Bleach The Inevitable War

Knyght

The Collector
#26
So I went over to DLP and submitted a summary of everything from the Aizen fight to the declaration of war in the Other Fandoms section. Got a couple of replies though you don't get much activity in that section.

One commented that from a military stand point, Shinji is obviously in the wrong. He does something stupid and starts a war because of his mistake. Another says that there's no way to sympathise with Shinji since he was the cause of Hiyori's death and Gin was just doing his job and saving lives.

I think they've both got a valid point so I thought of some revisions to the idea: Mayuri's method of trying to restore her abilities would be focusing on the regenerative aspect of her hollow powers, perhaps boosted by his own serum(s). Thus using her potential natural abilities to fix herself. This would obviously require her to frequently draw out her hollow powers which Mayuri is observe to observe and record.

Eventually though, due to a miscalculation or unforeseen consequence, Hiyori ends up hollowfying completely and goes on a rampage as she loses control. Shinji had been suspicious of her regular disappearing acts and was the first to notice and respond to her out-of-control reiatsu. Cue him finding her slaughtering scientists and fighting Mayuri in the lab.

He tries and fails to stop Hiyori. She is probably fighting for control which only he would be able to recognise, knowing some of how their abilities work. But Gin arrives and finishes the job himself.

Yamamoto punishes Mayuri for not being able to stop the experiment from going out of control but not for conducting them. And neither Mayuri or Gin are punished for killing Hiyori since she was 'just' a hollow.

Conflict arises from this which causes him to deliver an ultimatum, the Gotei 13 can't afford to be fractured so he tells the vizards to fall in line or else. Vizards refuse, feeling that Hiyori's death is the last straw after being unable to reintegrate themselves and various problems that arose. War is declared between the groups and the vizards go into seclusion again.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
#27
Miscalculation would fall on Mayuri's fault sort of deal, which while incredibly easy would be best to avoid honestly. However a miscalculation due to insufficient information might work better.

Let's say because of the experiments, Hiyori's slowly getting feeling in her lower body, but with this includes pain from the lingering wound. Which drives her to Unohana to see if she can fix this, who is almost convinced this is all in her head. Regardless, she gets a special set of painkillers to help her at least get through it enough to sleep at night.

Unfortunately the painkillers react horribly to Mayuri's serum, ergo the accident. Or something along those lines.

Another alternative would be Mayuri during one of those hollowification experiments telling her that's enough, but Hiyori assuring him she can go deeper, desperate to get healed already and pushing herself way past her limit thanks in part to stress, also causing her hollow to take advantage of her vulnerable mental state and take over. Assigning a good deal of the blame on Hiyori herself could prove just as fruitful now that I think about it. :hmm:
 

Knyght

The Collector
#28
I'd say that the latter fits Hiyori better and the overall situation.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
#29
The former could actually work to put some blame on Unohana and draw some suspicion onto her and what the Medic division actually does depending how you spin it. Get some more gray sides to the Shinigami end of things to help make everything look more ambigious.

Though I do agree that the later works better since it draws more focus on Hiyori and the condition she's in. Would definitely be good to draw a good bit of focus in the early stages to just what the experiments/serums are doing to her, how out of it and drained she becomes as her stress builds and results seem so very far away. Which in turn makes her more reckless and leads to her continually trying to rush things to get faster results.

If you could sort of blend a lot of those together it might serve the purpose of the story on all fronts depending how you spin it. :hmm:
 

Knyght

The Collector
#30
I think trying to put the blame on Unohana would cause Hiyori to seem more at fault than anything. Unohana gives the impression of being well-respected due to her attitude and seniority and her willingness to heal the vizards after the battle shows she's a healer to the core.

Then we have Hiyori requesting drugs when there's little proof that she needed them and didn't consider the consequences it could have on her tests. It wouldn't be surprising if she actually lied, or at least omitted facts, in this scenario to ensure Unohana's cooperation.

