Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth. I own nothing of it and am only playing in this wonderful world Monty gave us.
Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I don't own that either and am just playing around in that world too.
As advertised this is an AU of A Chance Encounter that runs on the same world set up.
This idea popped into my head while I was working on the second chapter of A Chance Encounter. (And while I was working on this, I got the ideas for Wilt the Rose and Frostbitten)
It seemed like an interesting idea and for the most part it practically wrote itself. Whether it's any good or not, who knows. I like it and if no one else does, oh well.
Now, I can go back to working on the second chapter of A Chance Encounter.
A Different Encounter
Glynda Goodwitch, highly regarded Professor of Combat Studies at Beacon Academy and accomplished Huntress, stumbled and sat down hard on a large chunk of concrete that had been part of an apartment building wall. She was exhausted. It had been a week since the attack on Beacon and she had spent most of her time in what was considered to be the safe parts of the city killing stray Grimm and trying to repair some of the damage with her Semblance. A sign of her exhaustion was the just collapsed edifice of a store that she had tried to fix seconds earlier.
She was a mess. Her normally immaculate appearance showed the signs of her unrelenting work. The normally polished black boots were scuffed and dusty, her dark stockings bore several tears, her dark skirt and white blouse along with her face were streaked with dust and dirt and strands of her light blonde hair were gradually escaping the bun she wore it up in. She removed her glasses and tiredly blew some of the dust from the lenses, not having anything on her that was clean enough to do the job properly.
She rubbed the spot between her eyes, trying to will away the headache that was threatening to take over. Fatigue, over use of her Semblance, aura depletion, stress...all were factors that contributed to her throbbing head. The last few days were a blur. She could still scarcely believe the scope of the attack, brought down upon them during an event that was one of the greatest symbols of peace and unity on Remnant, the Vytal Festival, an act of near sacrilege given what the festival meant to everyone. Infiltrated by agents for the Witch, attacked by them, the White Fang, and the Grimm.
How had they missed the infiltrators in their midst? How had the situation slipped so far out of their grasp and control that such a thing could happen? Ozpin was missing and Beacon was in ruins and besieged by Grimm. Parts of the city itself had been damaged by both the Grimm and the out of control robots of the Atlesian military. Students, her students and it didn't matter if they were from other schools or not because for the time that they were here at Beacon they were hers, had died or been badly injured. She was a trained and experienced Huntress and yet she had been able to do so little. She should have been able to do more, protect more people. Protect the students under her care. She had done what she could but it hadn't been enough and it was a hard fact to accept.
This really wasn't a good time to be thinking about this, her fatigue made it nearly impossible to fight off the sense of blame and responsibility she was putting upon herself and her thoughts were only serving to sap even more of her energy. It was becoming very hard not to give in to a sense of despair and as it was a feeling of frustration and futility was rising up within her. It had been a long time since she had felt that way and she had hoped to never feel that way again. She had come a long way in her life since then and owed it to a stranger who had become a very good friend.
"I wonder where you are," she said softly. "We really could have used your help."
She had been sixteen then and struggling to get a handle on her Semblance before graduating her combat school and moving on to an Academy. Beacon in particular. Both things were in jeopardy if she couldn't control it. She could cast her glyphs with no problem, though the effects were often a little uneven, nor did she have a problem using her Semblance of telekinesis. The problem was that she often had little control over it. Even the simple exercise of picking up and moving an object could turn into a disaster with said object taking off like it was shot out of a cannon and going through a wall rather than simply picking it up from one spot on a table and setting it in another. The object may not have even shot off in the direction she had been trying to move it in either. It was just as likely to go in any direction at random.
She had taken to training by herself in a forest clearing just outside of the large village where she lived. The area was relatively Grimm free and any that showed up were normally dispatched quickly, but they did still show up from time to time. It was probably the use of her power and the frustration and negative thoughts of her repeated failures that day that brought the Grimm to her. Then, just like now, she was exhausted and wasn't able to mount much of a defence. Tears of both shame and fear had rolled down her face and her body had shook as she tried to summon up a glyph to attack. If she could hold them off for even a little bit maybe someone would come. She knew it was unlikely but even a few seconds could make a difference as to whether she lived or died.
Help came, but not in the form she thought it would. The world had seemed to suddenly move in slow motion and she saw every detail of what was happening before her with great clarity. A man had suddenly appeared in front of her as if out of nowhere, a pellet of red energy shooting from his hand and turning the head and neck of an Ursa into a smoking stump, causing the rest of the Grimm to pause.
The man was tall and wore black pants, black low heeled boots, and a white shirt under a long black coat with a tattered hem and red lining. On his back sheathed in what looked like strips of narrow white cloth wrappings was a long, wide sword. There was no guard at the base of the blade, just a grip followed by a long handle. The most prominent thing she saw about the stranger though was his long, bright orange hair.
He had turned toward her, a soft little smile on his face and a look of warmth in his brown eyes. There was something else there too that she would later learn was a reflection of his pain and loss, but she didn't have the experience to identify it at the time.
"I'll take care of these nuisances for you." he had said as if the half dozen Beowolves were mere bugs. "It'll just take a second."
The man she would later come to know as Ichigo Kurosaki seemed to simply disappear and she went wide eyed at what happened next. One second the Grimm were poised to attack, the next they were howling in pain as they fell in heaps of severed heads and limbs and bifurcated torsos and began to dissolve into black smoke. In front of them the man had reappeared just as suddenly as he had disappeared. Effortlessly snapping his giant blade to the right he shed the already dissolving blood from its surface and placed it back over his shoulder. The white wrappings seemed to appear out of nowhere to sheath it and somehow attach it to his back once more. As he walked back toward her she could see another smaller blade sheathed under his coat at his right hip.
When he asked her if she was okay her response had been to fall over unconscious. Her exhaustion, stress, and the sudden adrenaline drain had been enough to put her out. Now all these years later here she was in probably a worse state, barely keeping herself in an upright position on her concrete seat, realizing that along with everything else that had her feeling utterly drained, that it had been several hours since she had last eaten and she hadn't eaten much then. For someone who was always reminding her students how important it was to get proper rest and nutrition, and pacing one's self so that they didn't fall prey to fatigue and exhaustion, she was doing a very poor job of following her own advice. She hadn't been sleeping well, had been eating sporadically and on the run, and running herself ragged in order to try and stay on top of things with the group of Huntsmen and Huntresses they had assembled to keep the city clear and eradicate as many Grimm as she could.
She slipped her glasses back on and took a deep, sighing breath. At least this time she wasn't surrounded by Grimm but she was probably less able to do anything much about it than she had been back then. It had taken all the power she could pull up to try and fix that building across the street and it hadn't been enough and now she was utterly spent. That was another of her teachings to her students she had violated. Don't become so fixated on something, for whatever reason, that you put yourself in an untenable position. She had let the entire situation of the past week give her tunnel vision and as she become more and more fatigued, she became more and more frustrated and blinded and ended up in the situation she was in now.
She tried to get to her feet but her legs were like rubber and wouldn't support her. Her head swam and her vision blurred. She landed roughly back on the concrete, scraping up the palm of her left hand on the edge of the slab. She closed her eyes and took several deep, calming breaths. Evidently she was going to have to take a little more time to let some of her strength return before she tried again. She should just swallow her pride, take out her scroll and call either Port or Oobleck for assistance. The disabling of the CCT may have killed communication outside the city, but the secondary infrastructure kept it functioning as usual within and on the outskirts.
Opening her eyes, she was about to relent and reach for her scroll when she saw someone walking up the street towards her. Her eyes widened as they got closer. Black pants. White shirt. Long, ragged black coat with a red lining. The handle of a large sword sticking up over his shoulder, a smaller sword sheathed at his waist. And long, bright orange hair.
"Well done Glynda," she berated herself. "Now you're hallucinating."
She slumped to her right and a man's hand gently cradled her head before it could strike the concrete. A pair of brown eyes twinkled in amusement and the man's lips curled into a smile.
"Seems to me we've done this before haven't we Glyn-chan?"
In the blink of an eye both he and the unconscious Huntress were gone.
