Drops in the Bucket

Summary: Drabble collection on anything and everything in Bleach. Ten drabbles per chapter, randomness abounds, updates will be incredibly sporadic.

The Laughing Phoenix does not own Bleach. She is simply borrowing the franchise for the purposes of conjecture.

WARNING: Rampant speculation ahead.

First Scroll

1)

Every Shinigami is something of an investment. A lot of time, effort, and money is spent training reiatsu-possessing souls into hollow-killing specialists. Therefore, it is difficult to quit the Gotei 13. That's not to say it's impossible; for example, it is perfectly acceptable to leave the Gotei 13 due to old age or injury. In cases of familial duty, such as suddenly becoming clan head, the Shinigami in question is granted leave, though highly encouraged to stay.

This reluctance to release members grows exponentially as you go up the ranks. By the time you hit Captain's level, it is nigh-impossible to quit, short of crippling injury, extreme old age, promotion to the Royal Guards, or death.

So, when the captain of the 10th division fell in love with a spirit-sensitive human, he was smart enough to realize that he had a real problem on his hands. There was no way he could get away with marrying one of the living while he remained in the Gotei 13, and he was not going to subject either of them to waiting for her to die, not if he had a chance to get around the laws.

After a few months spent kicking around ideas with Masaki, he came to the conclusion that he'd have to fake his own death. So he spent the next couple of months hunting down Urahara Kisuke. Their first meeting was tense – he knew he'd never have a chance to bring Urahara down as the ex-captain was a truly wily opponent, and Urahara was naturally wary of anyone wearing a Captain's haori. Finally, however, he got Urahara to listen to his proposal.

Once Urahara had finally stopped laughing, he agreed to help, a smile that would make the Devil shiver in fear on his face. The exiled captain made a few calls, dug a few things out of storage, and in the end the plan was almost frightening in its simplicity.

The next night that the 10th division captain was on patrol near Karakura, a humongous hollow reading appeared just north of the town. As duty demanded, the captain hurried toward the site, and found himself face-to-face with a small girl wearing a hollow mask like an insect's. The 'battle', if it could be called that, was thoroughly one-sided. Despite being half his size, she kicked him several times around the meadow before knocking him through the wall of an abandoned house and to the floor at Urahara's feet.

Urahara shoved him into a gigai and the girl pulled off her mask, causing both of them to vanish from the Gotei 13's scanners. Once the captain was awake again, Urahara helped him create a new identity as Kurosaki Isshin, and got him the papers to get into University.

As Isshin was settling into his new life, Urahara sat him down and gave him as many of the details he felt necessary. One thing he stressed was that the gigai, while making him effectively human, was largely experimental. While Urahara felt that he'd probably be able to safely extract Isshin from the gigai without killing him or stripping his abilities as a Shinigami, it'd be at least twenty years before he could make that attempt.

Isshin thought that was an acceptable risk. As far as he was concerned, he'd never need to use his Shinigami abilities again. Fourteen years later, he changed his mind. He made a mental list of things to do once he had his abilities back. Deal with Grand Fisher was at the top of his list, second only to Make sure Ichigo is trained into the ground.

2)

No Quincy has ever joined the Gotei 13. When this fact is brought to their attention, most Shinigami shrug and say that's just how it works. Some more intelligent Shinigami postulate that it has to do with the notorious hatred Quincy bear for the Shinigami, supposing that no self-respecting Quincy will join their enemy. Before Mayuri began his destructive campaign to examine and experiment on the Quincy, most Shinigami couldn't even say for certain if Quincy kept their abilities upon dying.

[It turns out that they do, but by that point Mayuri's single-handed genocide had rendered the point moot.]

Ishida Uryuu and Ryuuken are the last living Quincy. Among the dead, some of the Quincy still survive, hiding among the reiatsu-less souls. In a related matter, in districts 28-31 in each quadrant, a region that forms a rough circle on maps of the Rukongai, order is enforced by interrelated Yakuza families, disgusted by the lack of Shinigami policing. In all sixteen of these families, the Oyabun and his (or in one case, her) kin are known to be deadly with a bow.

