Like Parent, Like Child [Solo Training]

[Munemasa Iroka]

The light of the lantern gave off poor illumination, but for Munemasa Iroka, it was enough. She was running through a roughly dug out tunnel whose entrance had been ingeniously hidden from the eyes of prying and curious folk buy her parent, in times past. This was one of Kimyou’s many undocumented labs, which the weird Shinigami had built in the furthest reaches of Rukongai, to avoid detection by the authorities. Unfortunately for Kimyou, their secret experiments, which had ultimately resulted in Iroka’s existence, had not remained concealed, and now Kimyou resided in the Nest of Maggots.

Being, technically, Kimyou’s daughter, the orange-haired Shinigami was quite aware of a number, if not most, of Kimyou’s secret holdings in Rukongai. She had spoken of them to nobody, though. Even though Kimyou treated her rather shamefully, Iroka still considered Kimyou as the only family she had. It was difficult to connect with others, and the girl had often found herself lonely and in need of friends. It must be even harder for Kimyou in the Nest of Maggots, she thought.

And it was because of thinking about her parent, that Iroka had ventured all the way out here into Rukongai. Kimyou had been smart enough not to put all their resources in a single place, and when they had been arrested, it had only been Kimyou’s major lab that had been raided. There were other facilities; crude and lacking a lot of amenities, but they were there. And in such places, an eager mind could work on marvels and wonders, away from distractions and common worries. Like now.

The tunnel was probably close to thirty meters in length, after it had burrowed almost vertically downward from its entrance. The entrance itself was a rundown shack in a ghost hamlet in Inuzuri, District 78, Southern Rukongai. No one knew why the place was deserted. Some people said a hollow from beyond the 80th District had attacked the area. Others said criminals had been living there before Shinigami purged them and cordoned off the place. Whatever the case, the people of Inuzuri avoided it, seeing it as a cursed, haunted ground.

Of course, there were some that still ventured there. There were those who were curious, who wanted to know what was up with this strange place. There were those who came in the hopes that something of some value may have been left there. And there were those who wandered in, because they had never heard of the place. But whatever their reasons, they had never stayed there long.

Iroka knew why no one wanted to hang around in this place after getting there. Kimyou had placed some well-concealed devices that gave off a fear-inducing pheromone into the area. It first was undetectable, and staying for two minutes would not incite any feelings. After two minutes, however, the pheromones would begin to work, and their victims would begin to imagine that something was probably not right. By the next minute, that feeling would have escalated into dread, and soon the person would experience a numbing horror. People with strong spiritual energy could resist it, of course, but they were rare.

There was also another way to deal with the pheromone. If one had an air filter, or could get into an area with an air filter, they would be safe from the pheromone. But those who wandered in Inuzuri were too poor to have such a thing as complex as a portable air filter. There was a place with an air filter in the area, but nobody went there, because no one knew it was there. It was Kimyou’s secret Inuzuri lab, and it was why Iroka was here.

She had managed to arrive in Inuzuri without any particular hassles, and had made her way into the “cursed area”. Quickly getting out of sight, she had found the rundown shack that held the entrance to the secret lab. It was a loose floorboard which one could step on to raise, and then twist it. That activated a hatch which revealed a small rough hole, covered by other floorboards which slid away when the loose floorboard was twisted. The hole was in the next room in the shack, so even if someone somehow managed to step on, and turn, the floorboard, they would not identify the entrance so easily.

Having opened the entrance to the lab, once one dropped into the hole, a mechanism on the ground of the hole was activated, which caused the hole to be obscured by its respective floorboards. Which was why Iroka needed a light source. Having lit the lantern before entering the hole, she had begun to run, so that she would make it to the actual lab before she began to feel terror, which would make thinking difficult. If that happened, she was not sure she would be able to overcome her fear and act rationally enough to open the lab door. That would probably lead to death by asphyxiation, with the low amount of oxygen to be expected in a tunnel beneath the ground with no air circulation.

Finally, she reached the entrance. It simply seemed to be a nondescript rock wall that ended the tunnel. Iroka’s heart was already beating fast, and not because she had been running. The pheromone was beginning to cause more active feelings of fear. Quickly, she ran her hand across a crevice, and poked her finger into a small hole. She felt a prick, as something small stabbed her finger. That was the final key.

Kimyou had so designed the secret lab door such that only their blood could open it. The syringe within the hole that Iroka had poked was connected to a biometric blood scanner which detected whether Kimyou’s blood had been shed, or not. Of course, that made it almost impossible for someone else to get in without destroying something. Iroka, however, had Kimyou’s blood, and so could get in just as easily as her parent. The door slid open with a dull grating sound, and Iroka stumbled quickly into the dark room.

---

1016 words

[Munemasa Iroka]

The sliding of the door closed out the rest of the world, and for a moment, there was peace and silence again, save for the sound of heavy breathing, and the ventilation fans whirring up above. Iroka had made it back here. She exhaled loudly, and without even looking at the wall, stretched her hand to the side and flipped a switch. This place was so familiar to her, even though it had been quite a while since she had been here.

Iroka remembered that she had not been to any of Kimyou’s secret hideouts since she had joined the Shin’ou Academy, which was some years back. While she had somehow felt some sense of nostalgia as to returning to these places, her stay in the Academy served a hidden advantage. There was an adage that went ‘out of sight, out of mind’. As no one had had any reason to visit the hidden labs (as the only two people who knew of their exact locations were either in the Academy or the Nest of Maggots), the possibility that they existed would slowly be eroded with time from the minds of everyone who suspected they existed.

Even though Iroka did not seem very smart, she had noticed, shortly after joining the Shin’ou Academy, that she was under surreptitious observation. Truth was, she would have probably not been able to tell, because the skill of those observing her was much higher than hers. And yet, there were very tiny signs that suggested the presence of unseen observers to her. While she had been allowed to go where she willed, like every other Shinigami, often times, her forays into the more lawless parts of Rukongai were mostly uneventful, which was an unnatural expectation for an apparently unarmed young woman (as she did not often carry her asauchi around).