If its like that then Hiyori becomes decidedly less sympathetic since it'd seem more stupid than unfortunate. Same with the vizards for making accusations at someone who helped them in the past and did the same here with no ulterior motives.

Combining the two could make it work better though since Hiyori's action in seeking the painkillers would make more sense. Though it might be less believable that Unohana wouldn't perform a full check up on Hiyori given the state she'd apparently be in. (Though it's hard to say what state she'd be in with these theoretical tests. Up to the writer, I suppose).
 

zeebee1

Well-Known Member
#31
Now that the idea has some actual balance there's another issue at hand. Don't make Ichimaru deal the final blow. Soi Fong would be the best bet. Unlike others she wouldn't be sentimental and go for a capture when Shinigami are were in danger.

The big issue is that this works best if the audience doesn't know who to blame. Blaming Mayuri or Ichimaru is easy. But if this happens because Hiyori pushed herself too far on healing experiments that she didn't tell Shinji of then things become much more ambiguous.
 

Knyght

The Collector
#32
I think you'd lose more than you'd gain by using someone other than Gin for killing Hiyori. There's a history there that'll make the vizards quick to blame him but his actions would logical and he did what many of the other captains would have done had they been in his place.

Having the one who crippled Hiyori finish the job and receive approval for it would make the vizards response and later actions more realistic. The effect would be less pronounced with someone else.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
#33
Depends how you structure it actually. zeebee does raise a good point, it is VERY easy to just blame Gin or Mayuri, so having someone else deal the final nail in the coffin might be more ideal.

You'd have to structure more of the idea around it though. Prior to this point build up the tension and bad blood going on between the Shinigami and Vizards. Make it more about the little things at first, maybe something as simple as reprimands for disobeying orders or forbidding of using masks without permission.

Soifon herself is proving to be particularly nasty to everyone around her, so drive in how much of a bitch she's being starting to grate on everyone's nerves on the Vizard side and then throw up how callously she took out Hiyori and you could have something feasible to work with there.

Kind of ties in to what I was bringing up with Unohana, trying to drive wedges or forge connections between characters that might not appear immediately obvious. It's all too easy to pair off people into their own little pairs and have the reactions others have of them particularly nailed down, but the potential to explore alternate interpretations and reactions between a larger mass is rarely explored but just as viable to tap.

One potential thing I was considering for Unohana would be to drive in that she will literally do ANYTHING to ensure her patients survival. To the point of ethical question-ability. Unohana could be just as terrifying to mess with as Mayuri in a lot of ways depending how deep the rabbit hole goes with her.

You could also throw some rather easy tension between Hitsugaya and Shinji rather easily. Despite the kid being among the more agreeable of the captains, he's naturally uneasy after the whole Aizen deal, and Shinji can easily misinterpret that to him being a dick for no reason. Of course initially the others vizards could reassure him, because kid's probably perfectly cordial otherwise, but once the shit hits the fan this is just another thing to the stack of things that push him over the edge.

Though admittedly exploring all this just makes the idea more complex, but I do hold that focusing more on group/alternate individual interpretations of characters rather than just small sets of pairs reacting in mundane ways could hold more viability depending how you spin it.

Kind of an alternate of what's happening currently, with the Kuwabara guy kind of being a mentor figure to Unohana and not really connecting with anyone else, and the Hand Chick being a rival to Mayuri and not really interacting much with anyone else in any notable way.
 

Knyght

The Collector
#34
If it reaches the point that Mayuri and Gin are receiving the lion's share of the blame then I'd blame it on the writing more than anything. Using Gin just makes more sense to me since it provides a greater impact thematically and emotionally. The only characters who should actually blame him would be the vizards due to their understandable bias, whereas everyone else should be acknowleding that he made the best choice.

Soifon would be possible but Gin is best for creating the sense that Hiyori's death is completely unforgivable to the vizards.

