I have to say, watching Kisuke, Tessai, and Suzumi get drunk was way more fun that I thought it would be.

Personally, I had my bets of Kisuke becoming a depressed, mopey mess, but actually what happened was he revealed that part of himself that was constantly thinking and theorising. The problem was that he had entirely lost the ability to dumb it all down.

Kisuke’s topic of interest today was, unsurprisingly, how the hell my soul mechanically existed. The whole conversation was extremely interesting, even more complex and even more difficult to follow. It all boiled down to my soul being almost impossible—‘almost’ being emphasised to the highest degree. I obviously existed, so it was possible, but exactly how wasn’t clear.

Kisuke talked a lot about a guy called Mayuri, who had a long running project nicknamed Nemuri. The concept was actually pretty simple, creating a true artificially manufactured lifeform, body soul and all. Capable of learning, changing, and becoming—for all intents and purposes—a legitimate being. Even in his drunken state, Kisuke was hard-pressed to admit that the project’s results were impressive, but he did explain how exactly it applied to me.

The Nemuri project was a mixture of two separate spiritual tech, Gikon; Artificial Souls, and Gigai; Faux Bodies. Both are inherently complex, but the two technologies were almost once used to create an army of disposable souls and bodies. At some point this was shot down, and the idea was scrapped. Kisuke admitted that—while the science was integral and beneficial—it was better that it was canned. Though, even that old project had nothing on the lengths that Mayuri went to.

Gikon and Gigai are certainly not mutually exclusive, and one could be put inside another without much hassle. But the creation of a soul truly capable of inhabiting a body so seamlessly that it could be considered a genuine being by all rights? That was a whole other level of science. Much to Kisuke’s chagrin, he admitted that Mayuri had actually been extraordinarily successful. To the point where he had accomplished the unthinkable.

An artificial being, created with spiritual science, capable of wielding and bonding with a Zanpakutō in truth. Nemuri Hachigo.

While I didn’t specifically understand the context behind why that was so important to Soul Society, just the way that Kisuke said it made chills run down my spine and my arm hairs stand on end. An entirely artificial creation, soul and all. I wondered if living humans would ever create something like that? We had the capability for cloning, technically. But would that be considered entirely artificial? Was that just a case of a normal soul being sent into the body of a physically cloned being?

Kisuke continued with lots of math and spiritual principles that, frankly, was lost on me. He did bring up the name Ichigo a few times, mostly in reference to his own soul being a bit of a clusterfuck. Apparently, I was part of the gang now. Maybe I’d have to go snoop around and see if I could find the guy, get some advice or something.

Kisuke managed to get back onto some of the more theoretical sides of the analytical breakdown on the composition of my soul, which was mostly barren of complicated numbers and theorems. Now he was onto the soul composition of a Hollow, specifically Menos Grande.

I hadn’t heard of them, but Menos are Hollows that have consumed or assimilated with hundreds of other Hollows, typically growing to be massive—tall as skyscrapers—though even more mindless than the sometimes-cognisant individual Hollow. The reason why they are part of the discussion at all is because its theorised that Hollows, as they are assimilated into the greater whole of a Menos become a sort of ‘soul soup’. All the different personalities, powers and identities of those individual souls are left by the wayside and the imperative of eating to sustain the Menos’ form becomes more important. From there it’s a game of survival of the fittest, where the luckiest and strongest Menos wins, consuming its Menos brethren and assimilating their ‘soul soup’, at which point the most powerful, domineering, and dominant soul is effectively chosen as the main identity, and the rest of the souls become that identity’s being.

It was all very confusing. Point was that Kisuke theorised that the unravelled foetus soul could possibly be similar enough to that ‘soul soup’ to be malleable. Though when asked how it’d be tinkered with the way the other, foreign soul had done, Kisuke had no real answer.

Long story short; confusing. Kisuke continued on, but I left him to his own devices after I realised that he was creating and disproving extremely technical theories ad nauseum. I left to talk to Tessai and Suzumi, who were having a good time of their own.

