24 Malleable Perception

I could see.

Like, actually see. Not much, mind you, only a few meters of clear vision that surrendered to the familiar murky grey past that. My only complaint was that the first person I actually saw was Kisuke Urahara, especially while he was holding a thin, katana-like blade to my throat.

Thankfully, that misunderstanding had been cleared up on short notice, mostly by me ignoring Kisuke's death-glare and offering the man information. Kisuke normally acted with a flippancy that was almost scientifically engineered to be as infuriatingly punch-able as his stupid face, but it was all an act.

Underneath the flippancy held one of two people, depending on the situation. An entirely chill, but serious guy whose probably just a bit depressed—or a cold-blooded psychopath, ready to rip out your throat, if need be. Interestingly, I almost preferred the psychopath to the 'go with the flow' vibes he used as a mask.

Maybe once it wasn't a mask, and now he just desperately clings to it like a child clings to their blanket. I looked at the yellow haired man sitting across from me and furrowed my brow. That was a depressing thought. Wouldn't be surprised if it were true, though.

"So," Kisuke ground out, as if he could hear my internal monologue, "what the hell was that, Grayson?" I shrugged, genuinely not sure what he was referring to.

"What do you mean by 'that'?" I asked, and the infuriated man looked about ready to blow a fuse. He didn't go red or anything, but the muscles in his jaw clenched in anger, squirming underneath the skin of his cheek. Man, sight was awesome.

"I mean," he punctuated the word with another death-glare, "why did you suddenly become a blackhole for spiritual energy? You were tearing the spiritual energy from my own reserves." I grimaced. That would definitely piss off the incredibly neurotic, paranoid, and possibly immortal Soul Reaper.

"Well," I said gently, with as little condescension as I could manage, "I called it all back to me." Which obviously didn't answer anything, but Kisuke needed to be led into wanting a longer explanation, rather than supplying one upfront. That way, he feels like he got it out of you, rather than you just handing it to him on a silver platter. That'd just made him suspicious.

"Back to you?" He growled, but I could see the interest spark behind his eyes. Hook line and sinker, baby.

"Yup, back to me. I went down into my mind to have to see if I have a soul—which is apparently only partly true—and when I got there, I realised I was basically sipping on spiritual energy this whole time." The man's face just about spasmed, but I continued regardless of his personal crisis of reality. Not so nice to be on the other end of the stick, hey?

"So yeah, I worked through a few different mental models. Like drinking, eating, consuming, etcetera. Then I realised I was thinking way too small, so instead I just considered myself the original owner of the spiritual power, and voila. I am a spiritual energy blackhole." I threw my arms wide for a healthy dose of theatrics.

Kisuke, somehow managing to endure the multiple aneurysms concurrently occurring within his brain, scrunched his eyes closed and let himself think. While I let the man chew on the reality breaking bombshell attacking his puny little mind, I reached out my ribbon sense with a natural ease.

In moments I pinpointed exactly who I wanted to see. Tessai's patterned crimson ribbon stood side-by-side with Suzumi's radiant white ribbon, both navigating their way through the deceptively large estate, making a beeline towards this very room. I could see Uyu's ribbon, stretching towards somewhere off in the distance. I idly wondered if they had felt the effects of whatever I'd managed to do.

The door to the sitting room flew open, revealing a massively tall man with tanned skin, his features hard as stone itself. His eyes were hidden behind a set of small, rectangular glasses that sat delicately on his powerful features—giving the almost comically masculine man a distinct scholarly quality. His finely braided hair swung with the movement of the action, as he exploded into the room with gusto.

"Kisuke, Mister Carter, is everything alright? I felt like I–" I nodded quickly.

"Was having the spiritual energy sucked right from your reserves?" I said sardonically. Tessai halted and nodded quickly, "Yeah, that was me. Sorry about that. Looking awesome, by the way. You look as good as the work you do." I said, smile on my lips. The flattery hit the behemoth of a man right in the heart. He went silent, his cheeks warming a cartoonish pink before he coughed delicately.

