Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Stop crying.”

He blinks through his tears and turns towards the voice. A giant of a man stands over him, and he stares up stupidly at him. The huge “69” tattooed onto the man’s bare chest is dwarfed by the intimidating eyes focused on him.

He has absolutely no idea why he’s here crying, or why there’s a giant, scary man with silver hair glaring down at him. Still, the guy seems more concerned than angry. He hiccups and continues staring.

“There, see? No reason to keep the water works going,” the man says, satisfied.

He takes the moment of silence to figure out what’s going on. His toes wiggle against grass, and he comes to the realization that he’s somehow not where he should be.

“Kensei!” An annoyingly shrill voice calls.

“Mashiro, where were you?” The man, Kensei barks.

“In the bushes,” a tiny woman pops up next to them while clutching something.

“I found this!” The woman, Mashiro exclaims, “See!”

She brings up a black robe, and he stops listening. There is something vaguely familiar about this, and he’s starting to realize something is truly, terribly wrong. He rubs his eyes with his sleeve and contemplates his current setting.

For one, his balance is off. His body doesn’t feel right, and the small, thin hands tip him off to the fact the man isn’t a giant. It sounds weird, but his body may have somehow shrunk.

He’s in a forest instead of at a bar or passed out in his bed. He has no idea where he is, and he is not known to sleepwalk. He doesn’t know where the too-short robe he wears comes from, but the people around him wear robes as well.

Also—and this one might just be all in his head—it’s possible he’s hearing and understanding another language. He’s not completely sure about that one, but it feels like his name will roll off his tongue awkwardly.

It’s enough to make his head hurt.

Conversations float around him while he continues to make his observations. Some of the words pierce through his dazed brain, such as “Soul Reaper” and “Sereitei,” and it makes his brows furrow. Weren’t Soul Reapers a big thing in—

He’s pulled out of his musings by a shadow falling over him, and he looks up.

“Kid, go home. You understand?” Kensei orders before marching off.

He watches as the man’s back grow smaller and wonders where “home” is supposed to be. He doesn’t live close to a forest, so he knows that his apartment is nowhere near here.

Left alone and unable to think of anything better to do, he turns on his heel and walks. Nothing around him looks familiar in the slightest. The plants look completely different to what he’s used to, and there are trees everywhere when he should be able to see the sky touch the earth.

The sole of his feet are thick enough to walk without pain, and he’s grateful for that. It’s the only thing he’s thankful for considering he doesn’t know where he’s going, or what his game plan is. Hunger hits him, but it feels odd, muted somehow.

In the end, he keeps moving forward even as night falls. A feeling of disconnect keeps him from understanding his limits, and the last thing he sees is a glimpse of a town before his legs give out on him.

He blinks and suddenly everything is different. Sitting up, he realizes he’s been placed in a—futon? Is that what it’s called? He doesn’t recall making it into town before he fell, so he doesn’t know how he could have wandered into someone’s house.

The niggling sense of things being familiar gets stronger—he’s pretty sure the house is styled after Japanese culture. Having only a passing knowledge through manga, he’s not entirely sure.

An old woman, dressed in what he now realizes is a kimono, kneels on a straw mat across the room, far from his prone form. The wrinkles on her face are striking, and he recognizes them as lines born from hardship.

“Are you well, child?” The old woman asks while looking at him as if he’s about to spontaneously combust.

He takes a moment to think about things.

“No,” he says honestly.

“You were found unconscious near my house,” the old woman tells him with a frown.

She waits for him to say something, but he doesn’t know how to explain. So he doesn’t.

“Well, child, you may stay here for as long as you need to recover, but I have no room for leeches,” she says finally.

Child. It strikes a nerve, and he flinches. He wishes this body wasn’t so small or so young. He hasn’t been a child for a long time, and he hates being treated like a particularly dim one once he asks about food.

His savior educates him about the world with reproach and scorn. It gives him a shock, and he almost pulls the blanket over head in denial.

He’s dead.

He’s in the afterlife, and the old lady tells him he’s probably just arrived. He’s not supposed to have memories of his life from before, and he’s glad he’s kept his mouth shut.

Food is not needed here, she tells him next. Hunger is only for people of importance, and by her standards, he’s not hungry.

Try telling my stomach that, he thinks sourly.

The old lady is sympathetic to his ignorant plight but only to a point. She doesn’t tell him everything, and he has to work to make up for being housed. He cleans and cleans until he thinks his tiny, little arms are going to give out.

The old woman throws him out onto the streets when he’s done enough. Not once did she ask him for his name. Maybe he should be feeling hurt, but he’s been around to know better than to see the good in people like her.