Even someone who travelled as much as Ichigo Kurosaki did needed a place they could call home. For him it was a spacious apartment on the tenth and top floor of one of the newer apartment blocks in Vale. Two bedrooms, one of which he used for storage, not that he had a lot that needed to be stored, and as a bit of a home office with a desk and a computer. Spacious bathroom, a kitchen, and a comfortable living room. The living room was the space he was currently occupying, sitting in an overstuffed chair that was turned away from its usual direction towards the large wall mounted television, and towards the couch were Glynda Goodwitch lay sleeping with a light blanket lain over her.
Her boots were standing alone by the door, her riding crop and her glasses lying on the low table in front of the couch. It was now early evening and she was still asleep after he had brought her here some seven hours earlier. He had been gone for a few weeks and since it would be rather impolite to have a guest and not be able to offer them any food or drink, once he was sure that she was okay he had gone out to restock his kitchen and grab a few other items he would need now that he was finally back home.
He opened another bottle of beer, two empties were sitting on the low table before him, and took a sip as he watched over his guest. Home. It had taken him a long time to come to terms with what was now his home, his reality. He couldn't even say how long he had been here, in this place known as Remnant, the world that was the physical reminder of what he had seen as his failure. He had defeated Yhwach but it was too late to stop what had already begun. The World of the Living, Soul Society and the Royal Realm, Hueco Mundo, Hell. All of them had crashed together to create Remnant, a fitting name if there ever was one. Somehow he had survived the cataclysm that destroyed everything that he had ever known, waking up who knows how many hundreds or thousands of years after the event. At a certain point the history of Remnant became a little muddled and was hard to trace back further.
All he knew was that he woke up one day in a cavern behind a waterfall, the very waterfall that new students going to Beacon Academy flew over to arrive at their school, and that he was all alone but for the two constant companions within his soul. The first sight that greeted him when he exited the cavern was a shattered moon, and while his sensory abilities had never been great even he could tell that the world felt very much different. Down below his waterfall was a growing settlement but he wasn't about to go investigating that yet and his spirits agreed. He was still too disoriented and needed to gather himself and get control of his emotions which were threatening to overwhelm him. They soon did and it would take a long time until he was what he viewed as sane again and able to function properly.
He had failed. He had failed to protect not just those closet to him, but everyone. Every soul both living, dead, and condemned to hell. They were all gone. His family, his little sisters and Goat Chin, all of his friends among humans and shinigami and even hollows were all gone because while he had finally defeated the Quincy King he had lost everything he had been trying to protect. His mind couldn't take it and even his inner spirits couldn't hold him together. After what may have been weeks of falling apart inside his little safe haven behind the waterfall, he broke completely and fell into madness, his spirits falling with him. He flew out of the place, out into a world that he did not know. For weeks, months he blindly raced around, trying to find anything familiar, trying to find anyone he knew. There was nothing and no one, even the energy of this world didn't feel right to him.
It didn't take long for him to find the Grimm. At first he thought they were hollows and that he had found something that he knew even if they were corrupted souls. But it didn't take long to find out that they weren't hollows. They were soulless and they stank of Hell. In his madness he slaughtered them by the hundreds. They were an abomination, alive but soulless, they were something even worse than hollows, even worse than the souls of the evil and damned and he pursued them relentlessly.
In the throes of his madness he barely knew what was going on as he fought and stumbled across Remnant, moments of lucidity were few and far between and each new major discovery would send him reeling again. The Faunus were humans with animal traits and they felt like hollows. The substance known as Dust was a compression of spiritual energy in its various forms and reishi, even with his crappy sensory abilities he could feel what it was. What he once knew as reiatsu the people of this world called Aura. The abilities of the zanpakuto and the properties of kido had manifested in people as something they called a Semblance.
For months, maybe even years, he really didn't know, he careened back and forth across this world, drowning in his self blame and consumed by the alien nature of everything around him. He shed the blood of Grimm and probably everything else that walked, crawled, swam, or flew. He really didn't know. He was obsessed with killing Grimm and he may well have killed humans and Faunus along the way. Even his spirits didn't know since they were as consumed by the madness as he was. His life had become nothing but pain for everyone he had lost and for his world destroying failure. It was all he knew and all he was capable of feeling. Even destroying the Grimm in the numbers he did could not ease that burden or calm that pain.
At some point he ended up back where it all started, back at his cavern behind the waterfall, his body as broken as his mind. He had expended so much energy for so long. There were places on this world where the expenditure of his power had altered the landscape and he had been living so long on his power reserves alone with little food or rest to replenish them that he finally collapsed.
He fell back into a state very much like what he had awakened from originally only this time he did not fall into a state of blissful oblivion, but into his inner world. It looked like the undersea ruins of a lost civilization. Not a single building remained intact, the inner world of his soul was totally broken and destroyed. Entirely spent, he and his spirits drifted to the bottom and that would be where they would stay until they regained enough strength to reawaken.
When they did reawaken even their mental state had settled back to something approaching a reasonable level. Most of the anger and loss and self blame had been burned away in their typhoon of madness, leaving a near blank slate that teetered on the edge between sanity and insanity. Slowly, he and his spirits reconnected and recommitted themselves to their previous purpose, the thing that was the very core of their being and the one thing that was their only way to escape the madness and to even try to become whole again. Protect. This world may be the result of their failure, but that didn't mean it had to continue to suffer for it.
With just the Grimm alone there was more than enough of a threat without even taking into account the conflict between humans and Faunus, both against each other and among themselves. If his failure was the cause of this world becoming what it was then he had an obligation to do whatever he could to help it survive. He owed it to all the souls that had been lost and all of the souls that inhabited this world.
Training had always been something that could keep his mind occupied and keep him from dwelling on things that always threatened to bring him down. So they trained relentlessly, each session lasting as long as they could keep going. He fought his spirits individually and together, with a sword and without and they put in just as much work on getting Ichigo to finally be able to control his immense spiritual energy. He had actually begun to work on that when he was training at Kisuke's after getting his powers back and before the whole mess with the Vandenreich began. Properly learning it, with Kisuke, Tessai and Hachi explaining the theory behind both reitatsu control and kido. It proved to be immensely helpful and was a refreshing change since so little had ever been fully explained to him since he first gained shinigami powers.
The fact that he wanted to learn control and master it and his Quincy techniques was a great sign of progress for him. It meant that he was actually seeing and desiring a future, that he wanted to continue to live and progress. He wanted to abandon his fear. He wanted to look forward, to move forward and never stop. He did not want to pull back and he did not want to hesitate. He knew full well that he was still getting over the madness and that it was going to take a very long time before he could claim to be recovered. It would also be a long time before he would fully be able to accept the loss of his world...worlds, and forgive himself for that failure. But, it seemed that if there was one thing he had an abundance of it was time. He would make it. He may never be the same again but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
He was proud to say that he had made it. In the time after he reawakened he discovered that he had been back in his hibernating state and in his inner world for nearly a century. It was mind blowing but also good. He was closer to being whole once again and he was prepared for anything that may cross his path and try to harm him. It was also good that there shouldn't be anyone around still alive who would have witnessed his insanity fuelled rampaging. There may well be stories and he would certainly match the descriptions of the berserk and insane being that had crisscrossed Remnant for who knows how long, and he may even run across people familiar with the stories that might be freaked out by him matching the description, but unless they were horribly superstitious or something they wouldn't be thinking that he was actually that person.
Upon his reawakening he set out and with a clear head and mind he began to truly learn about Remnant. While he stayed pretty much to himself and didn't socialize much, something he quickly discovered that he really wasn't ready for yet, he did spend some time in most of the settlements he came across. He read about the local history and even made notes for himself on the various societies he came across. All the while he continued to train with his spirits but he also constantly trained his physical body as well. The hibernations and the abuse of the period of berserk insanity had taken a toll on his body and it needed to catch up to the strength and fitness of his soul.