Also, the discussions she had had with Kimyou suggested that the latter had often been pressed for information concerning secret labs. Kimyou had always stated that the Shinigami had raided all the labs they possessed, but one day, after being asked to ask her parent concerning any other hidden assets they may have possessed, Iroka noticed that while Kimyou answered as usual that the Shinigami had taken everything away from them, there was a furtive look in Kimyou’s eye. If one had not lived with Kimyou long enough to know their personal tics and quirks, it would have appeared as just the usual look of disdain. But Iroka had seen the single twitch of their left eyelid.

That single twitch told volumes. Kimyou involuntarily twitched often, in many parts of their body, thanks to all the body modifications they had carried out on themselves. But there was a single place Kimyou never twitched, unless they had something important they were thinking of: their left eye. It was next to impossible that anyone would ever notice such a thing, but having been so used to Kimyou, Iroka did. And it meant that her parent was unwilling to reveal something.

If there was a mistake that Iroka’s observers made, it was that they underestimated her competence, just like many others. She had kept that single observation to herself, and had continued to live her life, foraying often into Rukongai under the guise of learning more about the world. In truth, this was so; she knew so little about life outside the labs until she had been found by the Shinigami, and so she was eager to learn more about places and people. But her forays into Rukongai were also a test to be sure she was no longer being followed. And after a few years of frequent incursions into Rukongai for nothing but the seeming madness of her fancies, Iroka began to notice that little by little, she was being interacted with more often by the stranger she met.

Iroka had previously surmised that, in their bid to have her direct them to one of Kimyou’s hidden facilities, Iroka’s hidden observers would have probably used their directed reiatsu to keep people away from her, without revealing their presence to her. This was most likely because if people interacted with her, given her flighty nature, she was more likely to forget that she had been going somewhere. Also, being harassed by criminals would probably make her unwilling to go into the more dangerous parts of Rukongai, which was where Kimyou had been known to keep and build stuff. And so, while their presence served as some form of security for the Shinigami girl, unknown to her observers, they had given themselves away, because they did not realize that Iroka was much smarter than they thought.

The fact that people in Rukongai were interacting more with her was proof that she was being observed less often now. Still, she had not attempted to do any searching of her own. But after the strange crisis in which some creatures from Hell had attacked Soul Society, Rukongai was much more chaotic now, and the Shinigami had more important things to do than track flighty klutzes traipsing into the districts. After making about close to a dozen other forays, Iroka had finally determined that she was no longer being observed. And thus, she had picked today to search for Kimyou’s second favorite lab, and most secret hideout.

As the Shinigami flipped the switch, a bunch of lights came on immediately. One of them seemed to be blinking, signifying that it would need some maintenance. The others seemed fine, though. Everything here, or at least almost everything, had been built to last years, decades even. Kimyou was someone who believed in building things of quality, after all. Perhaps that was why they were so disappointed in Iroka, seeing as she was something of a dud. Because she was so defective. But she would keep trying until she outgrew that defective state, and Kimyou acknowledged her.

Iroka was not sure how Kimyou had been able to build all this, though she had her suspicions. Her parent had worked extensively on mind-controlling devices; Kimyou was a control freak, after all. It was likely these devices that had been used to make the denizens of the distant parts of Rukongai do all the heavy labor. And since this place was so far away from Seireitei, the Gotei 13 had been none the wiser. After all, even hollows attacked these parts from time to time, and there was no Shinigami response, not because the Shinigami didn’t care, but because they didn’t know. This was most likely how Kimyou’s other facilities had been built.

Iroka blew out her lantern. She was thankful for the light bearing device, but until she needed to leave the lab, it was no longer needed. There was enough light to see by, and looking around, the young Shinigami noticed a fridge. She walked over to it and opened it, realizing with mild surprise that it was full of stuff. Most, if not all of them, though, seemed to have been expired for at least three years. It seemed Kimyou had been planning to do some extensive work here, shortly before they had been arrested. And that realization made Iroka understand that she was quite fortunate.

If anything, this lab would be stocked with raw materials to do stuff with. Kimyou was the kind of person to stock up on food and resources before starting a project, and then staying holed up until the project was completed. And though Iroka intended to return home to Seireitei the following day, she could probably stay here for a week or so, although all she would have to eat would be expired food. But expired food was still digestible, at least to her system. Just tasted weird, was all. There was also running water, washroom facilities, and a small cot in this place, aside all the research equipment. Kimyou really did know how to furnish a place.

---

1321 words

[Munemasa Iroka]

First things first would be to identify the workstations in this hidden lab, and the tools they contained. As Kimyou was a very judicious person, it was most likely that they had left some sort of catalog or asset list. But the question was, in what sort of format would such a list have been stored? Of course, the first guess would be paper, and so it would perhaps be smart to go looking for books and other parchments. But Iroka was familiar with how her parent thought; Kimyou was very paranoid, and as such would have feared being prevented from gaining access to their lab for a long time, which was why everything, or almost, had been designed to last. The list she'd be looking for would not be something as destructible as paper.

As Iroka scanned the room again, her eyes fell on a cuboidal mound over which a dustproof blanket had been draped. Kimyou's console! That would definitely be where the list of assets was, as well as at least an idea of the plans Kimyou had for this place. The orange-haired Shinigami pulled the blanket away, revealing a large cuboid with rounded edges. Even Seireitei's computers were not designed like this. Kimyou, in the end, was a show-off, and did love to use their own inventions as a testament to their genius. Also, it would be harder to access a device whose workings were alien to one.

Iroka studied the lower sides of the faces of the cuboid. At the back were a number of hemispherical holes, which served as information input slots, wherein memory storage devices could be plugged in. The humans had laptops, machines similar to this, except they were more portable and looked nicer. But Kimyou didn't really care for aesthetics, Iroka thought, before changing her mind. Her parent was extremely fickle and vacillating, and decry something in one moment and do the same thing in the next, simply because they wanted to do it. The plainness of this console was proof that Kimyou had had little time to waste when setting up this lab.

