my test bok for fanfiction so i can use the tts

Shinji can honestly say that he hadn't expected to wake up again, after passing out with a mockingly delighted Aizen standing over him, a hollow clawing its way out of his insides. He thinks he remembers someone else showing up, but he can't be sure. Carefully, he flexes his wrists. He's unbound, but Shinji isn't sure that means much at this point. His reiatsu sense informs him that he's enclosed in one hell of a barrier, and there are two others in the cage with him. It can't stretch beyond that.

He wonders if he's meant to kill them for one of Aizen's little tests. Or they, him. Cautiously, he opens his eyes. His cellmates are talking quietly, seated crosslegged on the ground. One is a young--too young, he probably hasn't even been to the Academy yet--Shiba, and the other… is a hollow. An Arrancar, no less, the remains of a pharaoh's crown resting easily across its brow.

The Shiba seems utterly unconcerned. Perhaps he has no idea what their cellmate is. He doesn't seem to be a shinigami, at least-- no swords in sight, and Shinji can barely feel his reiatsu. He's sitting within grabbing range of the Arrancar.

Shinji doesn't know why it hasn't attacked, yet, but he'll be damned if he lets some civilian child die before he does. He comes to his feet with as menacing a snarl as he can possibly manage, staggering forward to drag the kid behind him. His reiatsu feels off, wrong, and he daren't use it for fear of trapping the Shiba in a cell with two monsters. Sakanade is still with him, though, and he levels her at the Arrancar's throat, daring it to make the first move.

It doesn't move, though. Instead, it smirks at him, knowing and almost proud. Behind him, the Shiba laughs, and Shinji suddenly remembers Aizen's propensity for illusions. He stiffens, almost surprised when the expected knife to the back doesn't come, and then his weakened limbs fail him and he wavers, slumping against the stone wall of the cell. It's a good wall. Solid. Maybe he'll just… lean here for a minute.

Nothing makes sense at all. The Arrancar is still watching him, looking smug, and the Shiba wanders over to drop a hand on top of its head, ruffling the long, bone white hair.

"I told you he'd react like that, didn't I?"

The hollow nods without looking away from Shinji, directing a halfhearted snarl at the offending hand.

"Course he did, you didn't need ta tell me that, he's my shinigami."

Finally Shinji can find words again.

"Wait a minute, what do ya mean by that? I ain't anybody's."

The Arrancar sighs gustily, sounding like anything but a soul-devouring monster, and suddenly stands to come crouch in front of Shinji instead. He flinches backwards against the wall before he can catch himself, and isn't that just pathetic. He can't even raise Sakanade. The pale being in front of him continues to fail to hurt him, though, and Shinji wants to sob in confusion.

"Yeah, boss, ya kinda are. You're my shinigami. And me.. dontcha see anything ya recognize?" It grins at him, wide and full of teeth, and Shinji would know that smile anywhere, practiced it in the mirror a thousand times when he was younger.

"That's impossible."

He can hear the shock in his voice, but he's looking at himself in monochrome. He's allowed to be a little shocked.

"Surprise?"

Shinji swallows hard.

"This is… Aizen did this. Didn't he?"

The expression on the Hollow's face almost softens.

"Yeah, sorta. He took all the dark bits of you, the stuff you'd never show in public, the kind of thing you push away, and he turned them into...well." It--he?--gestures to himself. "You see. But instead of leaving me a ravening beast that wants to destroy everything, this bastard went and turned me into a person."

The Shiba cackles unashamedly, picking up where the Hollow has left off.

"I just...gave it a little push. And now you're you!"

The Arrancar looks back at Shinji, the first bits of uncertainty creeping into his expression.

"I was born from you--desperation, rage, fear, all of it. I am you. I want everything you want, but more. Just like Sakanade, I'm a...part of you now. I can give you power, or you can shut me out. So, that's how it is."

He lifts his chin and thrusts a bone-white hand out in Shinji's direction.

"Partners?"

Shinji drapes a hand over his eyes and thumps his head back against the wall, laughing helplessly.

"You can't expect me to just accept something like that, y'know. No one in their right mind would listen to that."

His other hand comes up to clasp the proffered one.

"But hell, I ain't ever pretended to be sane."