"Why, thank you Mister–" He began, but was rudely interrupted.

"Wait, what? Grayson? You can see?" The voice called as a figure pushed past Tessai's bulky form that was blocking the doorway.

So, going to be honest. I regained some of my sight and somehow, it didn't even enter my mind that I'd get to see my girlfriend. But now that I was thinking about it? Holy shit was I glad I had my eyesight back.

Suzumi—currently dressed haphazardly in one of my tee-shirts and a pair of form fitting short shorts—was possibly the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Though, I guess my expectations were limited to the foster mothers and child services ladies I'd seen before my eyesight went.

Her gorgeous black hair was long and straight, reaching far down her back. Her face was a mix of Caucasian and Asian features, just like myself. Double lidded eyes, and a strong nose, in comparison to my far more Asian nose. Her eyes were a hazel colour, just bright enough to delineate it from a mundane brown. Her lips, a full and lovely pink—contrasting her slightly warmed but still pale complexion.

I grinned wildly, butterflies flittering within my stomach at the mere sight of her.

"Hey beautiful. Come here often?" I winked sleazily for effect. With a shrill noise, Suzumi raced towards me and wrapped me in a powerful hug that probably included more than a little spiritual muscle enhancement. Thankfully I was running high on reserves, so I was protected.

I heard a scoff of distaste from Mr Bucket-Hat himself, though I just sent him a smirk. What are you gonna do about it? He rolled his eyes, and let the moment continue uninterrupted. I let the hug drag on, the beautiful woman in my arms hugging me as tight as she could. We let it go until Suzumi finally pulled away, slightly embarrassed. She looked about ready to ask a bunch of questions, but I made a pointed glance towards the glowering man sitting across the table, his hand hidden in the sleeves of his overcoat. I mouthed 'we'll talk later,' and she nodded, turning her attention to the unamused store owner.

"So," Kisuke began as Tessai settled down beside his friend, "apparently there are a great many things to ask." I nodded, genuine this time. All of a sudden, I had a bunch of information without any understanding of how to apply it. Kisuke waited to see if I would interject, then continued when I didn't.

"Firstly. You say that you just… considered yourself to be the owner of the spiritual energy around you?" I nodded slowly, trying to figure out how to best explain it.

"Yeah, basically. When I was down in my soul, I realised that I was working with a skin-deep understanding of what my soul was capable of. Like, even you said that I have a really strong soul and all that." Kisuke nodded patiently, letting me make my point, "So, I started to ask myself what that actually meant. I went on a little mental journey to the bottom of the sea—that was really my soul in metaphor—and realised just how… magnitudinous it was. I realised just how little I was really taking advantage of. Like I said, I was sipping before."

"Where does you considering yourself as owner of the spiritual energy come in?" Kisuke asked, his patience wearing thin. I sighed.

"Well, I just tried to think of something that mentally equalled the magnitude of spiritual energy my soul was actually capable of gathering. What's more mentally powerful than reclaiming what was already yours?" I asked, and both Kisuke and Tessai grimaced. I had stepped on a massive fuck-off landmine and I didn't even know why.

"That… sounds dangerously close to an old foe of Soul Society, Mr Carter." Tessai explained, making me wince myself.

"The same foe who bred a generation of people, propagating and growing his power just to cull them to destroy the balance between life and death." Kisuke continued darkly, ignoring Tessai's warning gaze.

"Hey now, I didn't mean to bring that comparison up. I'm not going to go breed a generation of people just so I can kill them off. I don't even know if I'm capable–" There was a loud bang as Kisuke's fist crashed through the delicate wooden tea table between us, suddenly towering over me.

"You were stealing spiritual energy right from my soul at a distance!" Kisuke thundered, his voice cracking like a whip, "You may not be capable of it now, in your nascence. But how long will it be before you could?"

I felt the need to make a scathing retort, but it died on my lips. There was no witty retort, no joking remark that was appropriate. Why? Because when I looked at the enraged face of Kisuke, I see only a superficial layer of anger. Underneath the bubbling lava of hate and rage, there is freezing ice and water, kilometres of it. I saw true fear.