And I was thinking of using Soifon in a different way. She'd obviously still have her grudge against all the vizards and due to her position, it would be her duty to keep watch over them for suspicious activity or signs of disloyalty. Something they would all be aware of and she'd make a point of bringing up every so often. When the Hiyori incident comes around, she'd vocal of how she supports Gin's actions (even if she dislikes/hates the man himself), claims she would have done the same thing and probably point out that he did what Shinji was too cowardly to do himself.

This, along with the stances of the other captains and the various developments leading up to this, would all fit together to make leaving the Gotei 13 seem like the best option for the vizards.

What do you mean for Unohana? Your comment made me think that Unohana actually does discover the experimentations when Hiyori come to her for meds but instead of stopping them, she gets involved and gives her own input. Thus she seems more cupable though her actions were done for the sake of helping her patient.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
#35
I see where you're coming from, and certainly Gin would be a beautiful bookend to it, but I also can easily see zeebee's point that too much focus is being placed on the two-four major assholes of SS.

You know who would be an intriguing alternate option? Ukitake. Not only someone who would logically be siding with the Vizards the entire way, making them realize afterwards that they really have no allies in SS and facilitate their defecting (naturally drawing Yamamoto's ire after the previously mentioned ultimatum).

It also would provide a lovely progression to Ukitake's story himself, after the whole fiasco with Kaien. He did it to spare Shinji from having to, like he couldn't with Rukia, and it blew up horribly all the same.

Obviously since we've constantly been mentioning it, we really need to drive up that this is quite literally the last straw, so other events will have to be concieved using the rest of the list to help drive this up, and hopefully introduce intriguing wedges where they might not be obvious. Forge intriguing connections between characters who otherwise wouldn't interact.

For example, Mashiro and Yachiru would likely get along quite well with eachother, being basically the same level of maturity. Meaning she has excessive contact with Kenpachi, whose FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT mentality leads to a particularly nasty 'spar'. Kensei flips the hell out, Kenpachi has a grand old time, and Yamamoto has to drive it into Kensei and Mashiro's head not to goad the fight crazy idiot. With reprimands naturally.

By logical deduction, Kensei and Komamura would also have gripes with each other, mostly to do with their perceptions of Tousen. Kensei, being his captain in the past and getting summarily betrayed, loathes the guy, no other way of spinning it. However, despite everything, Komamura still considered him his friend. Their gripes would be subtle and mostly internal unless a particularly nasty argument breaks out (Likely as a RESULT of the Kenpachi fiasco), but it's easy to place some tension there.

Soifon's naturally a bitch to everyone, which kinda makes her having gripes with them almost natural. Love and Rose at the two superfluous vizards I tend to ignore, but with some extrapolation, I could say Love has serious issues with both Shunsui's and Soifon's ways of doing things.

Rose is considerably harder, but based on my alternate interpretation I was going into earlier, I can make a strong case for him having gripes with Unohana by adding a few expansions to her character and role. As I said earlier, her priority is the survival of her patients, taken to the logical extreme. An entire wing lets say of the 4th division is devoted to a particularly morbid sort of intensive care section, where using techniques she's learned over the years, she's basically keeping large amounts of people just barely alive and stable, despite their suffering.

Bit of an anti-angle of death thing going on with her, which while not outright evil, is something people could take issue with. Doubly so if, for example, a relative happens to be a member of this ward. With that and Rose's emphasis on beauty in life and all things, this could be a very interesting issue to cover to give both a bit of depth. :ph43r:

Hachi, surprisingly, is giving me a bit more trouble than Love and bloody Rose of all things though. I suppose the whole lack of knowledge on the Kido squad doesn't help clarify his general approach to things. I suppose he could also jump on the anti Unohana: Angel of Life bandwangon if he sees it as a perversion of Kido powers or something, though that's being rather lame about it.