Fortunately, he’s quick to adapt. The streets aren’t dusted with snow, and he remembers how to throw a punch at people twice his size. He can work with it. The beatings delivered by the local gangs are painful, but he eventually finds the rhythm of the town, learns how to get left alone.

Food is as scarce as people’s good will, and material possessions are a myth. He drags himself through this new life by his fingernails and considers it punishment. Clearly, the Owl Woman—death’s judge—denied him access to his ancestors’ afterlife and sent him to hell.

He eventually learns the name of his hell. He laughs when he hears it, but District 69 is no joke.

(Something inside of him is telling him he’s right to laugh; that he’s missing the joke.)

There’s one thing that bothers him as he attempts to fit in, something that keeps coming up whether he likes it or not. He doesn’t have a name to go with the new body he’s found himself in. Stripped of everything that used to label him—his dark skin, his long, oily black hair, his face—his old name doesn’t feel right and neither does a new name.

One day, when he’s biting into a hard-earned piece of fruit, two children approach him without an ounce of hesitation. These children are forgettable and uninteresting, but the amount of courage they have to approach him is staggering.

He watches them warily, assuming these two children desire his food. It’s a nasty shock when they begin to cry of all things. Even infants know better than to cry in this hell.

“Shūhei! Shūhei!” They blubber through their tears.

“Who?” He asks.

The children are taken aback that he doesn’t remember them. They tell him the name of his body, Hisagi Shūhei. They plead for any shred of recognition, and he shrugs. When they begin wailing, he has to bite back the urge to tell them to get lost. As far as he’s concerned, this boy, Shūhei, is gone, replaced by someone who can’t pretend otherwise.

“But Shūhei, we’re your friends,” they tell him, despair written on their tiny faces.

They tell him of a monster attack and the death of their other friends. He vaguely recalls something of a mess when he first arrived, but he hadn’t been concerned with much except getting home in those days. He knows better now; he has no home.

“I don’t really remember anything. Trauma, I guess. Sorry,” he says detachedly.

It’s as much an apology as it is him trying to be left alone. Thankfully, the children give up after two days of begging him to be someone else. He lets out a sigh of relief once they’re gone. These children don’t deserve to know that another friend is dead. Well, that and their high-pitch voices were getting annoying.

(That niggling sense of familiarity is getting stronger.)

He spends many years in a haze. It’s a mixture of doing what he can to survive and ignoring all his problems. He learns to be both kind and cruel, to read the situation and react accordingly. He gains a new motto of feeding the useful and ignoring the weak.

It’s only once he realizes that there must be sixty-eight other districts, that he gains something of a goal. It becomes his motivation to keep seeing the next day: see how far down he can go before dying again. He greases the right palms and picks the right fights.

It’s a surprise, his bloodthirst. Every time he goes to beat up “troublemakers,” he finds a spark of life inside of him. People begin fearing his grin, but even he has limits. For all that fighting becomes such a part of him that he actively seeks it out when he’s bored, he disappears the moment someone mentions “Soul Reaper.”

Due to this, he becomes a person that is all at once brave and cowardly. It’s not that he’s scared of these so called Soul Reapers; it’s more that he fears what they represent. He’s gotten very good at repressing memories from his previous life, but every time he hears the words “Soul Reaper” “Soul Society” “Rukongai” or “Seireitei,” he can’t stop the whispers in the back of his head.

He refuses to believe that his afterlife isn’t anything but a punishment, refuses to believe that he’s not at fault. The name Hisagi Shūhei sounds familiar, but he clenches his teeth and thinks, absolutely not.

It’s not until he gets into a shouting match with a Soul Reaper in District 40 that he realizes he can no longer run from it. If only because the Soul Reaper in question kidnaps him and forces him into the Soul Reaper Academy without his consent.

(He forever remains confused over how an argument about food leads to being slung over the man’s shoulder and forced into Seireitei.)

No one bats an eye when he’s taken to a small room, or when he’s dropped to the ground like a rotten sack of potatoes. He fights down the nausea caused by the Soul Reaper running faster than human ability.

“New applicant, show us why you should be accepted into the Spiritual Arts Academy.”

He blinks up at what he guesses are his exam proctors before looking back at the Soul Reaper who kidnapped him. Narrow eyes on a scarred face somehow become even narrower.

“Show them,” the Soul Reaper orders.

Show what, he wants to ask. The hell I am, he wants to say next. He settles on making a confused face instead. He’s currently at a disadvantage; it’s best to play stupid.