Walking over to a cabinet with a lot of drawers, Iroka began opening them one by one, looking for the storage devices that would fit into the console's holes. After opening about half a dozen drawers, she found what she was looking for. One of the drawers had about a score of marble-sized orbs, although unlike the plastic balls of similar size, they were all metallic in color, and had a lot of etches, grooves and ruts running across their surfaces. Iroka studied them a bit, and selected one, a metal ball with one-quarter of its surface painted pink.

Pink was the color of Kimyou's hair. It was possibly Kimyou's favorite color as well. Anything Kimyou made that had pink on it meant it was something important. This made Iroka pause for a moment as she considered the implication of that bit of information. She had some locks of pink hair; did this mean her parent believed she was important? Sadly, that was unlikely. It was more probable that Iroka had a patch of pink hair on her head because some of her genes were shared with Kimyou. As to how important Kimyou thought she was, the way they treated her was proof enough.

Picking out the orb she had selected, based on the color it carried, Iroka carefully pushed it into one of the hemispherical holes towards the bottom of the strange console. There was a dull whirring sound, and the orb began spinning in its place, as the entire cuboid began to glow in a faint blue light. For a while, indecipherable icons and symbols ran vertically in orderly rows up and down its surface, and then disappeared, leaving the cuboid glowing. Then one face of the cuboid slid open, and a silver tray slid out. The console was up and running.

Iroka wasn't sure human consoles were this fancy. But she'd heard they had visual games, and the Shinigami had to admit that she very much wanted to get her hands on one of such computers. Kimyou was more of an 'all work and no play' person, as far as Iroka was concerned, and her parent seemed to be scared of being idle. Being placed in the Nest of Maggots was the worst punishment Kimyou could be given; execution was preferable to just sitting here in the underground prison. Iroka hoped her parent was doing well. Maybe after this, she would go visit them again.

As Iroka placed her palm on the silver tray, a set of holographic displays formed above the cuboidal console. The holographic icons responded to Iroka's hand motions, and she moved them as she searched for compartments that possessed information. Since Kimyou was organized to the point of excess, all the compartments were well labeled and identifiable, and Iroka was soon able to find what she had been looking for. It was a compartment whose icon was shaped like a cube, and it was labeled 'Inventory'. Iroka clenched it, and its contents were revealed.

Most of the raw materials here seemed to be the sort that would be used to design hardware. Was Kimyou trying to still work on building the perfect body for the IROKA artificial intelligence? Although was she really artificial? Granted, she had been designed, rather than born, but even then, her mind and persona were not specifically designed. The scientist responsible for her mind had, like a storage device (why did humans call them disk drives, seeing as they were incapable of any sort of motion, let alone driving themselves about?), erased data from an already existing source, and imprinted new data there. And Kimyou had eaten his brain for all his troubles. Fun times.

It was at this point that Iroka had to answer an important question: what was she going to do here? She had of course come searching for Kimyou's lab, in order to discover more about herself, but she wasn't sure this particular establishment was where Kimyou stored their archives. In fact, it was quite possible that most of Kimyou's archives had been destroyed when the Gotei 13 had raided their main lab. And while she had hoped she would find information that would give her a better sense of direction on where to search next for answers, Iroka was beginning to feel that she would likely not get the clues she wanted her. All the same, there was a workstation here, and she had raw materials. It was inevitable: she would have to make something before she left here.

---

1107 words

[Munemasa Iroka]

In order to create something, it was best to figure out what one had at hand, first of all. Secondly, it was best to create something that would be quite useful to her present station. Iroka was sure that whatever she created would be useful to the Gotei 13 (hopefully), but she needed to be more specific this time. What she was going to create would have to be rather useful for the 4th Division. For that reason, it would definitely have to be inclined towards the medical arts.

That being the case, Iroka knew she needed to find exactly what this lab contained, because the present inventory she could see was not encouraging. It would be best if she could work on something which had some value for field work. Of course, difficulty would be encountered regarding building something for the 4th, if all she had here were non-reiatsu-conductive materials, which would serve better for the construction of hardware and weapons. Well, if there was nothing she could use for utility items for the field, Iroka could make something for herself. In any case, the idea was not to leave here without having anything done.

Perhaps there were other less “solid” items that were stored in other places aside the ‘Inventory’ file. Iroka began skimming through the files once more, until she came across one which seemed to be what she had been looking for. It was labeled ‘Reagents’. There would likely be more useful things which she could work with. The fear, though, was that since this place had not been touched in a long while, the reagents might have expired. Still, she would never know what was useful and what was not, until she had gone through the stuff.

Selecting the Reagents file, Iroka began her scrutiny of the materials there. If they were all in working order, she could probably synthesize something that would be quite useful for medic-oriented field work. If there was anything Iroka did not like about many of the restorative Kaidou, it was that they required the caster having to remain still. That was very unsafe, especially on the battlefield. And while it was expected that 4th Division Shinigami would be support forces, there were times one found themselves alone with someone to save.

For the more combat-oriented Gotei Divisions, it was not too much of a problem. Fight and defeat your opponent. Case closed. The only problem was that 4th Division Shinigami were unlikely to be proficient in combat. So if they had to face an enemy and they were alone, running away would be the most preferred option. If they had a patient to handle, then things became so much more complicated. And sadly, when they were on the field, 4th Division Shinigami usually found themselves in such situations.

It was for this reason that, despite the expectation that they were supposed to be somewhere in the rear ranks, 4th Division Shinigami had a surprisingly high mortality rate. To make matters worse, many of the other Shinigami Divisions, especially the combat-oriented ones, did not respect them. Indispensable and yet despised. Things like that made Iroka’s blood boil. Even though she thought she was useless, she would find a way to improve the 4th Division’s life expectancy. And maybe the other Divisions would not disrespect hers so much.

So, with the reagents on hand, perhaps she could make a sort of drug, perhaps? Something that would make it easier to heal a target while not having to sacrifice mobility in order to do so. And it could probably be edible too! The thought of food made Iroka feel like a snack was in good order. But first, she would check out the reagents, and figure out which ones were expired, and which weren’t. Then while she considered the next thing to do, she could take a tiny break and eat something.