I suppose I still need to get Byakuya in on the action too, but other than being a snooty asshole he doesn't have a lot going for him either, particularly with the whole Rukia plot long since resolved. I suppose his emphasis on laws and how quite a few of the vizards don't following them could bring up some issues, but that's more a general thing, nothing personal to bring up there. Could certainly goad Quick temper Kensei and Love if he tried a bit though. As well as get Mashiro on a rant.
 

Knyght

The Collector
#36
Ukitake would be a cool option and far less typical overall. :sisi:

Byakuya could be the one who proposes that the Vizards have their hollow powers restricted, at least whilst they are within Seireitei. Whilst he likely trusts Ichigo by this point, he is the only captain to have faced off against an out-of-control hybrid and could be leery of allowing them full access to their powers at all times. This would tie in with the general concern that the vizards are able to surpass the potential abilities of a shinigami, technically putting them above the regular captains.

Then weÆve got the Central 46 who are supposed to be re-established which Byakuya would probably support, especially since RukiaÆs execution was due to Aizen and not the government. But the vizards would likely be against it due to how quickly they decided to kill them off after they had been transformed into hollows.

Both points could tie in with the break off since the first could mean that Hiyori was breaking the law by using her hollow powers in the SRDI, along with Mayuri and possible Unohana being her collaborators. The second could relate how HiyoriÆs situation was dealt with to how the vizards were originally going to be dealt with.

ThereÆs Lisa could is the only vizards to be interested in reconnecting with individual people rather than the organisation as a whole. Being back with Shunsui could lead to her unconsciously resuming her role as his lieutenant, resulting in Nanao being threatened by this intrusion and friction developing between them.

I think the Unohana plot would work better if there was something more to it than simply keeping those people alive. Her refusal to let people die would be a good motivating factor but I think the patientsÆ continued existence should actually be used for something e.g. using them as test subjects for new techniques, drugs, medicines etc.

Hachi would also be useful for this plot due to his unique form of kido. Him calling her out on ôpervertingö kido wouldnÆt make much sense when his own power relies on time-space regression which works on similar grounds to the known forbidden kido. If he actually uses that as an excuse, he could be called out for hypocrisy in-story. Unohana could have an interested in having Hachi teach her and the 4th division members how to use his powers to increase their abilities. He might simply take the selfish route here by being unwilling to pass on the powers that he developed during his exile or he might be unwilling adding these powers to the shinigamiÆs arsenal.
 

zeebee1

Well-Known Member
#37
I'd argue against the Lisa angle on the premise that she doesn't appeared to have rejoin Soul Society. It's hard enough to believe that so many of them rejoined as it is.
 

Knyght

The Collector
#38
I was going with an all-or-nothing approach given that they're meant to be a really tight-knit group here. Lisa not going back to SS in canon was strange since she was the only one who showed any concern towards a former comrade. Seemed more she got the short straw when Kubo was filling up the higher positions.

Besides, that's nearly two years after these events and we've no idea what went on with the vizards between now and then. For all we know, my idea is what actually happened with Lisa and as a result she decided to go back to the HW.

EDIT: I imagine that the early stages of the fic would be a sort of trial run for the vizards. They wouldn't simply be picking up a captain's cloak as soon as they walk in the door, they'd be meeting with the existing captains and officers, refamiliarising themselves with Seireitei and learning about anything that might have happened in the last century.
 

zeebee1

Well-Known Member
#39
Thye were always a tightly knit group, Shinji and the others betrayed their ideals and friendships and went back anyways.
 

zeebee1

Well-Known Member
#41
A betrayal is a betrayal. I can understand why they don't see it that why, but the situation is the same either way. When Hiyori said she hated Shinigami Shinji agreed. Yet Shinji is a captain and Hiyori is in the human world.
 

Knyght

The Collector
#42
A conversation which occured a fair while before they fought with the shinigami against Aizen. We know little of what they did, how they felt or how their feelings may have changed in the aftermath. All we have is that most of the group are in SS and 2-3 aren't.

Until we know more about what happened with them, calling it a betrayal is an assumption, not a fact.
 
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