He roamed across Remnant for centuries, killing Grimm, fighting criminals and their injustices, and watched the world grow. Unfortunately he also had to watch its inhabitants squabble and war with each other and at times get directly involved. Politically speaking, he refused to choose a side. But when he saw atrocities being committed, no matter which side of the conflict was doing it, he refused to allow it to continue and he put an end to it. Permanently and with extreme prejudice. He tried not to take lives that weren't Grimm, but he also wasn't nearly as idealistic as he once was and he had dispatched a number of people who in a time before Remnant would have received a one way trip through the gates of Hell.
He lived a nomadic lifestyle for a very long time but he always ended up back in Vale more than anywhere else. Atlas was a little chilly for his tastes and he didn't just mean the weather. There were too many cold, snobbish, self entitled people there and the entire atmosphere did not feel welcoming to him. Vacuo was interesting and had its charms...which were often offset by a general lackadaisical attitude toward things and an over abundance of thieves and murderers. He'd gotten tangled up with the underworld of Vacuo more times than he cared to think about.
Mistral was probably the closest thing on Remnant to the culture he had grown up in. There were obvious signs of Asian influence that made him both nostalgic and wistful for his past life and he had spent a great deal of time there. They had their own extensive underworld that he had crossed paths with a few times, but they also had a very vibrant arts community. Theatre, music, literature, pretty much every aspect of the arts was heavily represented there and he always took time to enjoy it.
But Vale, it was home and technically it was his birthplace since the cavern he awoke in and the waterfall that hid it overlooked the area that would one day become the city. Things were far more balanced in Vale, the pace a little more to his liking. The crime rate was low and the city seemed to be well run. By the time he finally met the teen that would grow to become the woman who was currently sleeping on his couch, he had decided to maintain a permanent residence there. He finally felt like he needed to have a place he could call home, even if he was still going to be roaming the world in an effort to help protect it.
Travelling back and forth wasn't an issue. The ability to use a garganta was a useful thing after all, though he tried not to rely on it for all of his travel, just some of the longer jumps and if he had to be somewhere in a big hurry. Besides, that world of nothingness that one had to travel through while using it felt even more ominous than it had before the cataclysm that created Remnant.
He took a sip of his beer as he regarded the sleeping Huntress before him. Even in her sleep and with her glasses lying on the table beside her she still managed to wear a severe and serious look. That still hadn't changed, and with a look like that even in her sleep she still had the audacity to poke at him about his scowl. He smirked. Meeting her had been a turning point for him. He had made quite a few acquaintances both before and after, but she was the first real friend he had made, the first person who he had invested himself with and he couldn't really say why that was.
The day they met he had been passing through the area after completing a Grimm extermination for another smaller nearby village. He was considering stopping for the night when he felt her using her power in the forest. He also saw a few Grimm headed that way so he followed and it was a good thing that he did since she was in no condition to put up much of a fight. Like today, she had passed out and he had carried her to her village where he met her worried father who had been coming to look for her.
As thanks he and his wife insisted that he stay with them and over dinner he found out how their daughter had been stressing herself out and running herself ragged trying to get control of her telekinesis ability. If she couldn't get it under control she wouldn't graduate from her combat school and be able to move on to one of the academies. He didn't know why he did it, but he asked what her Semblance was and what her difficulty with it was and then offered to help her with it.
That night as he lay awake in the spare bedroom her family let him use, he conversed with his inner spirits and they were at just as much of a loss as he was as to why he had offered to help. The only thing they could agree upon was that something in his instincts seemed to be leading his actions. That and there seemed to be a difference in the way her soul felt to him. Over the years he had hoped to find souls that felt familiar, but he never had. Instead of feeling whole, everyone's soul on Remnant felt like a put together jigsaw puzzle rather than a singular and seamless construct. It was a little like how multiple souls were contained within a hollow but in this case it wasn't a matter of one soul becoming dominant, the pieces all came together to form a new soul.
The theory he and his spirits were working with was that the destruction of the dimensions they knew had also essentially destroyed or fragmented the souls. The pieces of such had reformed at random in the people now inhabiting the world with no single piece being large enough to be recognizable to their senses. There was something about Glynda's soul however that had an effect on him, not quite a feeling of familiarity and not quite a feeling of comfort, but whatever it was it just felt welcoming to him and felt like a soul he wanted to be near.
Hers was the first, but over the next few years it certainly wouldn't be the last and he had become an acquaintance of nearly all of them. Maybe their souls carried fragments of multiple people he had known and cared for...he had no way to know but it sounded like a reasonable possibility to him. All he knew was that with every one of them he met he felt something within himself falling into place. He didn't know how else to describe it, he only knew that it seemed to be making some kind of a positive change within him and helped to further heal him.
Glynda's fellow professors and Ozpin, the members of what was once known as Team STRQ, the former head of the White Fang and his wife, even General Ironwood of Atlas and his trusted operative Winter Schnee, though he hadn't gotten to know her very well. There was something about Ironwood though that reminded him a little too much of Old Man Yamamoto. Of all of them however Glynda was the one he was closest to and the only one he had shared the truth about himself with.
He had been keeping his senses attuned to her soul. From the moment he had seen her on the street he could feel that she had been severely overtaxing herself and he wanted to make sure she hadn't done so to the point of damaging her soul. Now, he could feel a stirring that told him she would soon wake up, a bit of a surprise really considering how exhausted she was and how low her aura had been. He rose from his chair, taking his empties with him as he went to the kitchen to get some tea and cookies ready. She would need a little something on her stomach to tide her over until he made them some dinner and it would give them a little time for him to find out just what the hell had happened here.
The veteran Huntress and Beacon Professor was indeed on the verge of waking, but for some time now as she had slept her mind had been in a state very close to lucid dreaming, that state where one could actually exert some level of control over what was going on in their dreams. In this case however it was something more like replaying or recalling and reviewing specific linked memories. Essentially she was a spectator to events of her past where Ichigo was involved and she had some control over which events she saw.
"I think I see the problem," the orange haired stranger, Ichigo told her.
She huffed and blew a strand of her hair out of her eyes and glared at him. In the same forest clearing where he had found her, he'd had her casting glyphs and trying to move objects with her telekinesis constantly for better than half an hour, and with no more success than she'd had before.
"And what is that?" she asked tightly between deep breaths and as she brushed some dirt from her clothes. Unlike yesterday when she was dressed in her school uniform, she had worn the clothes she normally wore when out horseback riding. Long pants, a white blouse, and riding boots. She wasn't ungrateful for his help and she certainly wasn't ungrateful for him saving her from the Grimm and making sure she got home safely. But she hadn't counted on having to nearly exhaust herself to show him...repeatedly...what she was able to do. It also didn't help that he seemed to be amused by her current state. Sweating, out of breath and agitated. She could swear that his constant scowl was actually more of a smirk at the moment.
"The amount of power you're using and how you're expending it," he explained. "But mostly it's a matter of focus."
She held up the riding crop she carried. "I do focus," she said, slightly miffed at his conclusion. "Besides holding the Dust I need to use for the glyphs I use this as a focusing tool."
When her instructors at combat school had suggested that she come up with something like that when it came time to craft her own weapon, she decided on a riding crop with a dust reservoir in the handle. Her family had always had horses and her grandparents had been leather smiths who made riding tack and apparel and having a familiar item was supposed to be a helpful element if you needed an item to use as a focusing tool.
"And you form the glyphs just fine," he agreed. "But the focus issue with them in particular is on how much energy you are expending to create them and their effect. You use more power than you need and a large portion of it bleeds off and is wasted. When you create a glyph to fire ice shards those shards are all different sizes instead of being uniform, which really isn't a big deal, but some of them are hard and others are too soft to do any damage. When you create a shield it tends to be really strong in the middle but weak around the edges. Some of that can be ironed out just through experience and instruction and the issues with your glyphs alone won't keep you from graduating and getting into an Academy."
"So what about my Semblance?" she asked, silently dreading his answer. She had worked so hard to come as far as she had and she couldn't stand the thought of failing because she couldn't gain control of her ability.
"Even less focus and an even bigger waste of your energy," he answered bluntly. "If anything you may be trying too hard."
"How can I be trying too hard?" she huffed, clearly not happy with his analysis. "If I don't try as hard as I do it doesn't work at all!"
