Hueco Mundo – The Demon King's Laboratory
Gabriel was ready for some testing. Anyway, he would probably be in his lab for a while—testing out soul shit took a long-ass time.
Gabriel also had Granz's revival ability. He had several Hollows in whom he had planted a seed. They were all Arrancar, after all—he needed the energy.
So, if for some unknown reason, he died on the battlefield, he had several revives. And the revives were also full heals, so there was that.
He might even plant a seed in some Shinigami. I mean, who would expect their enemy to revive in their territory?
So, yeah, he was kind of immortal. The same thing went for his wife—she was also kind of immortal. That revive was crazy.
He would make one for each member of the Four Horsemen.
That would be good.
His eyes went toward the chamber.
The chamber was cold, lit only by the eerie glow of spiritual energy swirling within the experimental devices. The air hummed with suppressed power, the lingering presence of death and transformation thick enough to choke on.
Gabriel stood at the center of it all, golden eyes gleaming with anticipation as he surveyed his latest test subjects.
Three Shinigami.
Alongside several Plus.
The former Soul Reapers were bound in place, their limbs restrained by black, pulsating restraints forged from condensed reishi. Their Zanpakutō had been stripped from them, leaving them defenseless, their spiritual energy muted by suppressing seals.
The Plus—a mere human soul—lay on a separate table, trembling, eyes wide with primal fear.
Gabriel cracked his knuckles. "Let's begin, shall we?"
Gabriel turned his attention to the Plus first.
A normal human soul. Weak. Fragile. So easily lost.
He raised a single finger, letting a thin tendril of energy snake from his fingertip. It pierced into the Plus's chest like a scalpel, sending a violent shudder through the spirit's form.
"Oh, relax," Gabriel mused, twisting the energy inside. "This is for science."
The Plus screamed as Gabriel peeled apart its soul, layer by layer, like one would dissect an insect under a microscope.
"Interesting..." Gabriel murmured. "A soul, in its most basic form, is just... a mass of spiritual particles. But look at this—" He twisted his fingers, and the Plus's body distorted, stretched, and cracked. "It's like soft clay. Ready to be reshaped."
This soul had so much potential—to become a Soul Reaper, or a Hollow, or even a Quincy. Or a human with Hollow power, a Fullbringer.
And reshape it, he did.
He stretched the soul, elongating limbs, thinning the torso—watching as its spiritual structure warped and reformed.
Then, with a flick of his wrist, he compressed it.
The Plus convulsed, shrinking down, folding in on itself, its screams growing weaker as Gabriel compacted its very essence into a dense, palm-sized orb.
Holding the quivering sphere in his hand, he smirked. "A human soul, stripped of identity. Now, let's see what happens when I reintroduce structure."
He split the orb in two.
From the first half, he stretched and molded a new form—elongated limbs, a hollowed-out chest. He forced hunger into it, forced instinct. Within seconds, the once-human soul twisted into the form of a Hollow.
The newborn creature thrashed violently in its restraints, its mask forming as it released a guttural screech.
Gabriel smirked. "And just like that... you're something new."
Then, with a snap of his fingers, he crushed it back down into a sphere again.
"So easy to undo."
He turned to the remaining half.
This time, he reshaped it with intention—forcing balance, structure, discipline into its core. As the energy pulsed and shifted, he mimicked the soul of the Shinigami present.
But... something was off.
Gabriel's grin widened.
It lacked will.
Without a natural progression into a Shinigami, this was nothing more than an empty shell.
Fascinating.
"So, to become a Soul Reaper... it requires more than just raw energy restructuring," he murmured, tossing the failed experiment aside. The soulless construct shattered like glass, dissolving into raw reishi once more.
"Good to know."
Now, for the real test subjects.
Gabriel turned his gaze toward the restrained Soul Reapers, their bodies still shaking from the horror of watching the Plus be torn apart before their eyes.
One of them—a young man with short black hair—gritted his teeth. "You... you monster...!"
Gabriel chuckled, placing a hand over the man's chest. "Oh, please. You flatter me."
He didn't care much about their words. Monster or not, he was still... Gabriel.
And he knew Shinigami were not ones to speak about balance.
With zero warning, he plunged his hand straight into the man's torso.
The Shinigami screamed. Wonderful music to Gabriel's ears—because if the man screamed, that meant he could feel. He was still alive.
It would be more worrying if he didn't.
Gabriel wasn't touching flesh. No, his fingers had slipped between the layers of the soul itself.
He twisted. Pulled. Peeled.
And like stripping bark from a tree, he began separating the Shinigami's spiritual structure.
"Now this is interesting," Gabriel mused, watching as layers of the man's reiatsu unraveled like threads. "There's something unique here. A fundamental difference from a normal Plus."
The Shinigami convulsed, veins bulging as his body resisted the unnatural tampering.
Gabriel smirked. "Your soul's composition has been altered... trained... refined."
"Hm...is that dark energy?" Gabriel was surprised, there was so much of it there, heh, if a soul had to much of that energy, it would go to hell after dying....Gabriel had the energy in spade, that was to be expected, he was a hell hollow, Harribel did not have an ounce of it, as a vastolorde, she had some as an arrancar though.
Tldr, all of this to say, this energy was something that did not originate from this realm.
He pressed his other hand over the Shinigami's chest and extracted something deeper.
A chain-like structure flickered into existence, coiling and glowing with ancient, intrinsic energy.
"The Chain of Fate..." Gabriel mused.
But unlike a normal Plus, this chain was bound, reinforced, stitched into something stronger.
Hmm. So this was how Shinigami were different, huh?
Though he wondered if he could...
Gabriel's eyes gleamed with dark amusement. "Let's see what happens when I snap it."
The Shinigami's eyes widened in pure horror.
"NO—"
CRACK.
Gabriel snapped the chain in two.
The moment it broke, the Shinigami convulsed violently, his body twisting unnaturally, his reiatsu flaring out of control.
His soul structure collapsed.
It was like watching a dam break.
Gabriel stepped back, watching with fascination as the man's form melted, distorted—his features elongating, his mask starting to form.
"He's Hollowfying," Gabriel murmured with amusement. "Looks like a Shinigami's soul is just one bad day away from being a Hollow."
The transformation, however, was unstable. Without the natural process of Hollowfication, the Shinigami's body tore itself apart, his screams fading as his soul collapsed into nothingness.
Gabriel sighed. "Tsk. Unstable."
He turned to the next restrained Shinigami.
The woman's eyes were wide with terror, sweat drenching her brow.
Gabriel grinned, stepping closer. "Now then, let's try a different approach with you."
Her screams echoed through the halls of the Demon King's domain.
This was pure torture.
This was too painful.
A/N