The next issue was finding the reagents. She knew they were there, because the reagent list had said so. But where they had been placed was another matter entirely. Iroka skimmed through the files in the computer’s storage, but to no avail. All the other files were simply information that was unnecessary to Iroka’s present plans, or some longwinded matters on logistics and how to restock supplies. Maybe she would look at the resupplying files later, but for now, it was more important to find where the reagents were.

Having searched through the computer files, Iroka concluded that she would have to do a physical examination of the lab. First she observed the workbench. It was well-built, and though it appeared small, it was collapsible and could be expanded into a much bigger construct, complete with a welding station, chemistry set-up, and lots more. Simply looking at it created an urge to use it almost as strong as her hunger. But to use it, she needed to find the reagents.

It seemed to be a useful idea to store raw materials close to the work station, so that they could be reached more quickly. But there didn’t seem to be any apparent storage device close to the workbench. It was definitely hidden somewhere, but she wasn’t sure exactly where. She began looking around the lab, and she soon found a set of drawers and cupboards, which had been ingeniously hidden behind a false wall at the end of the lab. The Shinigami shook her head with a wistful smile. Kimyou, her parent, was the poster-child of paranoia.

It was funny that, despite the fact that Kimyou had taken great pains to hide this lab, the crazy scientist had still kept many things hidden within the lab, as though seeking to cause trouble for anyone who was successfully able to crack open the secrets of the lab. Iroka realized that, to some extent, she thought like Kimyou, seeing as she had so far been able to make her way around the lab successfully. She was her parent’s child, after all.

Opening the first drawer, Iroka found an assortment of tools and gadgets, some she was not even sure of their function. There would be time to investigate them, but first, she would find the reagents. Then get something to eat, and then get to work trying to craft something. She was not willing to waste time, because while she did not have some sort of time limit within which she needed to finish here, she was only free for the weekend, after which she would have to return to Seireitei. So she would need to accomplish something noteworthy before the new week began.

The second drawer contained more tools and gadgets, though these ones seemed to be more inclined towards metalworking and electrical crafts and electronics. The first drawer, Iroka realized, had mostly contained tools for fabric and leatherwork, or the working of related materials. The third drawer contained stuff for carving and a good deal of molds and casts; most likely this was where Kimyou kept tools for working plastics and ceramics. The fourth contained mostly stationary; a good number of the books and even scrolls here had not been touched, and there were a good number of ink pots, though the ink seemed to have dried.

The fifth drawer, when pulled, responded with the clinking of glass. This was where Kimyou kept the laboratory glassware, for measuring, mixing and manipulation of liquid reagents. There were also a good deal of scales and other measuring devices, most of which had been made and calibrated by Kimyou themselves. But for all her searching, Iroka did not seem to be able to find the reagents. She remembered that some of the reagents were temperature-sensitive, so they would have to be kept in a freezer or similar apparatus.

The last time she had checked the fridge, there had been no reagents there, only food. It was not wise to put reagents in the same storage space as edibles, and as such Iroka had not expected to see any chemicals in the fridge. But this would mean that there had to be another fridge. Where it was, though, was anybody’s guess. Maybe there was something she was missing around the workbench. Suspecting the reagents were hidden away close to the workbench, Iroka returned there and began to scrutinize the structure.

Of course, the first thing she had done had been to expand it to its fullest. At this point, the workbench took up the entire far end of the laboratory space. It was quite an impressive thing to behold, and as Iroka examined it, she found a knob somewhere on the welding station. The orange haired Shinigami turned the knob, and to her surprise, she heard a click, a whir, and a series of grating sounds below her. Stepping back, she noticed that some sections of the floor were rising, and a large drawer was revealed, having risen up out of the ground.

This was so cool. The floor of this area of the lab was tiled, and while that would make someone simply assume that was Kimyou’s flooring preference, Iroka realized that Kimyou had used tiles in order to make sure that when someone looked at the floor, they would not see any demarcations that signified that the floor had moving parts. Kimyou was really so sneaky. In a good way, of course. It was difficult for Iroka to think negatively about her parent, despite the abuse she had received from them.

Iroka opened the newly revealed wardrobe. It contained reagents, alright, but not the ones she wanted. These reagents were for the welding station, and included all sorts of alloys, both solid and liquid, fuels for the welding tools, and many other things. There were chemical washes for metals, different kinds of scouring tools, and even magnets of various strengths, shapes and sizes. While this was not what she wanted, Iroka was sure that she would very soon find the other reagents. The spying of a knob at the chemistry station proved her right.

First, Iroka turned the knob at the welding station back to its original position, and the stone drawer sank slowly back into the ground with a similar grating sound to the one with which it had emerged. Then walking partly around the workbench, Iroka arrived at the chemical station, and turned the knob she had seen there. There was a similar sound from a different area of the floor, and another stone block rose, similar to the first one that had risen close to the welding station. Iroka opened it and was greeted with a mild blast of stale, but chilly air. This was another fridge. And this one was filled with chemicals. Iroka had found her reagents.

It was then that Iroka noticed this particular fridge-drawer of a thing had other drawers ingeniously incorporated into it. They were all filled with reagents as well, from solids of all constituencies and colors, to vials, bottles and flasks of all shapes and sizes, filled with all sorts of liquids, and even canisters filled with various gases. Returning to the computer console, Iroka did a quick check and realized to her immense joy that most, if not all, of the reagents were still viable, and if any had expired, they were likely not what she needed, or could be circumvented.

It was time for a quick snack, and then the real work would begin.

---

1905 words

[Munemasa Iroka]

Although Iroka had a rather… different taste for foods, it did not mean she could eat anything which was potentially poisonous and not suffer any repercussions. It was thus necessary, being faced with food stores that were mostly expired, to examine which ones could still be eaten. The rest, unfortunately, would just have to be thrown away, unless she could find something else for which they could be utilized. As someone who appreciated food, Iroka felt that throwing stuff away was unfortunate. Then again, it was a lot better than suffering from food poisoning.

