So now that we're getting into the nitty-gritty about the zanpakuto, I'm immensely curious about what you're gonna do with Kaname's zanpakuto. Cuz if I remember canon right, he "inherited" (graverobbed?) the sword from his deceased friend, who we are told is the impetus for his whole crusade and made it his own to honor her. I'm interested to see your thoughts :))
You are remembering canon correctly! Suzumushi is NOT Kaname Tousen's Sword! It's the Sword of his friend/unrequited love interest Kakyo NoSurnameInCanon, who was fridged murdered, and when the central 46 refused to prosecute her killer because of his Noble status, that's when Kaname's crusade began, carrying Suzumushi.
...yeah.
In AEIWAM, it's similar, but instead of a friend/unrequited love interest-
Kaname is twelve when he dies suddenly, and reincarnates in the Soul society as a Tween. He is unceremoniously dumped on a country back road in West 51 with only the clothes he died in and no memory of his previous life besides his given name.
Kakyo is also about twelve when she dies, and is dumped about four feet away from Kaname five seconds later, and sprains her ankle on the fall. She remembers her past life ("It Sucked"), and reassures Kaname that the guy that left her here said there was a 50-50 chance she'd lose her entire memory. That must be what happened to him.
Kakyo can't walk on her injured ankle, but she can see where she's going. Kaname is a strong lad with great balance, and offers to carry her on his back if she can navigate him towards a village. It takes several freezing cold nights, scavenging for food and a terrifying encounter with a rabid dog before they finally reach the village.
Since neither actually knows their birthday, but were both 'reborn' on November 13th, and because they look extremely different, they decide that they are now brother and sister.
And ever since then, Kakyo and Kaname regarded each other as twins.
They actually stumble into a library at the edge of a fairly large river trading port, run by Tomoko Tousen, a retired Gotei-13 Archivist, and her husband Yasuke, a retired shinigami, who gained a surname when they married. They never had children of their own, and it's nice having the young things about, so they adopt the 'twins', and they become Kakyo Tousen and Kaname Tousen. Fortunate, as it rapidly becomes apparent the twins have spiritual powers of their own.
Kaname is the gentler and shyer twin, and closer to his godmother, who figures out how to enchant a pair of glasses so they can 'read' text he looks at and speaks it to him, and he takes to books and archiving and data science like a duck to water.
Kakyo is a litter rougher and more gung-ho twin and takes after her adopted godfather, and dreams of leaving home and becoming a Shinigami herself... but their godparents are elderly, and can't run the library on their own, and she doesn't want to leave Kaname completely on his own.
Still, when she wakes up one morning from fitful dreams to discover she's holding a sword of her own, the whole family rejoices. Suzumushi is a not very powerful Zanpaktou, and strangely eager to avoid conflict for a weapon, and is content to stay in the river town, practicing Katas with Yasuke and occasionally lightly Harassing her weilder's brother- but before the year is out, Kaname has gotten used to sometimes having what feels like a clockwork cicada climb up his back or sit on his head, chiming and chittering while he works.
One day though, Kaname is talking with Yasuke, about how neither of them remembers their previous lives. Yasuke confides that while he doesn't remember who he was or where he lived, there are some memories that not even death can erase, like how his body remembered exactly what to do the first time he picked up a sword.
Kaname has nightmares after that, of picking up Suzumushi and knowing exactly how to wield her.
Time passes,
Their godparents pass.
And Kakyo stays with Kaname.
Neither one really wants the other to be alone.
Then one day, A komuso monk comes to the library, body covered in robes and face hidden by his Tengai.
... A Really Big Monk.
His name is Komamora Sajin, and from the way he acts around Kaname, Kakyo can tell he's taken care of people who are frail and missing senses before. Kaname is very fond of him- they have similar natures, and the actually-nine-foot-tall Sajin is very good at getting things off of high shelves and convincing difficult patrons to behave themselves. Eventually, he asks to stay on a more permanent basis, and Kakyo begs him to do so- she needs to become a Shinigami, but she can't abandon Kaname.
They agree, and when she tells Kaname "Stay here, and stay gentle." it her telling her how much she loves him, and wants him to be happy.
...So you can imagine how devastating her death was for him.
Doubly so when he arrives in Seireitei to handle her funeral arrangements and touches Suzumushi's hilt for the first time- the rage, the grief of the sword spirit courses through him, baying for vengeance- and worse still, so does his body's memory of how to weild a sword.
He and Kakyo were about as close as humans can get, and Suzumushi knew him for as long as the spirit had known Kakyo- if there's someone who'd be willing to avenge her master's death, it's her beloved 'twin' brother.
...but this implies a lot of WIERD stuff about Kaname and his relationship with Suzumushi.
Sometimes Zanpaktou can be passed from one person to another, incarnating a bit differently each time (like how Senbonsakura is the Kuchiki Family Sword), but other Zanpaktou will die if thier wielder does. Suzumushi is not a particularly powerful zanpaktou- Tousen and Suzumushi are regularly ranked last in the "most powerful captains" fan-polls and rightly so I think.
Rightly so, because I think Kaname's power is significantly nerfed by carrying a sword that is not his. Even if he and Suzumushi are particularly close, that's different than his own, and I don't think Suzumushi ever intended to be a heritable sword. Actually using her probably takes a ton more energy for Kaname that it ever did for Kakyo. Futhermore, Kaname might also be spending a ton of energy keeping Suzumushi alive past her time.
Suzumushi only has one potentially-lethal maneuver and that's an alternate form of her shikai. The regular forms are "Spell of take a nap and stop rioting" and "Spell of no for real you're losing your sensory privileges until you calm down". Both are way more crowd control abilities rather than Deuling ones, which fits with both his and Kakyo's characterization of wanting Soul Society to be a better place- Suzumushi is a sword that's practically built to get in the middle of a major battle and get everyone to STOP.
And I gotta wonder- were these the original abilities of Suzumushi, or something she crafted for Kaname? Especially his Bankai- That's a weird Banaki for a sighted person like Kakyo to have. Or is it the original, drawn from Kakyo's experiences living with Kaname? Either way, he's either using tools not intended for him, or Suzumushi is heavily deviating from what she was meant to do, as a weapon.
My point is, as good as Kaname was- and he was good, he made Captain (and not just because they were... out of officers after the Turn Back The Pendulum Incident), but he did apparently hold his own in battle against everyone but fucking Kenpachi.
In AEIWAM, he does this by focusing on his technical skill as a swordsman- what he lacks in power or Zanpaktou abilities that are actually useful in Duels, he makes up for in learning really advanced, high-level Kido* and getting damn good at actually using his sword as a sword. In the fic, Kenpachi is a huge admirer and actually kind of Jealous of Kaname's technique- he declares that of all the captains, Kaname is the strongest, because he's the one punching highest above his weight class, while eveyone else (including him) is coasting by on their enormous power reserves or more duel-adept Zanpaktou, yet Kaname can go toe-to-toe with all
"It's like watching a little bitty Bat beat up a Tiger!" He says.
So, if Suzumushi is not Kaname's Zanpaktou, what is?
For that, I think we need to look at what happened to him after his hollowfication.