Honestly, it was a little heartening to see that Kisuke had actually decided to get drunk while I was in the vicinity. While the paranoid candy store owner had been overly aggressive after the whole ripping-spiritual-energy-from-your-soul thing, it seems he had decided that I wasn’t actually a threat. Or not enough of one to be able to take advantage of his intoxication.

Suzumi and Tessai were sitting just opposite from each other, apparently talking about anything other than my whole soul fiasco. Suzumi had managed to get herself fabulously drunk in my time away from her, which I noted as something I’d have to look out for in future if there was alcohol around. Tessai, however, acted entirely normal—the only sign of him being drunk at all was two very rosy cheeks and a looser smile.

I let myself enjoy the company of my girlfriend and possibly our closest friend. Socially interacting was so much better being able to actually see their faces, even if I could make do with their ribbons. The way that Tessai’s eyes crinkled slightly at their corners, the way that Suzumi’s face lit up with excitement every time she had something she desperately wanted to say, barely holding herself back in waiting for Tessai or I to finish our own thought.

It was something I didn’t realise I had missed until I had it back. For some reason it was now that I remembered the faces of those I had talked to as a child, their small facial mannerisms and body language. Now I was hyper aware of each moment Suzumi and Tessai made, my mind struggling to compute what they meant by that movement, or what it signified. I came to realise that, just as reading a ribbon was a skill, so was reading expressions and body language. Some things came across and were naturally understandable, and some as obvious quirks, but everything in between was a muddy grey of half-understanding.

Tessai specifically was a hard nut to crack. His posture was perfect, back extremely straight and hands placed gently on his powerful thighs as he knelt on a cushion with the utmost professionalism. I suspected that, if he weren’t drunk—aside from intentional mannerisms—the man would be almost entirely unreadable. But, as he was, I could see minor movements around his eyes, a contemplative adjustment of his glasses, a small furrow of the eyebrow and so on. Suzumi, in comparison, was wild; her hands waving with no shortage of theatrics that both Tessai and I found to be endearing.

When the clock hit midnight, Tessai and I collectively agreed that it was time to pull the curtains closed. It was surprising to me just how much information you could effectively convey over just the few scant glances he had sent my way while Suzumi drunkenly rambled. Suzumi gave a token argument before she saw Tessai rise from his kneeling position to leave himself, which she decided was a good enough end to the night as any.

I looked worriedly over at Kisuke, who had been sitting in the corner of the room where I’d left him, muttering some incomprehensible jargon.

“Should we be worried about him?” Tessai let a gently breath release from his nose in amusement.

“No need to fret, Mister Carter. Kisuke rarely gets drunk, but I assure you that tomorrow he will be in his lab, working on something that he thought up while drunk.” I laughed and Tessai let himself chuckle more fully. Tessai walked over to the man who had found himself in a scientific fugue and gently looped an arm underneath Kisuke’s stomach, pulling the man and his multiple layers of clothing over his large and muscled back.

As Tessai gave one last farewell nod after we’d all left the room, he retreated down the hallway with Kisuke’s form still slung over his back, hanging bonelessly. Just before they left the range of my vision, I saw Kisuke’s hat slip from his head. I just about called out to Tessai before Urahara’s hand snapped out from its hanging position and grabbed the wayward hat, slamming it back over his blonde locks, never faltering from his audible muttering.

Both Suzumi and I both choked back a round of raucous laughter, trying not to pee ourselves as we stumbled back to our room. Then came a dire few minutes as I waited outside the toilet that Suzumi had used spiritual energy to get to first. Blind drunk and still faster than I was totally sober. Bitch.

We laid down in bed, the lights off and our semi-clothed forms hugging closely together, still struggling to stop ourselves from laughing about the hat. It took us another ten minutes to calm ourselves fully, and then a few more in complete silence. I could feel Suzumi pressing herself close to me now, far closer and more intimately than she had done before.

I felt a joyous warmth fill my chest as I felt her soft form against my side. I repositioned to get more comfortable and hold her closer myself. A handy usage of spiritual energy; enhancing the parts of your body underneath your partner and their weight won’t even feel uncomfortable, let alone make you lose blood supply to the area. Gotta say, I was prouder of that little discovery than I really should be.