He shrugged and smirked again. "Your trying too hard is because of your lack of focus. You think that because it doesn't work you have to pour more power into it and then it goes out of control." He turned his head to look at a poor tree that had a sizable hunk blown out of its trunk from her attempt to move a rock half the size of his fist from one side of the clearing to the other. "Or do I need to remind you of how that happened?" She seemed to deflate at that, her shoulder's slumping. "Let's sit and take a break," he suggested, gesturing to a large log off to the side where a white towel and a couple of bottles of water awaited.
He gave her a moment to sit, towel off, and take a drink before he sat astride the log so he could face her more directly. "Since you go to a combat school you must be familiar with the concept of practising with your weapon until you can use it as if it was an extension of your own body."
"I am," she answered. "But that doesn't really apply with my weapon."
"Actually it applies even more in your case," he rebutted. "Other than hitting the button to release dust from your crop, your glyphs don't require a physical effort. Same with your Semblance. They both rely entirely on what's going on up here." He pointed to her head. "By their nature they are already extensions of your own body, or in this case your mind. With your glyphs and your Semblance together you should be able to pull off some amazing stuff. But before that you have to fix the problem with your focus. Two problems actually."
She gave him a hard glare. "So now there are two problems with my focus?" she said rather frostily.
He met her gaze unflinchingly. "Yeah, there are," he confirmed with an equal chill in his voice. "Are you going to get pissy every time I suggest you're doing something wrong?"
"I am not being...pissy," she ground out.
"Yeah, you are, and you've got a bit of an attitude too, Glyn-chan."
She was about to give an angry retort when she stopped. "What did you call me?" puzzled at the term.
"Glyn-chan," he smirked. "Where I'm from chan is an honorific normally used on children or people you're really familiar with. Using it on someone you've only just met can be seen as being offensive...and since you're pissy and have an attitude, I'm calling you Glyn-chan."
Her face turned red and he would not have been surprised if steam had started to vent from her ears. She was obviously having a hard time trying to find the words after he had just admitted to blatantly insulting her...and in a way she didn't even understand.
"Got a temper too," he added. "And you're way too easy to rile up. Make that three issues with focus."
The stare down between them lasted several long seconds before she finally relented. She sighed and her shoulders slumped again. "You're not wrong, unfortunately."
"I used to get riled up pretty easily myself," he admitted. "Now, the main problems with your focus are, first, in visualizing what you want to happen and getting that result. Mostly that comes with experience but you also need to pay attention to the smaller details that go along with it. Your shield for example. While you do create it almost on instinct, your focus is in the centre part of it. That gives you more protection up close but the edges are weaker and things can get through too easily. You can fix that by thinking more on the details of making the whole thing stronger. Before long it will become just as natural when you create it as it is now. Same with your ice shards, although like I said before it doesn't really matter if they are all the same size but that's something that will come with experience too."
"What's the second thing?" she asked.
"The second thing is being able to control and regulate how much of your energy you are using," he answered. "Using the same examples, with better control you can vary the size and strength of your shield and make sure that the whole thing is strong and you would even be able to strengthen parts at a point of impact if you needed to. With the ice shards better control means you can change and control their density and hardness. With your telekinesis that control is critical. When you tried to pick up that rock and move it, it was like you blasted it with a shotgun. Too much power cast in a wide pattern and it went through the tree like it had been shot out of a cannon. That's not so bad if you're actually trying to do that, although it takes a hell of a toll on your energy reserves and wears you out too quickly."
"But I've tried to control how much I put into it but nothing seems to work," she lamented. "If anything, it just seems to get worse."
He nodded. "It's because you're frustrated and your mind is full of doubts and whys and what ifs. You need to clear all of that junk out of your head if you're going to get anywhere with this. Believe me, I know."
"One of my teachers said to try using mediation but I still can't seem to clear my head." She frowned. "Of course, they also didn't really give a good explanation on how exactly go about it."
"You want to be a Huntress pretty badly don't you?" He didn't really need an answer, he could see it in her eyes, in her body language as she kept trying to make her abilities work. He could see it even in the nature of her frustration. Most of all though, he could feel it in her soul and he didn't need to cross weapons with her to sense it.
"I want to protect the people of Remnant," she began, determination in her voice. "I want to protect them from the Grimm. I want to protect both humans and Faunus from the criminal actions of other humans and Faunus. Our world has had enough conflicts and wars. The misery we inflict on each other is bad enough and just makes things even worse with the Grimm. We've lost friends and family to all three so I know what others have gone through and I want to do what I can to try and stop it. I have abilities and I want to use them to help but if I can't even control them enough to get the chance to learn to be a Huntress, then what good are they?"
He smiled wistfully, which puzzled her. "You're just like me then," he said softly. "My name, Ichigo, it has a few different meanings but the most prominent is First Protector, or He Who Protects. All I have ever wanted to do is to live up to that name and it's the reason why I'm even still alive after everything that I've been through. I've succeeded and I've failed and I've even lost my way, but I've never stopped despite what it has cost me and for as long as I can I'll keep doing it."
"Then what can I do to fix this?" she asked, her own determination rising.
"You need to become familiar with the feel of your own power," he began. "Aura and Semblance all run on the same fuel, the power of your soul. When you unlock your Aura they teach you how to feel it and call it up and pretty soon it reacts without you having to think about it. It becomes instinct. It's pretty much the same once you discover your Semblance in most cases. Personally I think the combat schools don't spend enough time teaching you how to use your Aura or master and apply your Semblance. They treat it too much like it's a personal issue and leave you to pretty much figure it out for yourself."
"They claim that it's be cause everyone's Semblance is different so it's hard to teach us how to use it," she offered.
"There is a little bit of truth in that thinking, but it's a poor method on their part," he groused. "Here's what I think will help you the most. Do like that one teacher suggested and use meditation, but not just as a way to try and empty your mind. What I want you to do is as you meditate bring up your Aura just like they taught you when you first unlocked it. Then immerse yourself in it. Feel it, explore it, dive right into it. People know that Aura is a manifestation of their soul, but at the same time in their minds many treat it like it is a separate thing, an attached part. It's not. It is your soul, part of you as a whole and not an after market add on. In other words it is you and you are it. By experiencing it this way you'll remove that division in your mind and you will start seeing it as a true extension of yourself."
"How will this help?" she asked.
"You will instinctively feel the strength and the potency of your soul, of your power, and that will give you a better ability to focus how much power you use in your glyphs and your Semblance. Having a true feel for your own soul will make manipulating it easier and eventually it will become second nature. It will become instinct and you won't even have to think about it. It will still take a lot of practice and hard work, and you will need to work on visualizing the results and effects you want to produce. But the most important thing in getting there will be in getting an intimate feel for your own soul. Achieve that and you should be able to begin exercising enough control over your Semblance that you will be able to make it into one of the academies."
She gave him a serious look. "Show me how."
"Not bad Glyn-chan, not bad," he said.
"Gyaahh!" she startled. The foot long, six inch across chunk of wood she had been levitating, with quite a wobble and a lot of rising and falling, shot straight up into the air like it had been launched with a rocket. She gave him a hard glare. "You did that on purpose."
She hadn't seen him for two weeks. After teaching her how to meditate while feeling her Aura, which took most of that day just to get to a point where she could, he was around for a few more days to help her out and do some other training with her. While hand to hand fighting wasn't her thing, she still needed to know how to defend herself without a weapon and he said it would also be useful to help her observe and learn how other people fought, which would in turn help her fight against them.
Before the week was out he was gone, off to another village to check on it and clear out any Grimm he found. She had kept up her meditation and practised diligently but by the time two weeks had passed she was doubting that he was going to come back despite saying that he would. He could be a harsh trainer, but he never failed to explain why he was being harsh. His assessments of her skills and progress were blunt but it was better to be direct with her than to try and sugar coat it and she had learned that he didn't do things that way. Even at that he didn't fail to be positive with her when she showed skill or improved at something. She would never admit it to him, or anyone else, but she had missed him, just a little, and she was actually glad to see him. Even if he was being a dick.