Returning to the fridge she had first seen, the orange haired Shinigami began going through what was in there. There were eggs… definitely out of the question, as the eggs could not be edible, having spent about five years waiting for the return of whoever had put them there. The same was unfortunately true for the fruits. In the freezer section of the refrigerator, however, were slabs of meat which had been frozen solid. There were also some fruits and vegetables in the freezer as well.

Iroka had to laugh. Her parent, Kimyou, obviously did not know as much about food as she did, a fact that made the young Shinigami feel proud of herself. Fruits and veggies suffered from frost damage due to cellular dehydration when frozen without any special protection, and that seemed to have been the case with these items. But Kimyou probably didn’t bother to consider the taste and attractiveness of food, as long as it could be eaten. Still, the frozen vegetables were definitely edible, seeing as this place had been running in silence ever since its former master had been arrested, and it was very unlikely, with the amount of ice in the freezer, that it had ever thawed since.

While meat, fruits and vegetables were a good fare to be had for a meal, one important part was missing. Iroka needed carbs. Of course, everyone needed calories, but due to her accelerated metabolism, Iroka was more in need of carbohydrates than the average person. She would probably need an insane amount of fruits, vegetables and meat to eat, in order not to be disturbed by hunger when she started working. There were some packaged noodles in the fridge, but even with the preservatives that they had probably been treated with, it was unlikely that five year old noodles were healthy to eat.

Still, dry pasta had practically zero moisture content. Surely there would be some issues, perhaps like the noodles being less elastic, or losing some of their taste, but considering the fact that the noodles weren’t soggy or anything, Iroka was hopeful they would still be edible. There’d probably some difference in taste, but when had weird tastes ever stopped her? All she would do would be to find something else that she could add to the noodles. There surely had to be spices around somewhere, right?

There was salt. Iroka was elated on seeing the crystalline stuff in the bottle. Salt really didn’t ever go bad, maybe unless it got wet and then got dust settled on it or some other such things. But the salt in the tightly screwed shut bottle seemed quite dry, and that was enough proof that the substance was good enough to be used. Iroka still did some checking around; perhaps finding some other spice could make her meal much more interesting. Perhaps very dry pepper powder would last, and could be used.

While Iroka did find a number of spice bottles in some cabinets she had to reach by standing on a stool, most of them were moldy. Some, she could not even recognize, just seeing a huge cake of mold within the bottle. Others did seem to have some portions of their matter which had not been taken over by the fungal infestation, but Iroka wasn’t willing to assume that the apparently untouched parts would be worthy of culinary use. There were, though, some bottles that had never been opened. The spices in them seemed to be dry, having been stored in hermetic conditions, and as such were in relatively good shape.

For some reason, though, the labels on the bottles had faded with the years. Iroka took one of the vials and broke the seal on its cover, unscrewing it open and taking a sniff at what was inside. It almost had no smell at all. She tried to recollect. Which spices were yellowish in color? Turmeric? Curry? Ginger? The yellowish powder did have some fibrous strands, so it was likely ginger. That it did not have the characteristic spicy aroma that fresh ginger had was unfortunate. Iroka poured some of the substance on her palm and carefully licked it. Ugh! It tasted like cardboard.

As Iroka was wondering whether she should use the cardboard spice, her eyes fell on a large bottle filled with an amber liquid. Honey. Honey didn’t go bad, if it had been stored properly. Eagerly, Iroka grabbed the honey jar and opened it. It did seem maybe just a teeny weeny shade darker than honey was supposed to look, but it smelt and tasted almost alright. Almost, because Iroka could tell, from tasting the stuff, that it had fermented a little, and she could taste the ethanol, which doubtless a normal person wouldn’t even be able to detect. Her tongue was way sharper than that of normal folk, though.

So, she had noodles, veggies, fruits, meat, and honey. It seemed there would have to be a bit of improvisation. First, though, she needed to defrost the frozen items. Kimyou would certainly have to have something with which they defrosted their food, as Iroka knew her parent to be a very impatient person. She soon found the ‘defroster’, obviously designed by Kimyou for the purpose of thawing stuff speedily. It seemed to be working well enough, and in no time, the food items were ready to be prepared.

The preparation of the meal did not take long, although there would most certainly have been things that would have made the average person cry out in shock when they witnessed Iroka preparing the mean. For starters, while some ramen had honey as part of the ingredients, the honey was not the main liquid ingredient. Iroka did not care. With the zest of someone who knew absolutely what they were doing, and was really quite glad to be doing it, the young Shinigami prepared her meal. And soon it was done. A bit strange-looking, and smelling to boot, but it did look edible.

---

1096 words

[Munemasa Iroka]

Getting a seat close to the main console in the hidden lab and making herself comfortable, Iroka seated herself and began her meal. When the first morsel entered her mouth, she paused, chewing slowly as her taste buds worked through the interesting blend of tastes that this impromptu meal offered. While it tasted, for lack of a better word, different from standard food that people seemed to be familiar with, Iroka was quite pleased with the taste. That, and it was also quite nutritious. The best part was, there were still reasonable amounts of the raw materials used to prepare this meal, so if she got hungry again, she could always kick up another similar meal, and use different spices if she wanted a change in taste.

As she ate, Iroka decided to go through a number of files in the quirky storage spheres which Kimyou used for information storage. While people often said that when eating, one was supposed to concentrate on the food, Iroka was sure that would be an unfortunate waste of time to do nothing except eat. Why not eat, and at the same time, do something else? It was funny that people spoke highly of “killing two birds with one stone”, when they would turn round and say that when eating, one was supposed to do nothing else. Besides, what was the point? Whether Iroka focused solely on eating, or did other things with her time, she was still going to get hungry. Why not save time by multitasking?