3)

None of Yoruichi's friends will tell her just how perfect they think her animal form is as an expression of her personality.

4)

There is a pronounced tendency among the Gotei 13 to look down on those who come from outer Rukongai. Ironically enough, this prejudice has weakened the Shinigami.

You see, to survive in the outer Rukongai, you need to be tough. The reiatsu-producing souls who manage to survive the hunger their own abilities curse them with tend to be tougher, stronger, and more resilient than those from lower-numbered districts, who are more likely to be noticed by a Shinigami before they run any real risk of starvation.

Thanks to the way Shinigami denigrate the residents of outer Rukongai, only about half of those capable of manipulating reiatsu make their way to the Academy. The rest build power bases in their districts, using their abilities to lord it over those who don't possess them.

Once they reach the Academy, those from outer Rukongai are subjected to harassment and ridicule. Some respond by doing their best to beat the hell out of everyone around them, others choose to keep their heads down and deliberately don't mention their pasts. Almost none give up, though, because nobody wants to go back.

The 11th division has the highest concentration of souls from outer Rukongai, drawn by a captain who is unashamed of his past in Zaraki district and who measures his subordinate's worth by how well they fight, not by their origins. Within any other division, many of them would make seated officer a few years into their career, but with Kenpachi as captain, the scale is skewed to the point that nobody seems to notice.

5)

Yoruichi would rather have walked over hot coals than admit it, but part of the reason she had driven Byakuya nuts as a kid was because she kinda-sorta-maybe wanted a little brother like him. Someone who actually cared about the honor of a noble clan but wasn't a total stick-in-the-mud, because then she could let him be clan head and deal with the old farts that made up the clan elders and she could remain just the captain of the 2nd division.

But she didn't have a little brother, so she'd have to make do. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on who you talked to) for him, Byakuya was the only noble in their age bracket who Yoruichi didn't think was a completely useless idiot. So, to demonstrate her approval, she kept engaging him in games of tag.

Which she always won.

6)

A lot of people assumed that Shiba Kuukaku lost her right arm in an accident with her fireworks. They were wrong.

When she was small, Kuukaku liked to follow her older brother into the foothills and mountains of Rukongai. On one of their outings, she'd wandered away from Kaien and was ambushed by a weak hollow. Kuukaku didn't even have time to scream before the hollow grabbed at her, cutting off her arm. It stopped to eat the limb, which gave Kaien the time he needed to snatch his sister out of the way.

What happened afterwards was always a blur to Kuukaku, and Kaien had never wanted to discuss it. From what she managed to piece together, Kaien had managed to drag her back several yards before the hollow came after them again, and he had interposed himself between his sister and the monster coming after her, throwing a rock at it. The rock actually hit the hollow, distracting it. It never noticed the patrolling Shinigami who killed it, mere feet from the two Shiba children.

Kuukaku had woken up in a clean bed in the Sereitei proper, hooked to an IV and with the stump of her arm neatly bandaged. A couple of days later, she was allowed to go home. She got a hold of a prosthesis, and after a lot of difficult and often painful work was able to use it almost as well as her normal arm.

Shortly thereafter, Kaien started at the Shinigami Academy. He'd had enough of beating himself up for not being able to protect his little sister – there were monsters out there, and he was going to do something about them. It was only later that he began to enjoy being a Shinigami for the job's sake.

Ganju does not know this. If Kuukaku has guessed, she will never tell him. There has been enough bitterness over Kaien's death.

7)

Hueco Mundo has, for as long as Shinigami history records it, used the Spanish language. Even Shinigami terms for various classes of hollow follow the pattern. Nobody's really cared to learn why.

In truth, the language of Hueco Mundo was Latin at the time Yamamoto founded his Academy. The residents of that world had gotten into the habit of borrowing the languages of the most powerful human empire of the time, and something about the language appealed. With the rise of emperors such as Hadrian, the dialect spoken by the residents of Hispania gained a brief popularity.