"Guilty," he said with an unrepentant smile. "Look's like you've been making progress while I was gone."
"By the end of last week I was finally able to move things across the clearing without sending them through trees or off into the forest somewhere," she reported. "This week I started doing what you suggested and have been trying to hold objects in place in mid air. It's hard, but I've been starting to get the hang of it."
"I noticed," he said smiling. "You had that suspended for a good five minutes before I interrupted you and you were using less power to keep it there than you would have before I left. I'm a little surprised though that you shot it into the air rather than dropping it when I startled you."
"You just appeared out of nowhere and I wasn't expecting anyone to be around," she protested.
"Gonna have to work on those instincts Glyn-chan," he grinned.
"You appear and disappear in the blink of an eye, how am I supposed to sense that?"
"Like I said, instinct." He took two steps toward her and the chunk of wood came down and hit where he had just been.
"I hate you," she said with little real fire.
She sat on the fence outside of her home and looked at the message on her scroll again for what must have been the hundredth time. She did it. She passed her entrance exams and got into Beacon. She had stunned her instructors at her combat school with the progress she had made and between their observations and her test scores she had gotten into Beacon easily. All of the training she had done with Ichigo over the weeks since he first arrived had paid off big time. It was a little frustrating though that he would only be around for a week or so then gone for up to a month before he came back. She could actually freely admit to herself now that she did miss him when he was gone but there was no way she was going to tell him that.
They had struck up quite a friendship during the course of her training and after a while they would start talking about normal, everyday stuff during the breaks...after he got done evaluating and critiquing her performance and suggesting ways to tweak things and improve. She had always been fairly observant, but seemed to become even more so with all of the work he had had her do on her concentration and focus and on learning to trust and use her instincts. When they talked she began to notice that talking about friends and family seemed to sadden him. She saw small signs of it in his body language and knew that he was trying not to show it, but he couldn't hide the look that came into his eyes. She dared to ask him about it once and all he would say was that he had lost both and hadn't bothered to make any new friends and ever since then he had lived the life of a nomadic Huntsman.
"You certainly look happy Glyn-chan."
To her credit she didn't fall off the fence or even startle that badly, but she did glower at him in response. "I was expecting you and yet you still managed to surprise me."
"Wouldn't be any fun if I called ahead," he smirked.
She rolled her eyes. "Of course not. As for looking happy, I have good reason." She showed him the screen of her scroll.
He broke into a smile, or at least what passed for a smile with him. "Congratulations, I knew you'd do it."
"I wouldn't have without your help," she said as she hopped off the fence. "Thank you so much Ichigo." She hugged him. It was a little out of character, but she didn't care. She began to wonder though if she had done something wrong because he stiffened up and she could feel him start shaking ever so slightly. Before she could say anything he gently settled his hands on her shoulders.
"You're welcome." She could swear that his voice sounded like it was on the verge of cracking. "You're a good student and serious about being the best that you can be. I'm glad that I could help."
They separated, but she grabbed his arm and began leading him to the house. "Come on, we're having a celebration and you're the second guest of honour. Try to have some fun, you scowl too much."
"Says the girl who glowers most of the time," he smirked.
She didn't know why he reacted the way he did when she hugged him, and the look in his eyes when she stepped back was pretty similar to the way he looked when she talked about friends and family. She wanted to find out why, not because she was nosy, but because she wanted to be able to help him since he had helped her so much. That and because it hurt to see someone she liked look that sad and be in such obvious pain.
"I'm hurt," he said in mock sadness. "You really didn't think I'd come and see you off as you headed to Beacon? You're so cruel Glyn-chan."
"You're late," she groused, trying to cover up the odd, flustered and yet relieved feeling she had. "I figured you were off on a mission anyway." She wasn't about to tell him but she had figured that he wasn't going to show and it had left her feeling oddly down. Really down if she were being truthful. But all of a sudden there he was, the crowd seeming to part around him as he crossed the transit terminal, looking like a giant among the mostly teen crowd.
She saw him in a different way than she normally did. Maybe it was because he hadn't just appeared like he usually did and she actually got to see him approach from a distance, but it was almost like she could sense an...enormity about him. She got the sense of something vast and powerful filling her awareness, like the instincts he had taught her to feel were giving her some insight into him. She had seen the sadness and pain that was sometimes reflected in his eyes, but she had never seen him in the way she was seeing him now. If the others in the room didn't see it they could certainly feel something on a subconscious level that made them automatically shift out of his way.
Powerful, like a force of nature but she didn't feel intimidated. She felt safe, protected and comfortable around him and she was finally forced to admit to herself something that she had been vehemently trying to deny for some time now. She liked him and was attracted to him. He was certainly easy on the eyes and he didn't eyeball her or speak to her like the hormonal idiots of her age group, nor did he treat her like a child or act in a condescending manner because he was older. How much older she couldn't say because quite frankly he didn't look like he could be anymore that a few years older than her but he had to be older than that.
They would joke and banter but he never tried to do anything that would seem inappropriate. If anything it seemed that he actually shrank away from her if they were physically too close and it had taken her a while to notice that. At first she thought it was her but she soon realized that he didn't seem to be close to anyone either physically or emotionally. Whatever had robbed him of his friends and his family seemed to have scarred him to the point that he didn't want to let anyone else get too close. Yet somehow she got the feeling that he had let her get closer than anyone else had for a long, long time.
"I was on a mission but I took care of it pretty quick," he responded. "I wasn't going to miss seeing you off if I could help it."
She smiled. "Thank you. I was feeling a little nervous. Leaving home for the first time and going to a school like Beacon is a little intimidating."
"You'll do just fine," he assured her. "You're smart and skilled and you're going to be a great Huntress Glynda. I believe in you and so should you."
She blinked. "I think that's the first time you haven't called me Glyn-chan since we started training."
"Don't get used to it," he smirked. "Do me one favour though while you're at Beacon."
"What?" she asked.
"I know you're going to study and work like a fiend, but take some time for yourself," he said. "Make some friends and spend some downtime doing things with them. You should have your weekends free so take advantage of it and unwind a little when you have the chance. Enjoy life a little." There was a tinge of regret in his voice, like he had failed to follow such advice himself. He paused for a moment, like he was deciding something. "If I'm not out chasing Grimm I'll even meet you in town when I can and we can catch up over coffee." The look on his face had even softened.
She felt her cheeks warming up. "I'd like that," she answered. "As for the other things...I'll try but I can't make any guarantees. You know me."
"Yeah, I do," he agreed. "All work and no play makes Glyn-chan a dull...and exhausted girl. I'm not one to talk though, I wasn't much different." He held up his scroll. "If you want to talk or anything just send me a message. I can't guarantee I'll be able to answer right away but I will answer."
She held hers up to his and they exchanged info. "Thank you again Ichigo. This day may never have happened without your help."
"Sure it would have," he said confidently. "And I have to admit that I actually enjoyed helping you out so thank you for letting me."
She was too stunned to respond, she had never heard him say anything like that before or express any sentiment that wasn't accompanied by either a sad look or his trademark scowl. She went with her gut and hugged him again like she did that night outside her house and this time his response was far less stiff and wary. Several seconds later her scroll beeped and when she looked at it she found that one of her friends who had been lurking nearby had taken a picture of them. Ichigo found it hilarious while she vowed revenge for it and for all of the teasing she knew she was going to have to endure. However, that picture would also become one of her most prized possessions.
She shivered, not sure if it was from being soaking wet and cold or if it was from fear. The Grimm could have easily torn apart the shell of the downed Bullhead she was taking refuge in but they seemed content to prowl around outside and growl and intimidate her and see how high they could send her level of despair. They were succeeding wonderfully in that regard. To be doing something like this they must be older, more intelligent Grimm. Younger ones wouldn't have hesitated to rip open the Bullhead to get to her and since she was currently stuck a couple of miles inside the Badlands, she figured her assessment was correct. All of the Grimm she had seen from her hiding spot had been pretty big. She almost wondered if they were using her for bait, hoping to have more humans show up to rescue her so they could have more to devour.