He and his counterpart grin at each other for a moment, and then his hollow simply… dissolves. Shinji can hear him laughing, though, in counterpoint to Sakanade's low grumble, so he's not too worried.

The orange-haired Shiba gives him a delighted smile, looking for all the world like Shinji has done him proud, and reaches down to offer him a hand up.

The barrier around them comes down with an easy wave of his hand, and Shinji gives in to the urge to boggle a little. They're in a massive, sky-painted underground cavern. Other small barrier cells line part of one wall, no doubt holding the others Aizen had gotten to. And oh, Shinji would love to have a conversation about who this brat is, why any of them are alive, and is that Urahara Kisuke over there?

"How do you feel about watching while I fix the others?"

Later. He can have that conversation later.

Shinji can't believe what he's watching. Shibas in general have a bad tendency of being too powerful for their own good, but this one is in a league of his own. He's also got Muramasa standing off to the side, radiating a sense of smugness as they watch their...wielder? Tear into the others' inner hollows. It's the single most overwhelming display of power Shinji's ever seen, and he remembers watching the Soutaicho and Unohana face off a time or two. None of the hollows can even touch him, and he's effortlessly beating them down and forcing them to improve or die.

It's terrifying. Shinji kind of wants to throw this guy at Aizen to see what would happen. Except no, he doesn't, because no matter how much he hates Aizen, he wouldn't sacrifice a kid to see it happen, even--especially--a kid with power oozing out of his ears like this. Shinji can't imagine that ending well.

Soon enough, all the hollows are defeated, more or less, shattering their own masks and standing up, becoming Arrancar, and Shinji can't tell if he's more awed or horrified. The brat takes it all in stride, and then he hauls each one off by the collar to drop them in a cell with their Shinigami--if his own hollow is to believed. The Shiba vanishes into a cell, presumably to referee the first meetings, and Shinji wanders over past a lounging Muramasa to sit next to Kisuke.

The captain--ex-captain now, probably, if he's done what Shinji thinks he has--glances over at him and offers a small, welcoming smile with nary a trace of the skittishness that has marked every last one of their interactions to date.

Kisuke meets his eyes, and Shinji knows immediately that whatever has happened, it's beyond his understanding. Kisuke's eyes… they're old. Not with age, but experience and hardship. There has always been a core of iron in the young man, but now it has been tried, tempered. Steeled. This is not the boy he knew, sheepish and unsure of himself. This man smiles at him, sharp and knowing, and Shinji almost—almost—reconsiders his question. But he can't not know, not after thinking he was never going to wake again.

Quietly, he asks,

"What happened? After Aizen… after I passed out?"

Kisuke tips his head back and stares at the high, blue-painted ceiling, his bangs covering his eyes.

"Aah, Shinji-san, it is good to see you again."

That's not an answer, not even close, but before he can needle a response out of the younger man, Kisuke looks directly at him and starts talking.

The following story is almost beyond belief, except Shinji can see it perfectly. Kisuke has never cared for rules—they're things to avoid getting caught breaking, but if necessary, they're hardly going to stop him. Forbidden transportation kido and a desperate week spent trying to reverse what Aizen had done before the Gotei discovered it and put them all down. A mockery of a trial and a desperate flight to the Transient World. A century of exile until Aizen reveals him and a war that forces all of them to forget any ingrained prejudice to even have a hope of survival. And then, being betrayed. Dumped into the Dangai, only instead of being torn apart, Kisuke landed in his old body, only days before the initial trial.

At which point, the former assassin had apparently decided that common sense and timeline preservation were for lesser mortals, and wandered off to kill Tousen and Aizen.

The casual way Kisuke drops that tidbit into conversation makes Shinji wonder exactly what atrocities Aizen had committed, in this nebulous future-that-wasn't. He doesn't ask. Kisuke doesn't tell.

"And your, uh, partner over there? The Shiba?"

Kisuke's not smiling, hasn't smiled since he started his explanation, but something in his face softens terribly at the topic change, and Shinji thinks suddenly, Oh.

"He's… not actually supposed to exist yet. How he survived the Dangai is beyond me. But that's Kurosaki-san for you. Everything about him is an anomaly."

