It's my very little wonder

[lawlietschiffer]

It had taken L some time to recover from his thrashing from Ulquiorra. Ulquiorra still wouldn't speak to him, and blanked him entirely when he ran into him. L knew he deserved no more, or no less.

He still got headaches, and he felt dizzy if he worked for too long at a computer. That had slowed him down, that, and having to re-establish his communication network from scratch in and around Rabanastre. Several of his key informants were missing, and most likely dead, and L wasn't sure if the Ryoka had found them, or someone else, and the really frustrating part was that he wouldn't be able to find out.

He'd kept a close eye on the comings and goings and activities in Daguerro, however, even while he recovered. He had good reason to, and now, finally, he would have the opportunity to devote his attentions further afield of the place, because he was finally able to move the 'package' he'd been keeping an eye on.

There was another there, that another party had been sent to collect, but this one was L's alone to deal with, not least because anyone else would probably just kill him.

L had been forced to make the last leg of the trip personally to bring his guest under Khamja's roof. There was space for him, at last. L hadn't been present when Aizen's request to claim Orochimaru's labs had been denied, and he wished he could have been, but L had got his request in before Aizen had even returned from his own trip to Midgar. He could be a flagrant opportunist, when he had to be.

L sloped in through the main doors, ushering his guest in before letting them close. Personal effects weren't an issue, at least. Most of what the other man considered important had already been retrieved, and L had a few details he wanted the man to elaborate on for him as soon as they got the opportunity.

"Your laboratories are this way," L said, indicating the direction they needed to head.

Comments

[theedgeofreason]

"Of course," he said, quite graciously, and not at all like it was an absolutely ridiculous question.

Kurotsuchi was too happy in his sprawling Draklor complex to ever come to the Desert Palace for more than a meeting, but the two were known associates if only because they had a shared duty of care over The Archadian Empire's main continent. Draklor was to The Empire what both Gapra and Shinra's Midgar Laboratories were to Bancour. Much of it was top secret, with different levels of clearance required for certain areas. Junior scientists, even those who had passed stringent tests for certain subjects, were not allowed into Kurotsuchi's private sectors. That was the price of him working for them - funding and relative privacy so long as he put out what they required on a regular basis.

It had worked well for both the government and the scientist up until now.

He had no need to come to the Palace or, indeed, apply for the laboratories there. Any experiments that resulted in artificially enhanced minions for Aizen were undoubtedly performed and, it had to be said, perfected, in Draklor. He wasn't sure how much Hojo knew about the way Orochimaru had died, but he was fairly certain that Hojo would not make the mistake of thinking that Aizen's subordinates were his work, not when there was a far more likely culprit.

"There were some who did not survive the process, of course, but that was to be expected. All of those who survived and recovered have matched or exceeded expectations," he told him, opting not to mention Wonderweiss's unfortunate reaction to the process, or the numbers who had died either in the Mako phase or as a result of the Hollow.

This man was known for experimenting with Mako and, Aizen thought, quite probably Mist as well. He had read the term 'Makonoid' in association with Hojo, albeit in very secret files that he was lucky to get his hands on. Said files would have almost certainly been smuggled out of Midgar by some brave soul and delivered to Kurotsuchi who had, in turn, given them to him to read.

He did not want to inform Hojo that Mako exposure or a prior Mist Mutation were a requirement of Hollow/Human fusion, nor a potential method of reversing the effects that Wonderweiss had suffered on account of his poisoning and resulting Mako Sickness during the initial process.

There were just some things that rival whackjobs who frequently and flagrantly break the laws of nature did not need to know.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo murmured wordlessly, and nodded. He'd expected that there had been a mortality rate. It was inevitable; not all specimens are equal, some are stronger than others and endure the procedures better than others, and sometimes a procedure just doesn't take. You can't find out why it didn't take without repeating the experiment, and that meant making some necessary sacrifices along the way.

"How many successful specimens do you have?" He asked. He'd met four, but there were the traces of others in the Palace, of varying strengths, and there may still be others yet at Draklor.

There had been failures prior to Project S, too, and the loss of some less valuable specimens, before Hojo had turned to his own offspring. There were less variables outside of his control with Sephiroth, and Sephiroth had proven the potential of the procedure. Then there had been difficulties, and he'd never quite been able to produce another due to ridiculous sentimentality on the parts of others. It still frustrated him.