Her ordeal had started two days ago. As a fourth year student, she was engaging in a teamwork exercise where you were paired with a student from a team other than your own and were sent to patrol an area near a settlement that had been seeing an increase in Grimm sightings and attacks. She and her temporary partner were the last to be dropped off, but before they could land their Bullhead was attacked by Griffons. They tried to fight back, firing at the Grimm from the open doors of the airship. They killed a couple of them but the aerial fight had pushed them several miles off course and out into the Badlands. The Bullhead lost a wing and they crashed hard. The pilot was dead, her temporary partner had panicked and tried to run, not even attempting to help her and ended up eaten by a very large Ursa. Her Aura took a beating in the crash. She was bruised and banged up all over and probably had a few cracked ribs and there was something wrong with her left knee.
The Bullhead had plowed into the ground on it's belly. The front end of the airship had caved in and was plugged with twisted metal, dirt, and part of a large tree trunk. With the waning power of her Semblance she had been able to shut the side doors and through a large hole in the left side door and through a few smaller ones, she could keep an eye on the outside. So long as the Grimm didn't decide to rip their way in she was alright for the time being. However, the holes and tears in the fuselage, while not large enough to let a Grimm in, had done very little to keep the rain out during a driving rainstorm overnight. She had slept very little which hadn't helped her Aura recover much and the two days worth of field rations she had brought in her pack had been lost out the door during the crash.
She could see it laying on the ground several dozen yards away but there was no hope of retrieving it. Her Aura had taken such a hit during the crash that she couldn't use her Semblance to pull it towards her and even if she could evade the Grimm long enough to go and get it the footing would be too treacherous. The area where they had crashed was blackened and ashy. Sometime in the recent past there had been a small forest fire here, most likely due to a lightning strike. All around her the ground was thick with ash now turned to mud from the heavy rain. A few burned out husks of trees stood around the area and the edge of unburned forest cover was only a couple of hundred yards in front of her. On the other side of the Bullhead the burn area extended for what she figured was nearly a mile.
She had tried calling or messaging for help on her scroll but there was no signal. The school should know that there was a problem, the pilot had radioed in the contact with the Grimm as soon as they attacked. The lack of further response and the fact that the Bullhead hadn't returned or landed elsewhere should mean that someone would be sent to investigate at the very least if not mount a potential rescue operation. The problem was however that she was in the Badlands and not even the best and bravest of Huntsmen and Huntresses would dare operate there without some significant firepower and back up. Given that she had been here for better than twenty fours hours the powers that be would consider the chance of anyone surviving to be slim. Maybe too slim to risk sending personnel to find her.
She smirked through a shiver. Well, there was one Huntsman she knew of who wasn't afraid to enter the Badlands and confront anything that crossed his path. On one of his visits after she entered Beacon he had told her that when he had time he often went into the Badlands to take down any old Grimm he could find. She didn't know if she should believe him at first and she questioned his sanity. But if there was one thing she knew for sure about him it was that he wouldn't lie to her and she had made sure to properly chastise him for such dangerous and reckless behaviour. Of course the fact that he never had a scratch on him only made her wonder more and more just how skilled and how powerful he must truly be.
She turned on her scroll and found the picture of them from the air terminal four years ago. Seeing his face reminded her of the things he taught her, among those the idea of never giving up, of continuing to move forward. She was trying hard not to give up but she would be a fool to think of her situation as being anything but dire. She was surrounded by Grimm in the Badlands, injured and very low on Aura which meant she wouldn't have much of an ability to fight if it came to that, and inevitably it would. Despite having no signal she had typed out a couple of messages to him and was considering crafting a longer, final one just in case she didn't survive this but someone did come and found her scroll in the wreckage. It was at that moment that things outside suddenly got very quiet.
She looked around as best should could through the hole in the door. The huge Ursa that had eaten her fellow student was still nearby at the front of the wreck and several other Ursa and Beowolf were milling around. Off in the distance near the tree line there were more along with a couple of Boarbatusk and she was sure she even saw a pretty large Beringel moving through the trees. She wasn't sure why they had all gone silent until she caught something out of the corner of her eye.
Just off to her left the very air in front of her looked like it was warping. Suddenly the warp split down the middle and slowly opened to reveal a black void. She was speechless as out of that void stepped Ichigo Kurosaki and as soon as his feet touched the muddy earth the void snapped closed and disappeared as if it had never been there. The giant Ursa roared and charged, breaking her out of her stupor. Ichigo simply stared and scowled at it and she was opening her mouth to scream at him to move when he finally did. In an instant the giant sword was pulled from his back and swung, severing the huge paw that had been arcing toward him. With an immediate backhanded sweep of the blade he cut through the Ursa's head, killing it. She was incredulous. His blade went through the beast's skull and the thick bone plate of armour like it was cutting through soft butter.
The closer Grimm that she could see backed up a few steps at the ease with which he had slain the giant Ursa. Further away, over by the tree line something roared as if in challenge. She didn't know which one it had been, maybe the Beringel, but what ever it was it had caught Ichigo's attention. What she saw next was something she would never forget. Ichigo drew his left hand down over his face and black energy tinged with red swept over his face forming a white skeletal mask that covered most of his head. There were two short stripes on top of it and two longer ones which came down through the eyes and past the teeth to the bottom of the mask. Even more frightening were the long horns that protruded from the sides of his head to stretch forward beyond his face. Then there was his eyes. No longer brown, but yellow with black sclera. It was the most frightening thing she had ever seen.
The mouth of the mask opened and a horrifying roar answered the challenge of the Grimm. An orb of red energy formed between the horns, it was only the size of a baseball but when he released it it formed a cone wider than the wingspan of a Bullhead and cut a trough along the ground, through the Grimm, and on through the forest. Everything in its path was gone, nothing but blackened earth remained and she could feel the wash of heat from it sweep over her. She couldn't tell how far the attack had travelled into the forest but she knew the distance had been considerable. Her mind had virtually gone blank and she could only stare at the aftermath of such sheer power. While she didn't know why, she was positive that the attack he just used hadn't even been near its full strength. Not even close.
She watched the continuing spectacle as dozens of Griffins and Nevermores took flight from the forest because of the disturbance. His mask dispelled in a burst of black and red vapour as he pulled his smaller blade from under his coat. With a flick of his wrist he directed it at the flying Grimm and dozens of electric blue crescents of crackling energy flew from the blade, intercepting all of the airborne Grimm and sending them towards the ground in trails of inky black smoke. Not one had escaped the attack.
The other nearby Grimm on the ground began to do something she had never witnessed before. Run away in fear. She could swear that she saw a grin come to Ichigo's face as he virtually disappeared from her sight with a swishing sound. She couldn't see him anymore but she could hear the death cries of the Grimm. A few minutes later he was back again with another swoosh.
"You hanging in there Glyn-chan?" he asked seriously.
She was shaking and was almost looking through him more than at him in her shock at what she had seen. She was just coherent enough to notice the sad look in his eyes as he saw the fear on her face before her shock and exhaustion rendered her unconscious.
She awoke slowly from her sleepy trip down memory lane and even without her glasses on she recognized her surroundings as Ichigo's apartment. She had been here a couple of times before in the year and a half after he had moved in. It was a new building and the apartment was nicer and had more room than his old one, the apartment where he had taken her after a couple of days in the hospital to begin recovering from her unscheduled trip to the Badlands. She would need rest to recover and she hadn't been looking forward to having to fend off several classmates who would want to know all the details of her misadventure. Ichigo had offered her alternative accommodations for a while if she wanted them and he had promised to answer all of her questions and tell her just exactly who and what he was.
She would never forget the look on his face that day, the fear and apprehension that seemed to be there. She had never seen either emotion present on his face before and it unnerved her. The fact that she also had some feelings for him made what she had seen and what she might be told make her feel even more anxious. One thing though was certain, whatever it was that she thought he might tell her was nothing close to what he actually did.
If the story had come from anyone else she would have shut them down long before they got close to the end of it and told them they were delusional and a liar. But this was Ichigo, someone she knew who had never lied to her and wasn't given to telling tall tales. The sheer hurt that seemed to radiate from him as he told her his long story was more than enough to convince her that he was telling her the truth and she was in tears long before he ever finished. The revelation of how Remnant came to be and the things that her friend had been through, the truth of what he was and what he could do and the immense, soul crushing weight he was carrying...it all nearly rendered her unconscious again. It was too much to take in all at once.
