffled where he sat and coughed. In the past few hours, he'd made a new friend in Kaede, and their differing perspectives on life, and death, had given them a lot to talk about. He flushed bright red for a moment as he recalled a few moments of sexual tension that he'd wriggled his way through earlier.

'To tell you the truth,' he broke the silence. 'I'm not amazingly good at detecting spiritual energies of any kind. I can get a rough gauge of how strong something is, but I can't really do much more than that. And...Quincy are well know for their ability to sense and shape those energies...'

'I'll take you on as a student if you think you have the patience and the nerve to learn from a Quincy,' Kaede laughed, glad of the conversation. 'I'm quite a hard taskmaster though, so you'll need to have a strong resolve to keep up with me.' She leaned forward and extended her right hand for Hibiki to shake on it. The Quincy Cross dangled from her wrist, and Hibiki's glace flickered between it and Kaede's determined stare.

'If you're sure?'

'I'm quite sure.' Hibiki grasped her hand in his and shook it to seal the deal. 'What first, Sensei?'

'Sleep,' she chuckled. 'It's getting late, and I have another life to lead in the mean time. Feel free to sleep anywhere in the house, we've plenty of space.'

'I'll keep that in mind,' Hibiki replied, his shade of red returning for a brief encore. Kaede didn't notice as she left the room and headed down the hall to her own. Hibiki looked calmly out the window. He would have to extend his engagement in the Living World if he wanted to take lessons from Kaede, and he wondered on the quiet whether or not the top brass would let him stay; there was some room for flexibility, but not a huge amount. 'I'll have time to worry tomorrow,' he muttered, stretching out on the couch.

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Unfathomable Ardor - Part I
Jumping forward seven years, it is now 43 years behind the present day...

Once more the gateway to Soul Society closed behind him with the clatter of wood on wood. Once more the pungent fumes of car exhaust assaulted his unprepared nostrils. This time though, he was expected. This time, Kaede was waiting for him, standing casually on the roof of her house.

'Hibiki!' she called out over the distance between them. 'C'mon down! I need a hug!' Hibiki put on his best pervy grin and jumped down to the nearest roof, hopping from one to another until he found himself perched on the very edge of Kaede and Itsuki's roof. He ran forward and grabbed her up in his arms, spinning her around. Laughing, the two of them sat down clumsily on the pitch of the tiles and Hibiki procured a box from inside his shihakusho, handing it to Kaede.

'It's not much,' he explained as Kaede eagerly undid the ribbon and lifted the lid off the box. 'I made him from the spare parts that were lying around. He detects Hollows and any intruders on your property, he has a stare for the latter that could un-nerve any theif.' A small puppy leaped out of the box and licked Kaede's cheek. She giggled and cuddled the tiny gift to her breast.

'Oh, he's gorgeous!' she exclaimed, giving Hibiki a peck on the cheek. 'I adore you, Hibiki...' She broke off as the little puppy began to yip at a blank patch of sky. Within moments, the serene blue rippled and a hand emerged, which Kaede promptly pierced with an arrow. 'He's a good little boy!' She ruffled the dog's fur and he yipped happily and bounded down from the roof, landing gracefully in the garden.

'How have you been this last year and a half?' Kaede turned to face Hibiki again, her tone a little more serious. 'Have the pains stopped?'

'I'm better every day,' Hibiki replied with a half-smile. 'But I still can't hear its call.' He looked down at his zanpakuto. 'It's no longer painful, but I can feel its absence. Ever since I first felt it tugging at me...but I can't hear it so I've had to block it out to get this re-assignment. Only shinigami who are fit for duty are sent into the Living World.'

'You really shouldn't have,' Kaede rested her head against Hibiki's chest. 'It's sweet of you, but you need to look after yourself first.' She looked up at his face as his smile grew. He stroked her hair.

'It's not a priority for me at the moment,' he sighed. 'I've still got some ways to go before I'm seated officer material. My kidou is okay, I just lack the endurance to perform the more strenuous ones outside of a reishi enriched environment, but I'm still not powerful or skilled enough to hear what my zanpakuto is trying to say to me.'

'And my instructions?' Kaede sat up and formed a ball of reiatsu in her hand, which Hibiki promptly snatched away by force of will alone. 'You've improved a lot!'

'There were a few books on the matter back in Seireitei, I took the liberty of conducting a raid on the library,' he explained with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. 'I've learned a few other tricks too, but those can wait until later...' The grin widened.