There was quite a lot of stuff Kimyou had documented, although Iroka was sure that much of the intended research would not be able to fly, if Seireitei caught wind of such plans. Despite her love for her parent, Iroka had to admit that unlike herself, Kimyou was quite brutal and apathetic. In fact, this was one of the reasons Kimyou had felt Iroka to be quite defective: the younger Shinigami had too many scruples. According to Kimyou, having scruples was the greatest downfall of a scientist, and Seireitei giving the 12th Division a set of ethical rules to go by, was simply counterproductive. Iroka, for her part, thought the rules were necessary.

Just as she was about finishing her food, the Shinigami stumbled on a file which seemed to have potential for something that could not only be creatable, but also useful to Division 4. Kimyou had originally designed its blueprints as some sort of incapacitating device, but its major problem was its inability to handle creatures with high reiatsu. And any opponent worth even just a little of their salt knew that reiatsu was a most important factor in combat. From the little Iroka read, a little flaring of the target’s reiatsu would make the gadget unstable. As a result, Kimyou had put the file away in a folder labeled ‘Redundancy’.

Iroka noticed that most of the files, if not all of them, placed in the Redundancy folder were projects that Kimyou had ended up striking a wall, as far as their research was concerned. The subject matter of these projects varied greatly, from poisons to weapons to barriers, and so on. There was only one file which seemed different from the rest, and its name immediately piqued Iroka’s curiosity. It was named the Nidaime Roudou Kara, the Second Generation Labor Shell. This was then the follow-up to the IROKA Project, what was supposed to come after her. Feeling both apprehensive and yet curious, Iroka selected the file and opened it.

The file was empty. There was absolutely nothing in it. Iroka tried searching for hidden files, but there were none. There had been no submissions within the file. Looking at the date of the file, it was clear that this file had been created close to a year before Kimyou had been arrested. The file’s history even showed that it had been edited and updated, and yet it was empty, which meant that whatever had been recorded therein had been deleted. Why was this? Had Kimyou somehow suddenly seen some value in the reputedly defective first version? Iroka could not tell, but she knew that speculating on things that she wasn’t sure of were a waste of time.

If she wanted any answers concerning the Nidaime Roudou Kara Project, she would have to talk with the scientist who was supposed to be singlehandedly responsible for it, her parent, who was presently stewing in the Nest of Maggots. While Iroka was unwilling to ask her parent any questions, as she was sure she would simply get insults instead of useful answers, she was sure she would not be able to forget the matter. Maybe she would bring it up, either directly or obliquely, whenever she was in Kimyou’s presence, until her parent grew tired of her raining the matter, and answered her question as to why the project had been stopped long before Kimyou’s incarceration.

Maybe she just wanted to hear that at some point, Kimyou had decided to consider her useful. Maybe she wanted to hear that the Ichidaime Roudou Kara Project (which was, more or less, herself) had actually been a success all along. Maybe she just wanted to feel some sense of belonging somewhere, and perhaps the love of a parent. But there was a pessimistic part of her mind that informed her that whatever the reason for the stopping of the second IROKA project, it would probably not be what she wanted to hear. Kimyou seemed incapable of human emotions. The pink-haired scientist seemed hollow, empty… like Iroka’s bowl of food.

The orange-haired Shinigami suppressed the urge to groan, and rose from her seat. The food was finished; it was time to begin her work. Taking her bowl to the sink, she disposed of the chopsticks she had used, along with the waste generated from cooking the meal, in a disposable trash bag. Just so she wouldn’t forget, the young Shinigami took the bag and placed it by the door. She would probably forget it if she didn’t leave it there. Then she returned to the sink and cleaned up the plates, pots and utensils she had used to prepare her meal.

Having concluded the matter of filling her stomach, Iroka was ready for the major task which she had given herself: the building of something useful. Returning to the main console, Iroka opened the file she had taken notice of, the one which had been intended to be some sort of restraining device. Looking at how it functioned, and its properties and components, perhaps she could repurpose it to become some sort of field medic tool. By comparing the items required for this project with the hidden lab’s inventory, it was certain Iroka could make this work. Although not every material needed was present, the most important ones were, and the rest could be improvised. In any case, this would be a prototype; a more functional version of the tool could be redesigned back in Seireitei.

Iroka was convinced by now that she had a solid workable idea of what she wanted to do. The project of interest in the Redundancy folder had been named ‘Kanashibari’. That was the Japanese term for sleep paralysis, and Iroka thought it was an apt name. It was expected to work by releasing a constant stream of spiritual energy directly into the saketsu (binding chain) and hakusui (soul sleep) of a victim, which would nullify their spiritual powers temporarily, until the energy stream was cut off. It had been designed to potentially work on Shinigami, and serve the need of not having to damage one’s saketsu and hakusui irreparably, while incapacitating them.

While in theory, this concept could work, in practice, it would not. As the saketsu was more or less the seat of a Shinigami’s powers, it would be difficult to ensure a stream of energy that could overpower a target’s spiritual pressure this way, unless an overwhelming force of reiatsu was used. In such a case, it would be simply better for the person with stronger reiatsu to simply knock out the weaker one. To create a device that could generate great reiatsu to make the Kanashibari workable, it would need a rather large power source, which could potentially be made to work if the Kanashibari was expected to be a large static device that took up an entire room in a prison facility or something.

The Kanashibari was supposed to instead be a mobile device, and as such, was meant to be much smaller. Iroka’s thoughts on adapting the device to more medical uses would definitely benefit from its mobility, and would not need any extra-large power sources. The repurposed device could be used to put critically injured Shinigami into some form of induced stasis, upon which they could be returned to a safer area with proper healing facilities or personnel. While it would not heal any wounds, putting the target Shinigami in stasis meant that the target would go into a death-like state in which all bodily functions would cease, but they would still be alive. That meant that things like bleeding or choking would stop, until the Kanashibari’s field was dispelled.

Since someone with a critical injury would not be able to generate a lot of high-quality reiatsu (unless they were some stubborn bastard), and most people in this category would already be knocked out, it would be much easier to use the Kanashibari on such vulnerable targets. This way, a medic could put a patient into stasis, and then move them from danger or clear the area of potential hostiles, without fearing that the patient would bleed out or die from anaphylactic shock while the medic was trying to save their life. However, the properties of the stasis also implied that kaidou or other healing techniques would not work, until the target was no longer in stasis.