So many of the things he told her were shocking, but one of that made the most impact on her personally was his assertion that her soul felt different to him than the soul of anyone else and that because of this she was the first person he had forged any kind of a meaningful relationship with since he first awakened on what for him was a new world. The only reasoning he could come up with was that perhaps her soul contained fragments of a person or persons that he had previously known and that was why she felt different to him. Someone who in some way felt familiar. Someone whose presence had begun to chase away the desolation and loneliness and he was deathly afraid that revealing the truth to her would make her push him away and that she would want nothing more to do with him.
She smirked as she sat up and put on her glasses. Like there was ever a chance that she would do that to him. As paralyzed as she was by everything she had been told, when she saw that look of desperate fear in his eyes and heard him say what his greatest fear in all of this was, she did something exceedingly out of character for her. Despite being stiff and sore from her ordeal she had rocketed off the couch and pounced on him, both of them and the chair he'd been sitting in went crashing over backwards to the floor. She had wrapped her arms tightly around him and in a bout of babbling that would make Nora Valkyrie look calm and collected, she assured him that she would never turn her back on him, that it wouldn't be possible for her to turn away someone who had done so much for her. When she finally ran out of words...she kissed him.
She smiled. The look on his face had been priceless and she imagined her own was as well when she realized what she had done. Crying, he had wrapped his arms around her and when he could finally trust himself to speak, he thanked her. He had lost too much already and losing her friendship was not something he wanted to happen but he had needed to take the risk and be honest with her about himself. And just when she began to think he was going to otherwise ignore what she had done, he returned the gesture and it was her turn to look shocked. As it turned out the attraction was mutual as was the fact that neither of them was looking for a full time serious relationship. After admitting to that attraction it became a little more intense over the next few days and the ended up spending the last two days of her week long stay having sex.
Despite their initial fears that essentially being best friends with awesome benefits might not work, it actually did. Not every get together resulted in sex and that was probably a good thing because it meant that their relationship was not defined merely by its physical aspects. Around Ichigo more than anyone else she was able to truly relax and not be the serious, severe woman that everyone else saw. True, that was who she was but around him she just seemed to naturally revert to a calmer, more relaxed state. Her students would never believe it nor would they ever believe her behaviour when she was in bed with Ichigo. She nearly laughed out loud at the thought.
"I'm actually surprised that you're awake," Ichigo said as he emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray laden with a tea pot, two mugs, and a plate of cookies. "You were pretty tapped out." He smirked. "So much so that I had to catch you when you passed out. Again."
She gave him her best unamused teacher glare, but she couldn't hold it for long. "One of my few bad habits I suppose, but you always seem to be there the catch me."
He wasn't able to hide the troubled look on his face before she saw it as he poured their tea. He set the plate of cookies in front of her. "Thought you could use a little something on your stomach until I get supper ready for us."
She nodded and took one. She was indeed hungry but resisted the temptation to emulate young Miss Rose and virtually inhale the entire plate full. She knew Ichigo had something on his mind and he would speak when he was ready.
He took a sip of his tea and sat down in the chair across from her. He contemplated the steaming liquid for a moment before raising his head and looking at her. "I'm sorry Glynda. I should have been here. If I had been maybe things would have turned out differently."
"You couldn't have known something like this would happen," she said. "Even we didn't think it would be something like this."
"When I heard that Ironwood showed up armed to the teeth I should have followed my gut and came back," he lamented. "I know he tends to overreact at times but he had to be seeing a serious threat somewhere to react that way."
She sighed. "He meant well but it may have actually helped make the situation worse."
"I didn't even find out about what happened here until a few hours before I found you," he explained quietly. "I had been chasing a real scumbag, a slave trader and flesh peddler. I caught the trail of his organization in Mistral a couple of weeks ago and tracked it all the way to Vacuo, taking out his branch operations and customers along the way. It was really bad. So bad that I pretty much lost myself to the hunt and paid no attention to anything else until it was done. He had influence and was virtually untouchable. I made an example out of him so that the authorities in Vacuo won't be able to ignore guys like him anymore, or the corruption within their own ranks."
He had confronted the scumbag in the doorway to an expensive club that he owned, one of the fronts for his illegal activities and with a flick of Zangetsu he had opened the guy up from crotch to collarbones, leaving him slumped and dying in the doorway in a pile of his own guts.
"It was a few hours later before I had my head cleared and I found out about the attack on Beacon. That's when I came back. I should have gotten involved when I first suspected something was going on."
"You knew?" she asked, a little shocked.
"I didn't know what," he answered, looking down into his tea. "I didn't know any specifics but I could see that everyone was wary and tense about something. You, Ironwood, Ozpin, Qrow. I knew that something was weighing on you all but I acted like it wasn't my business. Whatever this is, it's potentially a world ender, isn't it?"
Gods, she didn't want to tell him, she really didn't. After everything that he had already been through he didn't need to potentially have the fate of the world sitting on his shoulders yet again. He had been hurt badly enough already and she knew that he had yet to fully heal or forgive himself. By the same token however she couldn't keep it from him any longer.
She slumped back against the couch. "Yes. It very well could be so."
He sat his mug down on the table and rested his elbows on his knees, his hands threaded into his hair. She could see his hands and arms shaking and she absolutely hated this and she hadn't even started to give him the details yet. Those details would hurt him and she had no desire to do that but there was little choice now.
He laughed bitterly. "The first two times I faced the end of the world I jumped head first into the fight even though it was against beings that I never should have even known about. I wasn't even smart enough to be paralyzed with fear over it. In the end I won even though they were more powerful than I was. But now, I knew something was going on yet I chose to act like there wasn't even though I have more than enough power to put down any threat that exists on this world. I'm responsible for this world being what it is and for the problems it faces, yet by mostly keeping to myself and not acting on what my guts were telling me, by running from that responsibility, I let things come to this. I lost everything once already and I swore that I wouldn't lose it again, yet I've done nothing and here it comes again."
"You can't take that blame onto yourself Ichigo," she said softly. "You may have been involved in the events that created this world, but you are no more responsible for what we've done with it since then than you were for what Aizen or Yhwach tried to do. You told me the story yourself and it was the people who should have been responsible for stopping them or never letting them get to that stage that put you out front to fight for them. You did everything that you could do and you can't ask more than that of yourself."
"And I should have learned from that this time around because I am the one now that bears the same responsibility they should have carried then," he argued. "If I had involved myself then there's a pretty good chance your students would never have had to face what they did here. You wouldn't have had to walk the line between keeping my secret and facing a threat that we both know I could have helped you all deal with."
"Hindsight is a double edged sword Ichigo," she said in her best teacher's voice. "Mistakes get made and things happen that we cannot control no matter how hard we try. No one can be the answer to every problem and no one person ever should be. Hindsight can lead you down a path of despair and self blame where you think that everything that has transpired is your fault even if you were put into an impossible situation not of your making. Or, it can can give you the opportunity to learn from what has happened and keep moving forward."
His head shot up and his eyes met hers. After a long moment he let out a sigh. "You know, it's amazing how often I tend to lose sight of that when the shit hits the fan. Even after all of this time I still need to be reminded now and then." He felt ashamed. He had rededicated himself to that ideal that his Quincy spirit had imparted to him so long ago, and yet here he had been stumbling at the thought of having to face a threat of such importance once again.
"No offence Ichigo but you can be a little thick sometimes," she prodded.
He smirked. "Yeah, so I've heard." He picked up his mug and took a sip, sitting back as he did. He closed his eyes, taking a moment to calm himself and have a quick word with his inner spirits. "Okay Glyn-chan, tell me what we're up against."