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Unfathomable Ardor - Part II
Days later...

'I'm still not sure how well this will work, Kaede,' Hibiki cautioned as he concentrated. 'I made the cross according to your specifications, right down to the personal tweaking, but I'm still not sure how well my spirit body will respond to it.'

'Just give it a go, Hibiki,' Kaede encouraged. 'You've already mastered a lot of the Quincy teachings, if you can form a spirit bow then it might help us work out a way of incorporating konso into the arrows.' Hibiki sighed in agreement.

'It'll make dealing with perturbed pluses who try to run from konso easier,' he admitted, raising his arm. The cross dangled from his wrist, waiting. For several seconds, nothing happened, then a blob of spirit particles congregated around his outstretched hand. Excited, but unwilling to break his concentration, Hibiki began to breathe carefully and deeply as the patch of particles started to deform into a bow shape. Hibiki began to sweat, and after a few minutes, the vague shape collapsed into individual particles and vanished into the cross. He collapsed onto his backside and gasped for air. Kaede squealed with delight and pounced down toward him, knocking him onto his back.

'You did it! For a few moments there, you formed it perfectly!' she beamed. 'I'm so glad it worked!' Hibiki smiled wanly. 'Oh c'mon, it's better news than that!' She hugged him tightly and rubbed her nose against his, making Hibiki smile more broadly. He sat up slowly and looked closely at the cross. Its sheen remained unchanged, no cracks marred its surface and the shape of it had not changed even in the slightest.

'Well, the cross seems undamaged, so that's a relief,' he confirmed. 'I had some slight worries about my zanpakuto reacting to it adversely. Everything feels fine though, and if I've managed to form the bow correctly, then I should be able to synthesize konso into the arrow. It's gonna take me a while to get it right, though.' Hibiki shifted his focus back to Kaede. He wondered what would become of the two of them. He as a shinigami, and as such did not age anywhere near the speed of a living being, such as a Quincy. He loved Kaede, but as much as he did, he knew that her physical beauty would wane as she grew older. It would start to feel strange, he knew, for the both of them. Especially when they made love. Even now, Kaede did not have the energy she had when they'd first started seeing each other regularly...

'What's wrong, Hibiki?' Kaede asked, noticing Hibiki's drawn brow. 'You look upset...' Hibiki nodded absently and sighed. Kaede sat back and fixed him with a level gaze. 'Out with it then.'

'I knew when we entered into this relationship that it wasn't going to be an easy one,' Hibiki began. 'As a shinigami, I'm expected to keep my personal relationships within shinigami circles, and you most definitely fall outside that group. I've largely moved beyond that, but it worries me a little that the two of us...we won't age at the same rate. Physically, I mean. We won't be able to run around like this for all of your life, by the time you're 70 or 80 I'll still have most of the vitality I have now; probably more...I don't know if I could watch you grow old so much faster than me.' Kaede's gaze dropped.

'It has been bothering me too,' she admitted. 'I've felt it more these past few years, my body isn't coping as well as it used to with the strains of fighting Hollows and keeping up with you. What do you want to do?'

'I'm not really too sure,' Hibiki admitted. 'I...I have thought that if I were to take your life now, and konso your soul that you would be able to go to Soul Society, enter the Academy and become a shinigami...but you still have your brother to look after. I couldn't take his life though, he still has too much to live for, as do you.'

'We have to make a decision, Hibiki...'

'I know.'

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Unfathomable Ardor - Part III
Continuing on from where we left off...

I know. The sound of it reflected in Hibiki's mind. He felt like he was handing down some kind of sentence. The way he'd spoken, it was so cold. He felt ashamed having brought it up in the first place. The timing was entirely wrong. He'd just made a huge step forward, and now he'd taken another backwards. Well, as far as his relationship with Kaede went, anyway. He clenched his jaw, hoping that she didn't notice.

'I...' Silence.

...

'I don't want it to end, Hibiki,' Kaede finally spoke up and broke the gap. 'I don't want any of it to end. I don't want to have to watch you walk away back to Soul Society again, I want to follow you but I don't want to leave my brother behind...and you said earlier that the dead don't always remember their lives...'