In the end, what this meant was that the Kanashibari would merely be a tool to delay how long it would be needed to perform life-saving activities on a patient. While on the normal, the Kanashibari would not be really useful, as far as healing was concerned, it would be a boon to have on the battlefield, if Iroka succeeded in its creation. It would mean that if even a low-ranked medic came across someone in critical condition, they could place said person in stasis, and then carry them back to the 4th Division’s headquarters, or someone capable of healing, without being particularly pressed for time. It also meant having to deal with an ambush or other delay would not have to be executed in panic for fear that one was working against time to keep their patient from dying while they couldn’t get them to medical help.

To make matters better, Iroka’s intention was to make the Kanashibari quite easy to use. Of course, it would still require some deal of medical expertise to be able to use, but anyone who had even a little knowledge of medical workings would hopefully be able to use it. Also, Iroka intended to make two power sources for the Kanashibari. While it could not have giant batteries, and this meant that the Kanashibari was time-limited regarding how long it would keep a patient in stasis, an auxiliary power source would go a long way. Definitely the main power source would be made from the strongest batteries that would be small enough to be installed in a highly mobile unit.

As for the auxiliary power, Iroka decided that it would be less of a battery actually. It would more accurately be described as a sort of reiatsu capacitor. It would be a device which would be able to absorb reiatsu fed into it, and transfer the reiatsu to the main battery to power it up, thus increasing the working life of the Kanashibari. What this meant was that anyone with enough reiatsu would be able to keep the Kanashibari working indefinitely, as long as they had enough reiatsu to power it. Of course, the downside was that one would have to stay close to the Kanashibari to recharge its auxiliary power from time to time, but everything had disadvantages.

Iroka did not intend to make anything big. As far as she was concerned, it had to be easily portable, and by anyone of any size, which meant that even a child would have to be able to carry one, although Iroka hoped children would not have to be using them, as that would mean they would be exposed to war or other really unpleasant situations. In any case, Iroka decided to make something that she could comfortable carry. If she could carry it, she was sure most people would not have any issues with the device’s weight and size. The very largest it would thus be would be roughly as long as the distance from her elbow to her wrist. That would put it at around nine inches in length.

It was one thing for the Kanashibari to be not so long, but its other dimensions needed to be reasonable as well. Also, it would have to be designed such that it would not easily slip off the patient when being used. Thus it would likely need straps or some other form of tethering. Since the saketsu and hakusui were on the chest, it would probably be difficult to strap around the chest of the patient, because one wanted to secure the device. Iroka decided she would use some suction technology to make the device stick to the skin around the upper chest, and there would be a tether to fasten it round the neck. That would be more workable.

The Kanashibari would also need to have a relatively notable area for its reiatsu capacitor. That wouldn’t be too much of a problem; she would simply design the auxiliary power unit to be central on the Kanashibari’s hardware. Looking at the blueprint plans of the Kanashibari, Iroka began to alter the original design of the hardware’s layout, using a nifty software that Kimyou had used to create the original templates of the intended gizmo. The software did need a bit of getting used to, but Iroka was a smart girl, and she easily caught on to how to use the program. Before thirty minutes were up, the Shinigami had redesigned the Kanashibari, and run performance simulations on its design, which all proved successful. Kimyou had been unable to get the Kanashibari version 1 to complete blueprint stage. Iroka had succeeded in doing so with the Kanashibari 2.0. It was time to turn the blueprint into a visible result.

---

2445 words

[Munemasa Iroka]

Having successfully created the blueprints of the Kanashibari, Iroka set to figuring out how the workstations themselves worked. She would definitely need metal, plastic and perhaps ceramics as well, maybe some fabrics too. While the stations looked rather complex and fitted with a number of rather impressive-looking gadgets, Iroka was sure she would not have any issues figuring them out. It was, after all, her parent who had designed them. They would not be a problem for her.

The first thing to deal with would probably be the plastics and polymer station. Since plastic was very versatile and could be synthesized to be hard, flexible, and resistant to wear, this would be Iroka’s choice of materials for the body of the Kanashibari. There were a lot of raw materials for the manufacture of various types of plastic types she wanted. Iroka even discovered that each workstation was connected via some hidden cables to the lab console. This meant that she could probably perform some work on the stations remotely from the console.

With excitement building in her heart, Iroka returned to the console and began going through its files and folders. Soon she saw what she thought she might be looking for. It was a folder labeled ‘Operations Guide’. She opened it, and true enough, saw a file for each of the work stations, as well as a folder which contained some work that Kimyou had been working on. In order to understand how this all worked, as well as familiarize herself with the workstation-console synchronization, Iroka began reading through her parent’s work. It would take a bit of time, but when she was through, she would probably be able to go at the work at hand without further delays.

Kimyou’s work was complex, and there were even some designs and purposes that Iroka had absolutely no idea as to how they worked. But soon she began to comprehend things. Most of Kimyou’s work involved body modifications, most likely for self-installation, as she knew her parent was, in a sense, a master of body modification. This specialization of Kimyou’s made it funny, perhaps ironic, to see that Kimyou had attempted to bring all their knowledge and faculties to bear to create the perfect body for Iroka’s mind, but had failed overwhelmingly. Perhaps there were some things that could not be attempted, no matter how gifted one was. At least, the Kanashibari was not too high a bar.

Soon, Iroka had figured things out. She would need to open the creative software she had used to design the blueprint for the Kanashibari, and then run a program specifically made for the operation of the workstations. Having done so, she would then input the specifications of the Kanashibari, and control the workstations to design the components she needed. After this she would put the components together by hand, and that would be that. She would need to save some data to take to Seireitei though, if she wanted it to be mass-produced for use by the Yonbantai. To this end, she found a bunch of empty mobile storage drives, and downloaded the details and data involving the building of the Kanashibari onto one of them, which she stored away on her person, so as not to forget it when leaving.