"The specimens I met have all been exposed to Mist and Mako," and Hojo knew that didn't come without its risks and potential fatalities, "you must have suffered a high fatality rate in the early phases." It took a long time to work on the precise calibrations for Mist and Mako exposure, and worse, such things could be affected by the amount of background exposure in the specimen's past, and the levels in the present environment.

[theedgeofreason]

Ah, thought Aizen. So he can tell that much.

It wasn't a surprise. Given that he worked with it extensively, it stood to reason that Hojo could pick out a Mistant with little issue. It didn't change anything, of course. He still wasn't to know why Mist was a requirement, only that it was, something that was a common element of many Hyur experiments of dubious legality and even more dubious morality. The precise method of fusion was complex and Mist or Mako exposure was only a tiny part of it.

"Indeed," he agreed, nodding at the assessment.

Mistants were, of course, a scientist's preference for experiments that required the subject to be hardy and resistant to death. While many of the control candidates had not been exposed prior to the experimental process, those who already had an innate resistance to Mist and/or Mako tended to do better during it.

Despite both Mist and Mako being dangerous or even lethal in high concentrations, the mutagenic qualities of those substances did tend to produce people with a higher capacity for damage repair, above average strength (both magical and physical) and far vaster potential chakra reserves than normal, untouched people. It stood to reason that these types of people were preferred for dangerous experiments.

With few exceptions, many of the worlds strongest people, be they those born as Mistants, like Kuja, or those affected by sustained moderate-to-high exposure in later life, like himself, were Mist-touched in some way. Work and practice could expand one's Chakra reserves, but Mist exposure did tend to forward the process.

"Currently, there are twelve," he said, not feeling the need to conceal the information. He would meet them eventually, anyway. "Most are Mistants, as you saw, though one of them has the distinction of being an ex-Turk."

The ex-Turk was, surprisingly, the strongest of them all despite not being a Mistant in the first place. More than that, Turks were supposed to live and die in the service of the Shinra Corporation. The only way a Turk was meant to leave their employ was via a Sending.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo's eyebrows rose in surprise. Twelve indicated some nicely consistent results, and he was quietly impressed.

He wanted that data.

The last words lanced through his thoughts with the power of a klaxon.

"Really?" He looked at Aizen, in obvious surprise. "Where in the world did you get your hands on a Turk?" An 'ex'-Turk, no less, a living one. The thought that the incompetencies of that idiot Heidegger had allowed someone with the insights of a Turk escape all the way to Draklor amused him greatly.

He must have been a very good Turk. No wonder he'd made for an equally good specimen, then.

[theedgeofreason]

"He volunteered," he said, which was more than could be said of Aizen when it came to following that up with pertinent information.

He shifted the conversation back onto his Arrancar as a group, not wanting to discuss the origins of one individual any further with Hojo, regardless of the fact that Midgar was no longer a threat to anything.

"Many of my subordinates are currently outside the Palace," he said, quite casually, giving him a thin smile that was neither entirely pleasant, nor particularly threatening. "The ones inside will be warned of the risks of talking to strange men."

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Fascinating. A runaway Turk, with all the security risk that posed, made it to Archades, one way or another. Perhaps the Turk in question had employed a scheme similar to that which had brought Hojo from Shinra's secure employment to face life at the whims of Khamj's funding.

Fortunately, Khamja, or at least those within it who wanted Hojo alive, knew better than to try and stop his funding.

He laughed when Aizen brought up his other subordinates again. Of course Aizen didn't want them giving away any secrets to a rival scientist; it would jeopardize his monopoly on the techniques used to create them.

"I have thus far found them to be singularly unforthcoming with anything useful," he said. Though to have Hebira Jiruga's son, and an ex-Turk in the catalog, Aizen had done quite well at selecting uniquely qualified individuals to be his specimens.

[theedgeofreason]

"Good," he said, having expected him to find humour in that. "I shall make sure they continue to keep their mouths shut."

Szayel, at least, would not be likely to divulge anything to Hojo. He was probably still hyperventilating into a paper bag over his arrival at the Palace, but he was a scientist secondmost (first and foremost he was an incorrigible pervert with little regard for his own continued existence), so Aizen was relatively sure that he would not give details of the creation of the Arrancar to someone he would regard as a rival purely based on the fact that he worked on the project before volunteering to join it.