'It's not a common thing,' Hibiki confirmed. 'The only reason I remember much of my life, I think, is because I carried very few regrets in life, which hold more sway over a soul's disposition. Though I can't conclusively prove that, yet.' He sighed and stretched. 'I suppose-' Hibiki's ears pricked up at the sound of a Hollow's voice, screaming into the air. He rapidly clambered to his feet and gazed in the direction the sound had come from. 'Why didn't that register?' He looked down at his communicator, but to its screen, the Hollow was a non-entity. It didn't exist, apparently. 'Duty calls, this might be important.' He jumped from the roof, followed by Kaede.

As the two of them jumped from rooftop to rooftop, Kaede continued the conversation.

'Is it another woman, Hibiki?' she asked, wondering why Hibiki had suddenly raised the issue of their odd circumstances.

'No, of course not,' Hibiki replied, somewhat tersely. 'I'd be straight to the point if that were the case. No, there's no "other woman" in my life. No Shinigami, other Quincy, Hollow or normal human or soul.'

'Then why bring it up?' Kaede persisted.

'Just the thought of time.' A pause. 'I've thought about it for a while recently. Since being back among my fellow Shinigami, I've noticed that time for us is relative to the point of quite a large difference. When I first realized it, it perturbed me...look, now is a bad time to talk about it. Let's deal with this Hollow first.' As they neared the Hollow, they began to feel its reiatsu. Increasing their speed, they continued to draw nearer.

'Hibiki, this Hollow feels different,' Kaede noted. 'It's reiatsu pattern is...almost segmented...regimented. But it has such a terrible killer instinct at its head...' The Hollow finally came into sight. It was very small, only about the size of a teenaged female. It stood upright, and from the look of it, had no distinguishable weapons on its body.

'Stop.' A whisper on the wind, its voice was like silk being pulled through a hollowed out bamboo stalk. 'Do not come any closer.' The sheer authority that resonated in the voice brought both Hibiki and Kaede to an immediate stop.

'Wha-' Hibiki's mind did a double-take. He sized up the Hollow. She wasn't very impressive to look at. Covered from head to foot in chitinous white plates, two piercing yellow eyes were the only part of her that wasn't a monotone of white and black.

'Koizumi Hibiki and Morimotou Kaede,' the Hollow intoned, pronouncing each part of the name with gracious ease. 'We have been waiting for you.'

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Unfathomable Ardor - Part IV
...

Hibiki gaped. It was all his mind would let him do. His mouth hung open slightly, and his eyes were widened at the sight that he saw before him. A Hollow, a young female from the looks of it, she didn't even manage to reach the height of Hibiki's shoulders, was calmly, very calmly, explaining to both Hibiki and Kaede that they were expected. Hibiki's mind did another backflip before his lips finally moved to close, and he was able to form the beginning of a sentence in his head.

'V-Va-a-stro Lorde...?' he squeaked almost imperceptibly at the end of the sentence. The pitch was so high that the rising inflection was barely notable. The Hollow nodded, the swept back spines on her mask cutting a careful arc through the air. She turned to face the two of them directly.

'I am known as Estela,' she spoke slowly. 'One of the Vasto Lorde of Hueco Mundo, and the person who is appealing to you now as someone begging a man who has been breaking down the barriers between Quincy and Shinigami; I want you to turn me into a Shinigami. Please.' Hibiki almost fainted.

'But...you...are a Hollow...aren't Shinigami your enemy?' Hibiki stuttered, completely baffled by Estela's request. He'd always been told that all Hollow hated Shinigami, and would sooner devour them than make any request of them. 'I'd...not thought-'

'Hibiki-kun, do you know how long I have sustained my consciousness for?' Estela asked, extending a hand and brushing Hibiki's cheek with its back. Hibiki stood stock still and barely breathed. 'Five thousand years. I've had all that time to reflect on myself. To contemplate the ways of the world. And I decided that I wanted to be reborn. And now, a little girl is asking you...can you do it? Can you break down this form and make me new as a Shinigami?'

'I can make...no promises of success,' Hibiki replied after a long thoughtful silence. 'The process would be dangerous, and most probably painful...but if you are willing to trust me, I will attempt it.' Estela gave the smallest of sighs and hugged Hibiki.

'Thank you, Hibiki-kun.'

Thank me if I succeed, and if Soul Society don't find out.

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Pains - Part I
Several months into Hibiki's experimentation...

BOOM!

The large underground room shook violently as the latest test subject exploded into its component parts, but the area around the site of the explosion remained undamaged. A kidou barrier suddenly screamed loudly under the release of pressure and collapsed. Hibiki tore off his headgear and threw it to the floor, cursing as the Hollow re-assembled into its original form and fled through a garganta.