There’s an uncomfortable atmosphere as the three people overseeing his test glance at each other in silence. The Soul Reaper takes a deep breath before pointing at him.

“Your face is hideous, and your hair looks like a boar’s,” the man says.

He feels his eye twitch. Don’t rise to the bait, he tells himself. He’s in dangerous territory—the world of the Soul Reapers.

“Strawberries are awful and should be thrown out,” the Soul Reaper sneers.

Anger stabs through him like a hot knife. Apparently their argument from before isn’t over. He thinks of the two times he’s been able to eat his favorite fruit in this world and feels murderous rage building up in the pit of his stomach.

“The hell they should be you privileged, over-grown ape,” he snarls.

“We should replace them all with persimmons,” the man utters.

The rage settles onto his shoulders like a well-worn blanket. He can feel himself falling into the calm state he gets where the world slows down, and it’s time to fight to kill.

“Draw your sword,” he tells the Soul Reaper, “you’re going to need it.”

He expects hostility. He expects the fight of his life. To his confusion the Soul Reaper instead glances past him with a smug look.

“Applicant accepted, please fill out your form.”

What now? He blinks, and his rage breaks into pieces. The Soul Reaper handles everything from there, and he’s left staring blankly once he’s shoved into the main hall for orientation. Someone shoves a uniform and a practice sword into his arms. He looks from his ratty kimono to the crisp uniform with befuddlement.

He follows his guide mutely to his dorm room. He doesn’t have a roommate yet, but that’ll probably change by tomorrow, he’s told. A bundle of papers are given to him, and he finds himself standing alone in his new room. Throwing everything onto the floor, he sinks onto his new bed and laughs.

He’s Hisagi Shūhei, and he lives in a manga book. He’s going to become a Soul Reaper. He laughs until he cries.

He doesn’t know how he ended up in Hisagi’s body, or how he ended up in Soul Society. He certainly doesn’t ever remember wanting to be a Soul Reaper. This isn’t hell; he’s not even sure he actually died to get here.

(Will the ancestors still welcome him when he dies in this life? Does he still have a chance? He’s wasted so much of this life, of Shūhei’s life.)

He only lets himself freak out that one night. Come morning, he reads through his papers, dresses into his uniform, and follows the instructions to tie on his sword. He’s going to learn, and he’s going to survive.

He gears himself up for years of long, boring study, but the Soul Reaper Academy turns out to be far more interesting than he thought possible. He’s always hated school, but what he learns here is actually useful. As a bonus, it adds badly needed structure to his life. He takes to learning in a way he never has before.

He goes through his textbooks eagerly, asks questions, and manages to pay attention to most lectures. It’s bizarre, but he’s able to sharpen his mind as well as his body. While his fighting skills aren’t anything to sneeze at, they’re rough. The Academy refines his movements into something far more elegant. His classmates learn to fear sparring with him.

Out of all his classes, Kido is the one he was most excited for. His enthusiasm wavers when he realizes he’s not very proficient in it. While Kido is still interesting, it turns out swordsmanship is where his talents truly lie.

The fear his classmates have for sparring with him soar to new heights once he figures that out. There’s nothing better than crossing blades, he finds. Fighting dirty and getting away with it is even better. He can’t stop the thrill that goes through him, and he doesn’t want to.

He can hear whispers of “11^th division for sure” being made behind his back, but he pays them no mind. He concentrates only on getting stronger and faster. At the rate he’s moving, it’s only a matter of time before he unlocks his Zanpakuto.

When he finally hears his sword spirit, he’s surprised to find Kazeshini. Even though he’s in Hisagi’s body, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t share the same soul as him. He expected to get a different Zanpakuto, but maybe they’re just that compatible.

It also turns out learning to hear his Zanpakuto is completely different from getting to know the sword spirit. Kazeshini is—well. The spirit is nothing like he was expecting. The Zanpakuto spirit is both dangerous and frightening.

Kazeshini only resembles the traditional grim reaper; the spirit enjoys cutting and severing in a way a personification of death never could. It takes him a while before he’s comfortable accepting Kazeshini completely, but when he does it feels right. He should probably be scared, but...

He refuses to run from himself any longer.

He finds himself needing a counterbalance to the bloodlust. He goes picking through the propaganda until he finds something that resonates with him. He finds it in the word “Protector.” He likes the sound of it.

He dives into the pride of being a Soul Reaper despite knowing they’re full of shit. They’re his people now; he won’t die again thinking he has nothing. He begins learning the—heavily altered, he’s sure—history, and when he’s going through a list of squads and their captains, he spies an older version with captains that have been removed. He thumbs through it and freezes. He recognizes one of them.