"I don't know." I said carefully, making the enraged Soul Reaper pause despite his rage, "I barely know anything, and I can only say that it is theoretically possible I could do that. You would honestly have a better idea than me if I could or not. But it doesn't matter, because it won't happen."

The room was silent, both Suzumi and Tessai were doing their best to not jump to their feet and defend me from the fuming Soul Reaper. I stared directly into the grey eyes that Urahara seemed so desperate to hide beneath the brim of his hat and his unruly fringe.

"Fine," Kisuke growled reluctantly, returning to his sitting position, hands hidden in his sleeves—no doubt clutching his Zanpakutō's handle, white knuckled. I nodded passively and waited for Kisuke to ask another question. It took him a minute to come around to it, but eventually he let the question leak from between his snarling lips.

"You said that you having a soul was only 'partly true'." He commanded, more than asked. I nodded, acquiescing to the man. Then wracking my brain on how to explain the mess of a situation that was my soul.

"So," I began slowly, "I'm both two people and one person at the same time." The immediately dumbfounded look I was granted by every person in the room was easily worth regaining some of my sight alone.

"Explain, Mister Carter." Tessai said quickly. When even Tessai was getting impatient, you knew that you were so far up in the 'importance levels' that it'd probably top a nuclear warhead sent straight for the shop. I cleared my throat theatrically, earning a glare from all three participants.

"As best as I understand it. I—the identity that I am personally—died in the womb shortly before birth." According to the expressions from the two Soul Reapers in the room, I needed to bring the 'importance level' estimate up a lot of pegs. "The other identity is a soul that somehow found his way to me by pure chance. From here things get weird."

"They get weird?" Suzumi squeaked, the rest of the participants mirroring the sentiment. I smiled wryly.

"So, after I—the identity I consider me—died in the womb, my soul unravelled and was stuck in a limbo state. Don't ask me why that is–"

"Because before birth, a soul isn't fully actualised, just the building blocks for what comes after birth. If you die within the womb you are spiritually considered both dead and alive, making you…" Kisuke's face scrunched in thought, rapidly flicking through ideas and concepts, "making you unable to be a hollow, and unable to be taken to Soul Society until the foetus is removed or birthed. After which the 'unravelled' soul, which has had no personality or identity impressed upon it, will naturally return to Soul Society through some extremely complex fundamental laws of how spiritual energy works." I sat back trying to process, and so did everyone else in the room, including the man himself.

"Right. That seems very… obscure, doesn't it?" I asked hesitantly and Kisuke nodded.

"It's a strange edge case of souls that I discovered… maybe three-and-a-half decades ago? I've never thought about it a single time since then. I'm not sure many other than me actually know that's an edge case that happens." Kisuke sighed heavily, the looked up at me wearily, taking off his hat to scratch through his hair roughly. I quickly re-evaluated just how old I believed the mid to late thirties looking man to be. Three-hundred-and-fifty years, just as nonchalant as that. I could see Suzumi do the same, sharing a look.

"So yeah, that was me." I continued, sufficiently perturbed, "Then there is this other identity—which is still also me, but our identities are technically separate—who is currently serving as my soul. He goes by the name Grayhom, apparently." Kisuke's eyes narrowed.

"What does he look like?" He asked quickly, another landmine maybe?

"He looks like a floating orb about the size of a basketball." Which thoroughly stumped that line of inquiry. "He says that he was the identity of the soul that melded with mine, cutting away parts of itself to integrate with my unravelled soul. However he did it, it left a lot of our souls by the wayside. There is a lot of dark water surrounding my soul, which I assume represents the dead or non-functioning parts of my soul after the melding process?" I looked to Tessai and Kisuke who just seem flabbergasted, "So yeah, I compressed my soul's mass in a lot to let Grayhom add some of the dark water back to our bright waters. So that's basically how I regained some of my sight." The dead stares bored into me like nothing else I'd ever experienced.

"Anyone want a drink?" Suzumi called and both of the Soul Reapers nodded absentmindedly.