'Fuck, not even the slightest hint of recomposition,' he grumbled, bending over to retrieve the protection against the danger of his work, which on the floor resembled a giant melted marshmallow. 'I can pull the bonds apart and seal the Hollow aspect, but it just explodes when I try and rebuild the shell.' Hibiki fumed silently. The job he'd agreed to do was insane, beyond what a Shinigami in his right mind should attempt. He should have just killed Estela and used his zanpakuto's innate ability to purify her. Except that it wasn't that simple.

Being a Menos class Hollow; firstly Hibiki doubted his zanpakuto's ability to cut a Vasto Lorde and secondly...her memories and persona while largely controlled by one entity did not entirely contain themselves to that one individual. Hollow evolved by consuming one another at that level, and while one will remained largely in command, it didn't remain untouched by the other beings within it. Hibiki needed to destroy all the other wills and consolidate the parts that had leaked into Estela's psyche permanently into it. And even then...there was the possibility that the mind that Estela had ended up with as a Hollow was not her plus mind, and therefore it would be erased if he were to purify her.

Hibiki walked over to his workbench and looked at the readouts from this latest attempt. The decay hadn't been anywhere near as instantaneous as the previous subject's, it had held something close to a plus mind in a Hollow body for over 45 minutes. He'd been in complete remorse of his Hollow memories for a full half hour before Hibiki managed to calm him again. But the blending was still imperfect. He knew of Arrancar and Vizards, Hollow who had removed their masks and Shinigami who had gained them, but it wasn't what Hibiki...what Estela...whatever. It wasn't what he wanted to do to Estela, he didn't want to create an Arrancar. With a sigh, Hibiki walked over to a huge door cut into the rock face of one of the walls. He opened it and his ears were assailed by the sounds of hundreds of caged Hollow that he'd spent the past weeks collecting for experiments. He sighed and grimly put on a pair of earmuffs.

Walking amongst the cages, Hibiki looked sternly at the labels he'd placed on them in his distinctively delicate hand. Each Hollow was individually cataloged, and then grouped according to a set of specifications. His worn eyes picked out the Hollow type he needed and he walked closer to the cage to inspect its contents.

The Hollow within this particular cage was very small. The smallest Adjuchas class Hollow he'd ever come across. Frozen in a stasis that had taken days to set up, it was screaming silently at Hibiki from the center of the cage. Hibiki had initially mistaken it for an average Hollow. That was before it had unleashed its power. It wasn't as powerful as Hibiki, however and he'd just managed to cage it and then seal it before it destroyed the cage. It was monkey-like in appearance, literally conforming to the basic shape of a monkey but covered in white armor and a death-mask of a monkey's skull. Its slightly overlarge hands were miming strangling, and its toes were curled in rage. The visible parts of its body were covered in dense brown hair.

At Hibiki's command, the cage rose onto a platform of reiatsu and began to follow him as he headed out into the main cave area. Closing the doors, Hibiki ordered the cage to set itself down in the middle of his instruments. As the doors slammed shut, ending all traces of the Hollow's howling, Hibiki drew his zanpakuto and pushed the blade into a solid white cube.

'Back to work.'

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Pains - Part II
Several weeks later...

Stability. At last! The Adjuchas held a perfect plus type consciousness and its body was almost completely converted into a young man in a black robe. He was very young, this one. His spirit body couldn't have been from a person more than 21 years of age when it was first separated from the body it had occupied. His hair was amazingly long when it had first assembled itself, his head and shoulders had been the first part of him to emerge from the nondescript mass of gray roiling spirit particles. A brilliant reddish brown hue, it settled over his forehead and cascaded dead straight down his back. His eyes were a mossy green, in an interesting contrast to his hair; they were also quite big and very expressive.

Hibiki had spent the past 48 hours talking to him as his form reconstituted slowly. There wasn't much left of him to come, Hibiki had suspected that the zanpakuto would be the last part of the soul to form, however it seemed that the sword appeared when the area on the body that formerly had a hole through it appeared. Shizuro's zanpakuto was quite unremarkable, and this pleased Hibiki to no end. It wasn't flawed in the slightest bit. Hibiki also noted a somewhat alarming drop in the former Hollow's reiatsu level, but Hibiki had written the experiment off as a complete success.

'I still haven't quite gotten used to the lack of a tail,' Shizuro laughed. 'It's a bit disconcerting, being in this body after being a Hollow for so long...' Hibiki fidgeted a little in his seat and smiled wanly.