9^th division, Captain Muguruma Kensei.

It’s the man who was there when he first appeared in this world, and who had apparently saved his body beforehand. He has no doubt about where Hisagi’s tattoo came from and why he would have aimed for the 9^th division.

He is not that Hisagi. He admires Muguruma certainly—those eyes make his insides twist for some reason—but it was the other Hisagi who’d been saved. In another life, it would be that other Hisagi who would wear the infamous number.

He refuses to get the tattoo.

He studies hard and four years pass by without incident. Well, maybe not completely without incident. He doesn’t get a fancy nickname, but he’s well known for his love of saying whatever he feels like and backing it up with fists or swords.

He doesn’t ever say anything he doesn’t mean, but he doesn’t go out of his way to antagonize either. He makes no friends, but he makes no enemies even with the constant fighting. It’s a gift.

The Academy is truly a blessing. He’s no longer scavenging to survive; he’s no longer worried about what tomorrow will bring. It does have one little side effect though. Kazeshini is an ever-present force that whispers death and sings songs of blood in the back of his head.

It’s an interesting life if nothing else, and he settles into being Shūhei. His classmates and teachers begin calling out his name on a daily basis; in Rukongai, he barely ever heard it said, and he begins to associate the name to himself. He slowly begins realizing he’s Hisagi Shūhei.

He is Hisagi Shūhei.

At graduation, he changes his mind and gets the “69” tattoo on his face. Whether he likes it or not, he owes his life to both the Soul Reaper and the child associated with that number. It’s not a debt he can throw away. Of course, it makes his decision easier knowing there is absolutely no social stigma around the number sixty-nine or, well, tattoos in general.

Apparently Soul Society is frozen in a time where tattoos haven’t been used for criminals and gangs. He considers getting more before deciding against it for now. He’s got all the time in the world to get as many tattoos as he likes.

The 11^th division seeks him out before he even makes an application. They send a huge group to test his fighting prowess, and it goes swimmingly—at first. The moment he uses a low-level Kido spell to mess up one of the 11^th member’s motor skills, is the moment that it all goes downhill.

The test comes to a screeching halt as the group of men act like a bunch of offended peacocks. He feels that familiar form of anger settle over him the moment they start scolding him as if he was some misbehaving child. He hasn’t been a child for a long time.

“Sorry,” he tells them, “it’s not going to work out.”

He rubs a finger over Kazeshini’s blade fondly. The cackling in his head grows louder, and he feels the connection to his Zanpakuto growing stronger.

“I love fighting,” he confesses, “but I’m going to fight my own way.”

His smile is all teeth.

“And I’m not going to let a bunch of no-brain, no-ball bitches tell me what to do.”

The fight these words start is almost legendary. Kazeshini laughs in his head as he cuts them all down. He thinks he laughs too. He doesn’t make it to the 11^th, but he thinks he sees fear in their eyes whenever they see him. It cheers him up.

He ends up applying to the 9^th. It’s not because of Muguruma or a desire to follow a script. He simply wants to be a protector, and the 9^th division specializes in protecting Seireitei. He comes to regret his decision shortly after he’s accepted.

Tōsen Kaname is—well. He’s certainly…something.

It turns out they don’t get along. At all. It’s true he’s Hisagi, but he’s more than that. He’s bloodthirsty, highly-opinionated, and completely sure of himself. Tōsen doesn’t like him; he’s not a good fit for the ideals of the 9^th division, the captain tells him.

Still, even with his strong connection to his inner self, he’s tempered by the desire to protect and uphold the laws of Soul Society, and they reluctantly find an even ground. Captain Tōsen keeps his distance, but promotes him to 5^th seat when it becomes clear he’s too competent not to be a seated officer.

Thing is, even though he’s currently ranked as 5^th seat, everyone treats him as if he’s the lieutenant. There is an unfortunate reason for that. It’s weird, but no one in this division seems to have it together.

Captain Tōsen is blind. Dictation requires more time than anyone is willing to give. Not only does the captain’s paperwork have to get done, but so does every single shred of paperwork in existence. The other divisions send their paperwork onward to the 9^th to get processed, and no one seems to be able to handle it.

3^rd seat, Yoshitoshi Fujita, is a brilliant tactician and can formulate strategies in a heartbeat. 4^th seat, Ako Amari, is as much a warrior as she is a philosopher and poet. Both of them deserve their seats and somehow manage to get along well with the captain.

Thing is—

Paperwork? Regulations? Meetings? Social interaction? They are so wildly incompetent; it’s enough to make one cry.