And so began the work to create the Kanashibari. First, Iroka used the workstation program to analyze whether the intended plastic parts of the blueprint designs could be synthesized. She would use durable, hard plastic, similar to the sort of what she had heard some specialized forces on Earth used in the making of their armor. That way, throwing the device around wouldn’t break it. It was not as though it was intended for delicate use, seeing as it would most often be used in the chaos of a battlefield. The hardier it was, the better.

Soon, she had designed the shell. Next would come the inner parts. This was a more delicate process, and involved plastic, metal and a bit of ceramics. It was quite impressive to see that the metal workstation had a miniature forge of sorts, and a safety hood was raised over the forge when it was working, to avoid fire hazards. It was such a pity Kimyou was stuck in the Nest of Maggots. Her parent was really quite brilliant, but due to their lack of scruples, they were paying the price, and Heaven knew when, if, they would be released.

Each of the inner parts of the Kanashibari was finally done, and Iroka took the time to read a few more files, while she waited for all the metallic parts to cool down. It was impressive how much different metals Kimyou had in their store, though each quantity was particularly large. If Iroka required to perform another work, she would probably have to restock, though she had no idea as to how Kimyou sourced for their materials. There was the hunch that what could not be bought on the black markets of Rukongai were pilfered from Seireitei’s stores. And it was while she read through Kimyou’s indefinitely suspended projects that her eye fell on something impressive.

In one of the files, Kimyou had documented a particular synthesized substance in the Seireitei Research and Development Institute. It was called ‘Katsuishi’, or ‘Live Stone’, and it seemed to take the appearance of a gemstone. It was so named because one could have a piece of it, and by pushing ‘synthetic’ reiatsu into it, it would use the energy fed into it to grow in size, meaning that its stores would not easily be depleted as long as there was a reiatsu source of the right type. If Kimyou, as critical as they were, could refer to this Katsuishi as amazing, then it was indeed something notable.

Apparently, there was no Katsuishi in the lab, because Kimyou had been unable to get their hands on it. Iroka suspected this was because Kimyou would have wanted it for private projects, and the SR&DI would have wanted them to account for what they wanted to do with it. Kimyou, being a very secretive person, would have taken umbrage with that, and so had desired to steal a piece, but had, as of yet, been unable to do so. Since Iroka was a legit Shinigami of the Gotei 13, she would probably succeed where Kimyou had failed, by openly telling the SR&DI of her pet project.

Unlike Kimyou, Iroka’s desire was to improve the standards, as well as success and survival rates of the 4th Division. Kimyou seemed quite arrogant and interested in self-promotion, which was, in part, what had led to their residence in the Nest of Maggots. Whether Seireitei got better or worse, Kimyou cared not, as long as their personal status was improved. Perhaps this was one of the major reasons Kimyou was so bitter when Iroka was around, seeing as the young Shinigami was a reminder that Kimyou had been forced to ignominiously live out the rest of their days in a subterranean prison.

Back to the Kanashibari’s design. One other thing that made the Katsuishi so impressive was that, when ‘alloyed’ with other materials, even though it kept its ability to grow on reiatsu, it gained new properties. More would be said about this interesting property later. Iroka surmised that if she could give the Katsuishi the ability to supply the steady stasis stream of the Kanashibari, instead of wasting entire devices on victims, she could design the Kanashibari such that it would have special converters to transform reiatsu fed into it to the ‘synthetic’ reiatsu, which would make the Katsuishi grow through a receptacle that would shape it like a pin with a ball head. This ball-shaped pin would be the structural reason for the Kanashibari’s successful operation.

So the idea of using the Kanashibari was this: when one placed the device on a victim’s chest, they would flow reiatsu into the Kanashibari’s receptacle, in which a ball of Katsuishi sat. The converters in the Kanashibari would make the Katsuishi grow, but due to the design of the Kanashibari, the Katsuishi, as it formed its ball-headed pin shape, would only have space to grow out of the bottom of the Kanashibari, which would be in contact with the victim’s chest. As such, the Katsuishi pin would pierce the chest of the victim, and the Yonbantai Shinigami, or whoever was using the Kanashibari, would pump reiatsu into the Katsuishi pin.

Since the Katsuishi pin was no longer in contact with the Katsuishi in the Kanashibari, it would not grow any more, but the alloyed nature of the Katsuishi designed for this 4th Division tool would make it able to store reiatsu, as well as indicate how much reiatsu was stored in it by glowing. The brighter the glow, the higher the reiatsu level. As such, the pin head would serve as a sort of gauge. With the Katsuishi’s pin shaft touching the saketsu and hakusui of the victim, the reiatsu released into their system would ensure stasis, and the head of the pin would indicate whether the medic present needed to feed more reiatsu into it.

In this way, a Yonbantai Shinigami would have only one Kanashibari with them, but they would be able to use it on as many victims as was needed, which would save space and give greater ease of carriage. This was more efficient than Iroka’s original design, which would involve needing a device for each victim, and having to secure the device round the victim’s neck. Iroka returned to the designing software, and began implementing the changes she had decided to make. There would be no great need of alterations, just a few changes which would be quickly and easily done. Soon she was through, and the other needed parts were synthesized. All that was needed was the Katsuishi.

Feeling excited, Iroka spent the next thirty minutes putting the hardware of the Kanashibari together. There were all sorts of tools here, and finding the screwdrivers, pliers, and other doodads necessary to fit the Kanashibari together was not a problem. Having concluded her work, Iroka felt tired but satisfied. She shut down the console, cleared and closed up all the workstations, made sure the lab was in perfect hibernation, and then left, traveling quickly so as not to fall victim to the hysteria-inducing pheromones pervading the area. Soon she was out under Inuzuri’s sky. As she made her way from the area, her heartbeat returned to normal, as she noticed it was already night. How long she had spent here, she couldn’t say, but she was glad for the progress she had made. No one was in sight too, so they would not discover the secret of this hideout.

With her prize in her hand, Munemasa Iroka began the return journey to Seireitei.

---

1767 words

COMPLETED

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