'Well, as I said, it's not an easy thing to ask a Hollow to come quietly and be hopefully turned into a Shinigami,' he chuckled. 'Actually, it surprises me somewhat that this experiment worked so well. It's vastly different to Arracarization.'

'I'm a little surprised myself,' Shizuro laughed. 'I suppose the fact that I have a heart again and my being isn't just controlled by instinct is what stops me from getting enraged and killing you.'

'Though some Menos of Adjuchas and Vasto Lorde level seem to have a close approximation of a heart,' Hibiki mused. 'I suppose it has something to do with the meshing of so many different lives, that some semblance of self-control emerges. Or it could just be self-preservation.'

'I've never really been sure,' Shizuro replied. 'It's known that Adjuchas, Vastro Lorde and Arrancar have been able to overwhelm their pure instincts...but they're a rare breed.' Shizuro's right foot finished forming with a strange popping sound. He rose to his feet and looked down at himself. 'Well...what now?'

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Pains - Part III
24 hours later...

'Estela, before we begin, there are a couple of things I need to tell you,' Hibiki spoke while he adjusted his instruments. 'First off, this process does work. However, there will be a drop in your overall strength level due to the reconstitution process. I don't know how big the difference will be, but Shizuro lost approximately one third of his total power so I estimate that you will lose approximately one quarter. This is entirely guesswork however.'

'In the main, I wish to be a Shinigami,' Estela replied, calmly. 'Any loss of power is of little concern to me.'

'Okay then,' Hibiki confirmed with a nod. 'The other point I'd like to bring up is that...once this process is completed, you will be expected to fight and slay other Hollow. Shizuro's psyche seems to be stable enough to do this, however with you I'm in a position to ask you beforehand whether or not you're okay with that.'

'As I said Hibiki, I wish to become a Shinigami,' Estela replied calmly. 'I have already considered that fact.'

'The last thing...' Hibiki paused. He furrowed his brow as he made the final adjustments. 'Your personality may change slightly, depending on how much of it is conducive to a plus state. The majority of Shizuro's personality is unchanged, however there is a notable difference in his mental patterns that suggest some unseen changes.' Estela nodded. Hibiki returned the nod, plunged his zanpakuto into the cube, and Estela's form collapsed into a sphere of roiling darkness.

Wasting no time, Hibiki leaped to a different console and watched the figures dance about on the screen. Graphs fluctuated wildly and lights blinked on and off as the sphere began to deform slowly. A patch of yellow began to form on the top of the sphere as it shrank, and a golden curl popped into existence. Hibiki adjusted some controls and the process began to speed up as the calculations on the screen were refined. Soon enough, a forehead had emerged from the mass followed by 2 blue eyes that blinked open as soon as they were able. Once nose and mouth had followed, Estela spoke her first as a Shinigami.

'I feel...a bit strange,' she laughed.

'That's to be expected,' Hibiki responded, immersed in his work. 'So far you've only formed your head and shoulders...ITSUKI!?' The Quincy emerged from the shadow of the doorway leading up to Kaede's house. His hands were bloodied, and behind him he dragged the limp form of Shizuro.

'HIBIKI!' Itsuki growled. 'What are you doing? THIS IS WRONG! YOU SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN THIS KIND OF THING!'

'I-Itsuki...where's Kaede?'

'Your pet tried to EAT HER!' Itsuki pointed an accusing finger at the reconstituting form of Estela. 'I found this other abomination muttering to himself about whether or not he should have "finished what Estela started"!'

'No!' Estela appealed, her form still arranging itself. 'I did not! I could not! I have not desired to consume for many years, that's why I came to Hi-'

'SHUT UP! I KNOW WHAT I SAW!' Itsuki threw the dead Hollow-turned-Shinigami to the floor. A mask clattered to the ground with it. 'YOU SEE!? STOP PLAYING GOD, HIBIKI-SAN!' Itsuki manifested his spirit bow, drew an arrow and fired it at Hibiki's apparatus.

...

BOOM

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Denunciation - Part I
Less than three days later, though no less than eight hours after the blast...

...
'Gaaaaaaaaaa!' Hibiki screamed as he rocketed back into consciousness. Every part of him ached with an insurmountable pain and his memories of his previous few seconds of consciousness came to him in an order entirely alien to rational thought. The images jostled for clarity in his head, even as the rest of him ached and begged for a reprieve from the most ridiculous pain he'd felt in all his days, living, dead or as a Shinigami. His eyes rolled back in his head and met with a star studded sky. Unconsciousness claimed him once more.