“Grayson?” Suzumi whispered. I’d have expected her voice to be drowsy and slurred, but her voice sounded sharp—cognisant. I furrowed my brow.

“Yes? Are you okay?” She was quiet for a little while afterwards but hugged me tighter to let me know she was still there, just thinking.

“Tonight was… scary.” She said slowly. I felt a flush of ice cold go down my spine but Suzumi quickly amended it with, “but kind of amazing?” I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d taken, and slowly let my nerves resettle.

“I’m sorry.” I said simply, letting the words hang in the air while she chewed on what to say next.

“It’s okay. I was just worried that Urahara would do something. Especially when he talked about that guy who culled generations?” I nodded gently. That had been scary, even from my position. I didn’t like being called what amounted to the spiritual world’s Hitler, but I had gotten good at letting it slide off me. I didn’t realise that it’d effect Suzumi so much instead.

“And then the… soul stuff? I–” her breath hitched slightly and gave her pause, her voice returning with much more emotion, “I don’t know how to process that. How do I even help you with that?” I let out another sigh of relief, unbidden. I had almost been expecting her to say that she couldn’t do it, but it seems that my opinion of Suzumi had once again fallen short of just how amazing the genuine article really is.

“Suzumi,” I said, my voice calm and even a little bit of a smile to it, “you don’t have to worry about the soul stuff.” There was just enough light to see her hazel eyes squint in distrust, and I could only chuckle. After a moment of thinking about how to word my thoughts, I spoke.

“When I went down to the bottom of my soul—where Grayhom is—it put a lot of things in perspective. The way that I’ve been going through life, just how unaware of myself I actually was, how much of my limitations were self-imposed.” I paused, and I could feel Suzumi cuddling up to my shoulder more closely, “When I finally met Grayhom… I realised that I, both metaphorically and literally, had parts of myself that were locked away and left alone, and that I had surrounded myself by limitations without ever bothering to look deep enough underneath my own self to even see that it was me holding the chains all along.” The room was silent, and I could feel that Suzumi wasn’t quite happy.

“Don’t put yourself down like that,” she whispered as her eyes roamed gently over my face, “maybe you’re right, that you were the mastermind of your own demise… but aren’t we all? When I was a child, just after dad had died, I saw him hovering over me. He sat by me in the days after his death, he read me the stories I loved, he watched over me as I fell asleep, when I felt most unsafe. One day, only a week or two after I first saw him, he never came back. Now I know that he was real, with all this spiritual stuff and souls… that he wasn’t a figment of my imagination, that my father had been right there in front of me—comforting me, desperate to show me that he loved me…” her breath hitched.

“And I had ignored him—not even daring to look at him—because I was afraid that if I spoke, he would disappear.” As I looked upon the guise of the most beautiful woman I could conceive of, letting the tears leak sideways down her face, I cried. I kissed her on her forehead and cheeks, hoping to give her any comfort I could. She hugged me in turn, her powerful arms gripping me like I too might disappear, just like her father had.

That evening I had set off on a journey to discover myself, and I had found so much of myself; parts of myself that were forgotten by design, and parts that I had shunned from my mind, forever left at the bottom of the sea. But who would have guessed that it wasn’t the journey, but the return that taught me to forgive myself for years of self-neglect… if only a little.

As we both choked back sobs, staring each other in the eyes with the warmest love I had ever experienced, I forced myself to grin haphazardly.

“I’m really glad I can see you.” She snorted, even while she shuddered with sobs.

“Shut up—you’re lying.” She scowled in mock protest, but I let a face of pure seriousness take over.

“Suzumi, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” Suzumi was stunned for a moment, her face looking as if I’d slapped her, then flickering through a hundred other emotions, her pale face slowly warming with an intense blush, visible even in the low light. Then she got the joke, just as my shit-eating grin hit its peak and suddenly she was wearing her own.

“That’s cheating!” She quickly flipped herself up, straddling my stomach and looking at me with a blazing fire in her eyes. I was shocked for a moment, confused even, but then her lips clashed against mine with a pure heat and fervour as her hands began to roam my–

Oh, that’s a little too graphic. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?