There is no lieutenant. The 3^rd and 4^th seat are useless, so naturally it all falls to him. If he gets a bit cranky, well, that’s just part of life.

(9^th division has learned to fear him, but it also seems to garner him a fair bit of respect; it’s rather confusing.)

“I’ve got to what,” he says blankly, brush hovering over a report.

“You’ve got to write next issue’s haiku,” 3^rd seat, Yoshitoshi Fujita repeats, holding up a submission form.

He watches in disbelief as the Soul Reaper places the paper onto the edge of his desk. So far, he’s gotten out of actually writing for Seireitei Communication—Captain Tōsen doesn’t want him poisoning people with words—but now they want him to write a haiku, really?

“Why isn’t Amari doing this? She’s the poet. Actually, why aren’t you doing it?” He questions with the tone of the desperate.

“I am helping the captain write his ‘Recipe for Justice’ article, and Ako has just left for the human world to clean up a mess. You’re it, Shūhei,” Fujita tells him far too cheerfully.

The 3^rd seat vanishes before he can argue. The submission form for the magazine floats off and back onto his desk like a leaf, and not for the first time, he curses the art of shunpo.

He leans back in his chair to glance around at the piles of paperwork in his office. He wonders what will get done first: the paperwork or the poem. He considers the idea of getting banished to the human world. It’s not like he doesn’t know how to live there.

Kazeshini’s furious screaming in the back of his head stops the idea in its tracks.

Fine then, he’ll just have to hope for the best. Pinching the submission form between his fingers, he throws it onto the floor. He’s got a month; he’ll come up with something by then.

A week goes by, and he knocks back a drink in the corner of a bar. He doesn’t often get the chance to unwind from the 9^th division’s shenanigans, but it feels amazing when he can. He stares into his cup of wine and wonders if inspiration for a haiku can be found there.

It would piss off the captain for sure. The soothing sound of a shamisen drowns out the thought, and he puts the poem to the back of his mind.

Two more weeks go by, and he stares up at the imposing device the 12^th division has placed in 9^th division’s barracks. It looks like a cross between a lightning rod and a clock. He looks from the device to the faces of his Soul Reapers begging him to do something.

“What the hell,” he says flatly.

“Allow me to explain,” a 12^th division member says, shifting her ominously shining glasses. “This device is powered by Reiryoku from those sleeping—”

The device begins shrieking and, for some Soul King-forsaken reason, begins spitting out mannequins resembling the Soul Reapers inside the room. The creepy faceless mannequins unsheathe copies of their Zanpakuto, and he lets out a sigh. It’s going to be one of those days.

He rushes forward, not even bothering to hold back from using Kazeshini’s Shikai. Idly, he thinks he has something important he needs to be doing. He’s overcome by familiar bloodlust when his copy meets his scythes with a similar set.

Oh well, guess it’ll have to wait.

“Shūhei, here’s the other divisions' forms for Seireitei Communication. I’ll place yours with them,” Fujita announces.

He pauses in reading 9^th division’s accounting for the month. He looks over to the 3^rd seat with wide eyes. Fujita, arms full of papers, gives him an uncomprehending look.

“Well, shit,” he says.

“Shūhei,” Fujita says warningly.

“I’m going to go get Amari,” he says, mind working quickly.

If he bribes her with an expensive blend of tea, Amari will do pretty much anything. He heaves himself up already calculating which tea to buy.

“Shūhei, you were supposed to do it. Sit down!” Fujita orders with a pulse of Reiatsu

“You dare,” he spits, Kazeshini’s whispers getting louder in his head.

Fujita must realize the mistake; the 3^th seat goes stiff as he digs his nails into the wood of his desk. It’s rare for Fujita to make such a tactical error. He’s actually more amused than angry. That doesn’t stop him from unleashing his own pulse of Reiatsu.

Fujita falls over unconscious, and the papers are tossed all over his office. His fingers drift to Kazeshini’s hilt, and the Zanpakuto sings in delight.

“Hisagi.”

He freezes mid motion as the temperature decreases suddenly. Reiatsu much stronger than his force him back into his chair. Captain Tōsen calmly steps over Fujita’s prone figure and into his office. The man manages to avoid stepping on the scattered papers to loom over him.

He avoids Captain Tōsen’s unblinking stare. He feels like an idiot considering the captain’s eyesight, but he’s ninety-percent sure the captain knows exactly how to stare subordinates down.

“Write the damn poem,” Captain Tōsen orders before leaving.

He watches the captain’s white haori disappear with a feeling of despair. He slams his head into his desk. He does it again and again in the hopes to knock himself out. He thinks he succeeds once everything goes black.