When he awoke for the second time, golden sunlight streamed into the wreckage of his laboratory. Hibiki himself was spreadeagled over an extremely uncomfortable bed of rock and broken equipment. He felt surprisingly mobile, and as a test, lifted his head from its resting place. The rest of him followed shortly, and again with surprising ease. Sitting down, Hibiki shook his head to clear it and tried to recall what had gone so disastrously wrong. Memories sprang into his mind, though so disjointed that he could make no sense of them. Even memories of his own distinctive writing in pages of notes and journals were just out of reach.

Hibiki placed his head in his hands and gave a long drawn out moan.
'What have I done?' He unexpectedly received an answer.

'You've blown shit up,' the voice remarked casually. 'And on a pretty grand scale, too. I can see clear into the neighbour's cellar. I was hoping I could get the specifics from you.' The end of a foot appeared over the edge of Hibiki's hole in the ground and a face peered down into the obscurity. Hibiki didn't recognize it.

'Sorry,' Hibiki replied. 'I have no idea what happened...' The face frowned.

'Well, I think that'll sit well with your case, apparently the top brass have some idea about what happened,' it continued. 'Something about consulting with Vastro Lorde class Menos and failing to notify Seireitei.'

'V-Vastro Lorde...!' Hibiki stammered; images of Estela flashed through his mind. 'What was I doing here?'

'I don't know,' the stranger answered Hibiki's rhetorical question. 'But I'm under orders to escort you directly to the chambers of the Central 46 to examine your case and devise a suitable punishment.'

'I see...' Hibiki barely noticed the other Shinigami moving in an lifting him from his hole. He barely noticed the massive inverted sphere that had formerly been his workroom. And he barely realized that the tiny storeroom beneath his work area had saved his life - the ceiling had caved in and given him his only refuge from total annihilation.

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Denunciation - Part II
Soul Society - Central 46

'Koizumi Hibiki, according to information collected by surveillance teams and questioning of local earth-bound spirits, we have found you guilty of associating with Vasto Lorde class Menos on what I can only describe as an 'amiable' level,' the verdict of the court boomed through Hibiki's skull, each word grating on his consciousness. 'On previous matters, the Central 46 was prepared to tolerate your illicit liaisons with the Quincy Morimotou Kaede as they have been of little consequence in these recent times. However, this action has quite definitely crossed the border of acceptable behavior.'

Nod.

'We have been informed that you have zero recollection of the experimentation you were performing up until now, and in light of this your punishment will be given some leniency, as the Central 46 believe that part of your penance has been exacted in this form. We therefore decree that you are to be held in solitary confinement away from all other members of Soul Society, and your case is to be reviewed on a bi-yearly basis to ascertain the state of your mind and your repentance for your sins.'

Nod.

'You are dismissed.'

Hibiki was escorted from the Central 46 amidst a deep hush. As he was paraded past 12th Division headquarters, many eyes watched the shamed researcher, walking slowly and feebly clutching his zanpakuto to his chest. Finally, they arrived at the single, purpose-built cell. No windows lined the building, it simply sat a solid white dome make of the same impermeable stone as the walls of Seireitei. The door opened, and Hibiki was pushed inside, though not before his zanpakuto was prized from his fingers and placed in a smaller compartment within the cell's walls. The door slammed shut, and Hibiki felt his being dissolve into the darkness.

[BioBomber]

Hibiki's Release - CONCLUSION
Several years ago.

The door flew open, almost breaking off its hinges. With a strange rangy grace and a wily grin plastered across his face, Hibiki stepped out of solitary confinement and back into the sunlight. He had something of a wild man's appearance, and there was a spark in him that hadn't been there before. Something in the darkness had changed. Hibiki yawned and scratched his head calmly as his zanpakuto was returned to him. He muttered something under his breath and his brown colored robes suddenly turned white once more, as if all the dirt had been forced out of it. Which it had.

Leaving his guard plastered with dirt all over the area that had been facing him, Hibiki strolled across the Seireitei, back to his old room in the 12th division headquarters. When he arrived, he noted that none of his possessions had been so much as touched. It brought out a lighthearted chuckle from Hibiki, who crossed the floor and flung himself down on his bed. A massive cloud of dust billowed into the air as he fell into the thick layer, and he sneezed as a few got in his nostrils.

'Time to get back to work...after a nap.'
-END