He trusted Stark, Wonderweiss and Halibel to be more intelligent than that and he trusted Apache, Luppi and Nnoitra to be stubbornly contrary. Still, he would have to speak to them, particularly Szayel, and make sure they treated this new scientist like the one he had replaced. Possibly without killing him.

"I expect L was able to salvage some of your old notes from Midgar's computers before they became inaccessible?" He asked, knowing full well he had. Gin had told him as much.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

"All of my old, valuable research was retrieved," Hojo answered, slightly stiffly. Some of the less valuable work had been scrubbed, but, Hojo had been quick to notice, everything that had been at the centre of the controversy that led to him having to part ways with Shinra had been kept by them. While he applauded their recognition of the value of the work, it still galled that they would keep it after denouncing it. If they wouldn't admit to its value, they had no right to benefit from the work, in his view.

"There is some he wishes me to elucidate on," Hojo added. He didn't know which parts, yet; L had just said he wanted Hojo's views on some related subjects, "and I understand he recently retrieved a lot of data that was created after I left." Which he also wanted Hojo's opinions on, although Hojo wasn't sure if L was going to hand all of that over or not.

[theedgeofreason]

Aizen nodded, certain that some of the data he had on file was information on the red-haired Ryoka that had managed to cut Ulquiorra Schiffer in the battle that followed the Midgar mission.

They would undoubtedly get more information on this person when Ulquiorra's current mission concluded, should it go well. He saw no reason why it wouldn't, short of those sent on it running into trouble in Nabradia. That wasn't outside the realm of possibility, especially given that it was impossible to go there in an Airship if you didn't want to draw attention to yourself, but he trusted that a team of three Ryoka and the third and fourth ranked Espada would be able to get in and out without dying on the way, even on foot.

"Quite likely," Aizen said, giving him a thin smile. "Science in Midgar didn't stop after you died."

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

"Science lives on after we're all nothing but dust and pyreflies," Hojo replied, with a wry smile. "The scientists of the future will stand on our shoulders to discover yet more, that is presently beyond our reach." Hojo smirked. He was in the unique position of being able to see what someone had done with his work in the event of his 'passing'. Unfortunately, they wouldn't have done as much as he would have, because they lacked the guts to go far enough, but it would still be interesting to see.

"Unfortunately for Shinra, they employed a lot of hacks and mediocre scientists lacking in curiosity, so my research won't have benefited them as much as they would have hoped." It would be back in his hands again, now, and he could continue it, to the best of his ability.

[theedgeofreason]

Aizen knew Kurotsuchi well enough to know that things like 'lacking in curiosity' meant 'unwilling to sacrifice Hyur lives for the sake of scientific experimentation', so he knew exactly what Hojo meant.

His research and previous work was radical and, it had to be said, far off the edge of inhumane and, more often than not, totally immoral. That was the price of progress, however, and who was Aizen to condemn men who took their ideas a little too far for the sake of a result?

"Some would consider that fortunate," Aizen said, thinking on the fact that, without someone like Hojo at the helm of its scientific advancements, Shinra's governing body was slipping further and further behind the Archadian Empire.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo gave a displeased 'hmph'. "I do science, not politics." The only people who considered it of benefit that Shinra kept a lot of mediocre scientists on its payroll were those who were either too concerned with moral implications, as though hurting a few people now wasn't infinitely better than letting thousands die later, or in the great clash of egos that was international politics.

Hojo didn't care. Hojo famously didn't care, and would lend his expertise to anyone willing to fund his work, and if that meant they also had to be unwilling to ask him too many questions about how he obtained his results for fear of getting uncomfortable, so be it. Hojo would tell them if they asked. If they didn't want to know, then they shouldn't ask.

[theedgeofreason]

"Perhaps not," he said.

Aizen, having greeted the new scientist that would be infesting the laboratory complex he'd had his eye on, decided that it was high time he returned to his notes.

"Anyway," he began, half turning away from him to head back into his office. "I shall leave you to your ...work."

And he would not forget to threaten the Arrancar with death, or worse, should they speak to this man on matters concerning their creation.