When Rome fell, other languages began to take dominance, and it wasn't for another nine hundred years that the language of the Iberian Peninsula came back into the common lexicon. With the movements of the conquistadores came an influx of population, as the souls of angry, hurt, and betrayed indios started developing into hollows at greater rates.

During what modern human history calls Spain's Siglo de Oro, the Shinigami finally began taking an academic interest in the way hollows organized themselves, a deviation from the policy of the past fifteen or so centuries, when the main focus had been building up numbers and destroying as many hollows as possible. The twelfth division finally managed to capture an adjuchas-class hollow for questioning, and much of what the Shinigami know about hollows and how they organize has to do with the information prized from him under torture.

The hollow in question had once been known as Francisco Pizarro.

For whatever reason, Spanish has remained the dominant language of Hueco Mundo, even after the fall of the Imperio. The newer hollows don't think to question it, and the Shinigami don't know to ask. A number of the older hollows, the ones who broke to adjuchas or vasto lorde before the defeat of the Armada Invencible, cast sideways glances at each other, then at the throne in the open hall of Las Noches. Like most hollows of their rank, the King that sits there is an amalgamation of souls. He is, however, rare in that the dominant personality is in fact a fusion of two powerful souls. One was Hernando Cortés. The other, Felipe II Habsburgo.

8)

Chad is not the first human to develop hollow-like abilities. He's just the first to be in prolonged contact with the Shinigami, and he happens to have better control than most.

Hollows are beings primarily composed of hunger, often with hair-trigger tempers. As a result, they are designed to be predators. Down through the ages, a small percentage of the human race has managed to pick up these predator's traits. Sometimes this is completely unconscious, sometimes the human recognizes the potential and undergoes various procedures (meditation and drugs are popular) to bring that potential to the surface. In some cultures a hierarchy of priests or wise men spends their time drawing that potential out of those who have it.

The end result is usually the same. The individual who picks up hollow-like abilities tend to be physically tougher than their regular counterparts, more resistant to force. Often, tempers get shorter and they are more likely to fly into a rage. The legendary Norse berserkers are excellent examples of this.

Chad's abilities were drawn to the surface completely accidentally, through prolonged exposure to Ichigo's sky-high reiatsu levels, the spiritual pressure doing what meditation and various rituals did to other people like him. His control was already in place, thanks to his grandfather's teachings back when he was a confused, scared kid in Mexico, and he's got too much discipline to let it slip now.

Chad has a very good chance of joining the vanishingly small percentage of humans with hollow-like abilities who are brought straight through to the Rukongai upon death. Whether he will become the first to join the Gotei 13 is a matter of debate, as up till now those like him have a tendency to remain in Rukongai.

It is established fact that most humans who gain hollow-like abilities either become hollows or go to Hell when they die. The framework for hollowfication is already in place, and the lives of violence they tend to lead makes it very easy for the scales to tip in Hell's direction.

Although not many Shinigami know Chad well, it is hard not to like him. Kyoraku, who knows or guesses more than most about the nature of Chad's abilities, occasionally spares a moment to hope that Chad will not follow the usual trend.

9)

One day, in the pause before the start of the Winter War, Kyoraku wanders into a Captain's meeting carrying a sheaf of paper. Across the top of the page are written four names: Kurosaki Ichigo, Ishida Uryuu, Yasutora Sado, and Inoue Orihime. While the captains mill around waiting for the meeting to start, Kyoraku starts passing the page around. When Ukitake asks what it's for, the eighth division captain waves a hand and says "Why, so we can make requests for when they join the Gotei 13, of course!"

"If they join the Gotei 13," Unohana murmurs, although that doesn't stop her from picking up a pen as she is handed the list.

Kenpachi and Ukitake request Ichigo, as does Kuchiki, although the latter points out that whoever gets the substitute shinigami will most likely lose him to captaincy in very short order. There is general nodding at this.

Unohana gets to the list fairly quickly – because she is a senior captain and nobody really wants to upset her – and puts her name down under Orihime's. Nobody requests the healer-girl after that, although it's obvious Kyoraku wants to. Unohana does not get stubborn about recruits very often, as she believes that the ones who belong in her division will find their way there, but when she does it's a little scary.