"Kurosaki? I thought—"

"His father is Shiba Isshin. He married a human woman and took her last name. A Quincy, actually."

Shinji blinks back over at the glowing barriers that Kurosaki disappeared into and thinks he understands, a little.

"Was he involved in the war?"

"He was our trump card, really. Every time we thought we were going to lose, backed into a corner, he pulled something new out of nowhere and saved us. Again, and again, and again. He matched a god, Shinji-san. And even then, it wasn't enough. We were dying, one by one, getting picked off. And the Gotei, or what was left of it, started thinking it might be better to give in, give Aizen what he wanted, rather than being exterminated completely."

"That's why they...?"

"Probably. Either that, or Aizen got to whoever was running the Senkaimon at the time."

There isn't really much to say to that. They sit quietly for a minute, watching the barriers. Then suddenly Muramasa straightens up from their slouch, coming to something approximating attention, and the first barrier falters and vanishes as the Shiba—Kurosaki-san—leads Hiyori through it. She looks fine. A little angry, actually, but that's unsurprising. It's her usual cover for deeper emotions, things that might make her vulnerable. Shinji knows her pretty well; beneath the anger, he can pick out confusion and fear and something deeply contemplative. Kurosaki-san leads her over, smiling broadly, and plops her down next to Kisuke. Hiyori hisses at him, a threatening noise, but Kisuke just smiles broadly at her and rests a hand on her head with startling tenderness.

"Good to see you again, Hiyori-san."

Kurosaki has vanished back into the next barrier, and Shinji fills Hiyori in on the current news, since Kisuke doesn't seem to be inclined to talk much more than he already has.

Naturally, her first reaction is to curse at Kisuke for killing Aizen before she got to have a go at him. Kisuke just listens quietly, a nostalgic little smile on his face, and Shinji has the sudden, terrible certainty that Hiyori had, once, gone up against Aizen, with disastrous results.

He wonders how many of them actually survived, up to the point where Kisuke and Kurosaki-san got sent back. It's not a reassuring thought.

One by one, the rest of the Visored are at least temporarily reconciled with their hollows. Ichigo isn't quite naïve enough to assume that the newly hollowfied Shinigami would remain permanently at peace with their new aspects, but he hopes to have alleviated much of the initial tension. They're all gathered in a knot by the entrance to the cave, each of them eying him, Kisuke, and each other with a vague mix of curiosity and suspicion. For all that they've been informed of the goings-on, they don't seem certain that they're willing to simply accept such a neat explanation. It was, as Kensei flatly stated, convenient. Kisuke looks more tired than hurt by the implication that he would do such to them, and Ichigo wonders if he'd had to deal with this last time, as well.

To be fair, he would also be skeptical and angry if he had had a confusing, nightmarish experience, passed out, and woke up again only to be told that over a week had passed, was now no longer what he was, and would have to leave his life and live on the run. Put like that, actually, he was surprised any of them were taking it as well as they were. The group of new Visored were already looking to Shinji, as the oldest and most experienced of them, for their cues, and he was handling things with…remarkable aplomb. Somehow, Ichigo suspects that there's more going on there than the confident, calm persona the former captain is adopting, but now is the wrong time to press.

Yoruichi has disappeared—she's out scouting the situation with the Gotei after Kisuke and Ichigo kicked the proverbial wasps' nest. Tessai, drained from the sleep kido and the containment bakudo, has shifted to rest against the wall, and though Ichigo doubts he's asleep, he's doing a good job of appearing so.

Which leaves Kisuke and Ichigo to corral eight unhappy, slightly panicky Visored, and Kisuke has had far too much stress today already.

So Ichigo steps forward, interrupting the consistent barrage of questions, and lets Shiro leak into his voice and reiatsu as he snarls,

"That's enough! Sit down, and shut up. Kisuke is exhausted, and you're all not going to help anything with the interrogation. There's nothing we can do for now, except rest and regain our strength, until Yoruichi comes back. Do you understand?"

As one, eight mouths clamp shut, and Ichigo finds eight startled ex-Shinigami sitting at his feet.

Shinji speaks for all of them when he looks up at an equally surprised Ichigo and demands,

"What tha fuck, Kurosaki-san?"