The Truth [Savarin Shikai]

Savarin’s zanapakuto had practically been shouting in hundreds of discordant voices ever since he had handed the permission from the fox-man lieutenant to the R&D librarian.  He tuned it out and focused on the text in front of him, regarding an ancient shinigami captain with multiple inner worlds. When the shinigami reached a page that seemed to cite a separate text, he looked up to the shelves where he had seen the reference and realized he was no longer where he thought he was.

He was not the study; this was not even seireitei.  There was a realm around him that was completely alien; strange structures and colors his eyes were having trouble processing seemed to fill the terrain.  Even as he stood up from the desk; he watched the angles of it seem to warp in ways that didn’t make sense; the right angles of the table growing wider but still maintaining four equal sides, the legs spiraling but simultaneously appearing to remain straight.  These were alien geometries that made no sense.  It was while watching two parallel lines intersect that he heard the chorus of voices behind him, rather than inside his head.  Outside of his head, he could pick out words that were important.  He heard two.

“You.”“Cheated.”

Savarin spun around to view the speakers, and saw the shadowy form that was alien and a part of him. He had been dragged into his inner world again, but it was more chaotic than the last time. His zanapakuto spirit seemed to be acknowledging he was here. The babbling cacophony from the shadowy form echoed from around him, a distinctly different feeling from when it was inside his head.

“Not yours.”“You.”“Stole.”“Our.”“Eternity.”

Despite the hundreds of voices talking, Savarin somehow knew what the important words were in what the amalgamation of voices spoke. He glanced around and spotted a strange creature taking flight into the ground as a second sun began wheeling its way across the sky. He wasn’t sure what the spirit was trying to say.

“What do you mean?”

“Toying.”“With things.”“Not.”“Known by.”“Mortals.” “The weak.”“Don’t.” “Remember.”

Savarin understood that part; he had met plenty of shinigami who remembered their mortal lives, but the vast majority of the souls he had met in Rukongai had no recollection of their previous lives. The acting theory was humans with higher than normal spiritual energy remembered their past, and normal mortals did not. Which made sense, the ratio of shinigami that remembered life was higher, since higher reiatsu meant a better chance of being a shinigami. He had developed a ritual in life using mortal mysticism to ensure that he would remember his life, despite never having even been what shinigami called ‘spiritually aware’ before death.

“Sure.”

“You were.”“Weak.”“Stole.”“Our afterlife.”

Savarin reeled back, realizing what the spirit…no…spirits of his zanpakuto were saying; his hand passed through and gripped the table, “Many are stronger than one.”

A cacophony of laughter, screaming, and crying came from hundred mouths of the black spirit as the Shinigami pieced together the facts. “Reiatsu is energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.”

“But.”“It can.”“Be.”“Stolen.”

Savarin tried to sit down, but the chair had wrapped itself into a spherical ball with straight edges, he remained standing, “The ritual didn’t just allow me to remember my life after death, it infused me with the reiatsu to do so.”

“Our.” “Energy our.” “Souls.”

It made sense now; no one else had mentioned their zanpakuto having this many voices; there were three accounts of even slightly similar situations, if the fox-man was to be believed. Even if they remembered their lives, sometimes spirits were dead for decades before they built up enough reiatsu to be noticed by the Shinigami. Savarin was noticed days after dying…no…not days; there was a gap between receiving his soul burial and appearing in Rukongai, and his research has told him that was usually instantaneous. His thoughts went back to his lessons in the academy, about how hollows grew in strength. He looked up, silent tears running down his cheeks as he realized the magnitude of what he did.

“I absorbed 144 souls.”

“One hundred.”“Fourty-four.” “Thousand.”

The last word knocked the breath out of him; he had robbed over a hundred thousand people of their afterlife. Stolen their reiatsu to remember his life through death. Part of his mind protested, making excuses like they wouldn’t have had the reiatsu to remember their lives anyway. But people lived fulfilling lives in Rukongai, these fragments that now lived in his soul would never even get that.

“How do I make this right?”

“Can’t we.”“Are.”“Part of.”“You.”“Eternally.”

The sky rolled up like a scroll, as Savarin thought about the last word.

“If I die again, what happens to all of you?”

“Poof.”“Gone forever.”“It’s too late.”“For.”“Regrets.”

Savarin nodded solemnly, a spark of resolve growing in him, “I’m so sorry, but maybe I can figure out some way to separate all of you; you can see what I see, right? In the real world, I’m surrounded right now by thousands of tomes that contain knowledge we can only dream of.”

“Not.”“Might be.”“Possible.”“Impossible.”“Worth a.” “Hopeless.”

Disagreeing thoughts, some of the souls that made up his being had given up, others thought it was worth a shot, “Well, I’m going to see what I can figure out.”

Laughter, crying, “Always.” “Seeking forbidden.” “Knowledge.”

A pause, all the voices were silent for the first time since Savarin could remember. The voice of an elderly man broke the silence first. “But growing.”

Then one hundred and eighty thousand voices all spoke in unison, and suddenly Savarin found him back in the library. The zanpakuto had gone back to its seemingly mindless chattering, but the shinigami could now easily trace an idea through the cacophony of voices. The last word spoken by the spirit in their inner world echoed in his mind, “I’ll make this right, Necronomicon.”