Uryuu gets requested by Komamura, Hitsugaya, and Soifon oddly enough. Soifon mutters something about interesting potential, Komamura merely says that he believes the Quincy would do well in his division, and Hisugaya shrugs and says that he's a good shot with a bow and an interesting person.

Chad is requested by Kyoraku and Ukitake, and the pair begin to cheerfully bicker among themselves over the mestizo. While they're doing that, Komamura adds his name to Chad's list as well.

Kurotsuchi tries to request all of them, but when Hitsugaya, standing next to him, hears the scientist mutter something about experiments he calmly tugs the paper away and crosses Kurotsuchi's name off the lists. Yamamoto calls the meeting to order before the 12th division captain has a chance to throw a temper tantrum, and the paper disappears into one of Kyoraku's pockets.

Every single captain hopes that it will be years before the paper makes a reappearance.

10)

When it comes to Ichigo and his allies in the world of the living, Kon may in fact be the most vicious. One of the lone survivors of Project Spearhead, his survival has given him both a profound respect for life and a deep well of anger to draw on.

In general, Kon leaves well enough alone. He's naturally very good-natured, and does not like remembering that he was created to be a weapon. He immerses himself in his goofy and perverted antics as a distraction. Sometimes he uses his clownishness to snap Ichigo out of the bouts of pensive reflection the substitute Shinigami is prone to. He'll never admit it, even to himself, but he's a little bit grateful to Ichigo – if it wasn't for him, Urahara would probably have put him back in a box in his warehouse or even destroyed him.

So, when Ichigo goes to Soul Society to rescue Rukia, Kon takes his job as temporary protector of the Kurosaki family seriously. He stays attentive, keeping half his mind on the Kurosakis, especially the girls, and the other on staying attuned to the spiritual pressure around him. (Unlike Ichigo, Kon actually is pretty good at sensing spiritual pressure.)

Very, very early one morning, Kon picks up on a hollow in the neighborhood. It's a couple of miles away, but that's no distance at all to a Mod-soul like Kon. The hollow doesn't even have a chance. Kon comes in kicking, landing straight on the mask. The impact dents the mask, and Kon bounces away, only to leap right back at the hollow, hitting it in the exact same place and causing the dent to turn into a crack. A third kick splits the mask entirely, and the hollow is destroyed. Kon watches until the body has completely disintegrated to make sure that it's really dead before silently returning to the Kurosaki household. Another hollow shows up some days later, only to be destroyed the same way.

Kon never mentions the hollows to Ichigo when he returns. In his opinion, destroying hollows is a little like putting down a rabid animal so it can't hurt those around it, not something to be proud of.

[A/N]: I'm not sure where half of these come from. Let's go with that.

I really don't know when this will get added to – it could be one month, it could be six. Each of these is pretty much a stand-alone. Once I have ten more, I'll add another scroll.

References:

Francisco Pizarro – there are several conquistadores of this name, but the one mentioned here was Francisco Pizarro González, 1st Marqués de los Atabillos. The bastard son of an infantry colonel, he's known to history as the man who broke the Incan Empire.

Hernando Cortés – also known as Hernán Cortés, but his full name was Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca. Famous for conquering the Azteca Empire in what is now Mexico, he's also notorious for assuming the identity of the Azteca god Quetzalcoatl while doing so. Second cousin to Francisco Pizarro.

Felipe II Habsburgo – the second of the Habsburg dynasty to rule Spain, he was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Carlos V and the great-grandson of Isabella and Fernando, Los Reyes Católicos. Anglo-centric history records him as a vain, bigoted, and ambitious tyrant, but Spanish history records him as one of the greatest kings the country ever had. He is said to have been austere and intelligent, if given to suspicion and micromanaging, a careful administrator and apparently genuinely cared about his subjects. It is unequivocally true that the Siglo de Oro, the greatest flowering of Spanish culture, began during his reign.

Thank you Rusting Roses for being a dear and betaing this quickly for me.