It took two hours and the rest of the pot of tea for her to tell him the story, and what a story it was. Why was it that he always seemed to find himself up against people who wanted to destroy the world as everyone knew it and turn it into something of their own design? And why did their plans always involve the wholesale slaughter of innocent people who had no involvement? While the schemes were mad, the people behind them never seemed to be. Aizen wasn't, even Yhwach didn't seem to be insane and he was willing to bet that this Salem wasn't either. The crazies, as unpredictable as they could be, at least tended to make mistakes that could be easily exploited. The sane and cunning ones...not so much. Fortunately he had the sheer might to cut through their plans if need be. Subtlety and guile and matching wits with his enemy was never his style anyway.
When she had finished he had remained silent for a few minutes before suggesting she take a shower while he made dinner. He'd throw her clothes in the wash for her too so she was free to grab anything she wanted out of his room to wear in the meantime. They could talk more about the serious stuff after dinner. Before she went to the shower she checked her scroll and discovered that it was dead. As soon as she plugged it in it started going crazy with missed call and text alerts from both Port and Oobleck. By the time she told them what had happened and convinced them that she was alright, he had dinner ready. He made sure to tease her about coming to the table looking like she'd been rolling around in the street but she was too hungry to delay any longer. During dinner they resolved to keep the conversation on a lighter note. He asked how a number of their mutual friends were doing and among other things he got a good chuckle out of hearing about Qrow egging Winter into a fight in Beacon's courtyard, and Qrow's subsequent needling of Ironwood up in Ozpin's office.
As he cleaned up and did the dishes while Glynda finally took her shower, he thought of the two sisters that were part of Team RWBY. He had met their parents back when they were fourth years out on a field exercise during their own time at Beacon. They were the first people he met after Glynda whose souls felt the same way to him as hers did so he kept track of them. It had royally pissed him off when Qrow's sister Raven had left shortly after their daughter was born. He had always known she was different and had some pretty harsh ideas about things, but to leave the man that she clearly did love behind and abandon their daughter the way she did...it didn't sit well with him and he had been tempted to go and straighten her out, to at least get some answers out of her but Taiyang had asked him not to.
He nearly went after her anyway but Summer Rose, ever the voice of reason with her friends and team mates, persuaded him not to. She was the only person besides Glynda that he had ever revealed anything about his past to even if it wasn't much. He had told her that he had lost his mother, the very light of his life when he was nine and it had had a huge effect on his life from that day forward. He thought it was one of the worst things a person could do in abandoning their child and he wasn't sure what was worse, losing a mother the way he had, or never knowing her at all, only knowing that she had left you and no one knew why. At least in not knowing her little Yang hadn't formed an attachment to Raven before she left.
It hadn't been all that surprising when Summer eventually filled the void in both Yang and Tai's life and eventually had a daughter of her own. He made sure to visit now and then and it did his heart good to see how much love was given to both of those girls, and both of their souls felt to him like their parents did. He had promised himself that he would look out for them if he could, and if he couldn't he would at the very least make sure he kept track of them and visit the family when he was able.
When Summer went missing he had been in Atlas, only arriving back the day after Qrow had broken the news to Tai that Summer wasn't coming home. It was all he could do not to break down himself and he immediately headed off to the area where she had been going on her mission. Qrow tried to convince him that it was pointless, that he and a few others had already been there and searched for days. They did find signs of a fight but nothing else and every indicator to their trained eyes told them that she was gone. He had been rather adamant and told Qrow rather cryptically that he had ways of looking into and finding things that no one else did. Unfortunately, despite going over ever inch of the area he found little more than they did. He even went into his full hollow form to take advantage of its greatly enhanced senses.
He could smell her blood and feel the very faintest traces of her spirit from the usage of her Aura as that residue faded. There seemed to be a bit of a trail but even he couldn't track it very far as fouled as it was with the Hell stench, a stench that only he could detect, that lingered for days in any area where Grimm had been killed and disintegrated. Afterwards, and alone where no one could see him, he finally did break down. He hadn't visited as often as he probably should have, but he always felt welcome in Tai and Summer's home and it was always fun to be there. It was the closest he had felt in centuries to being in his own home and losing her felt to him just like he had lost a member of his own family.
He had revisited that spot numerous times and combed the surrounding area for miles whenever he had the chance in the hope of finding any sign of what had happened to her and talked to everyone he could find in the hope that they knew something. No matter where he went on Remnant, even to this day he kept his eyes and ears open, all of his senses really, for any sign or scrap of information that might tell him something.
He stopped in and visited the family a couple of times a year at least and it had been good to see that they were doing well despite their loss. He shouldn't have been surprised to discover that the adorable Little Red Reaper that was Ruby Rose had made it into Beacon two years early, catching Ozpin's eye by taking down a bunch of thugs robbing a Dust shop. To think, it was her that had turned that Grimm Dragon that was perched on the edge of Beacon Tower into a statue with the power of her unique silver eyes...the same silver eyes as her mother and given even the little bit that Glynda knew about that old legend, he had to wonder if that had played a role in whatever had happened to Summer.
Unfortunately to tap into that power Ruby had to bear witness to seeing a friend be killed. He was all too familiar with the practice of discovering or unlocking power when confronted with life and death situations or being under enormous stress. But seeing a friend or loved one die, and in particular the way Ruby saw her friend die as her body was consumed from the inside out before bursting into embers leaving nothing behind...he could only hope that the innocent girl he knew would be able to cope with it. The same could be said for her sister. He could only hope that the bright light that was Yang hadn't been permanently dimmed by the loss of her arm or by the fact that the person she had been trying to help, her partner who by what Glynda had told him she had a great deal of affection for, had run off and abandoned her in the aftermath without so much as a word.
Glynda returned from her shower and he couldn't help but smirk in amusement. She was wearing a pair of his sweat pants, tied as tightly around her waist as she could get them so they wouldn't fall off and the pant legs were rolled up quite a bit so she wasn't walking on them. The white tee shirt she was wearing had been gathered on one side and tied so that is wasn't so baggy on her. She even had her hair down, a sight that he was probably one of the few people to ever see it.
"Not a word," she warned him.
"I'm not saying a thing," he said in his defence.
"No, but the look on your face says more than enough." She grabbed a pair of wine glasses and headed for the couch. He snickered and retrieved a bottle of wine from his modest supply and followed. After pouring the wine they took up a position at either end of the couch, turned so they could face each other.
"I really do apologize for not being here," he said. "I wanted to be here for the Vytal Festival, its been a while since I attended one and I was hoping to see how your students did, Ruby and Yang especially."
"For first years they did very well," she said, a hint of pride in her voice. "I am still concerned about Miss Xiao Long's last match however. James chalked up her attack on a downed opponent as being related to combat stress associated with the tournament. I know her better than that and I have a hard time believing it. She claimed to have seen something that no one else in the building saw and I believe something similar happened with another team in the pairs round when they fought that same opponent and his partner."
"The only thing I can think of is one of them had an illusion Semblance," he said. "It's rare but I have seen it before." 'Somebody must have gotten a fragment of Aizen's Zanpakuto spirit in their soul,' he thought bitterly. "Has there been any sign of them or that woman they were with since the attack?"
"Cinder Fall," she reminded him, knowing how bad he could be with names. "No, there have been no sightings of her or the ones she had as part of her team. The only one who has been seen anywhere since then is Adam Taurus and any attempt to to take him down has been brutally put down."
"I'll be paying him a visit before this is done," Ichigo swore darkly. "And before I'm done with him he's going to know what it's like to lose a limb. Maybe two. And since he likes to wear a mask I think I'll show him mine."
She shuddered. "He certainly won't be any match for you and while I can't say that I would be sad to see the world rid of Adam Taurus, I always find the idea of revenge to be...distasteful. However, I also know you. You once said to me that 'since the Gates of Hell don't exist anymore, the worst of the worst deserve no less than to experience a little hell at their end'. You're not a butcher but you will get your pound of flesh from him. I know you're fond of Taiyang's girls and you think Yang deserves whatever retribution you can provide."
"I sometimes wonder if parts of the souls that make up theirs didn't come from my little sisters," he mused as he gazed at the wine he was gently swirling in his glass. He shook his head. "I wonder if this attack was sanctioned by the White Fang's current leader or if Taurus is doing his own thing. They've never attacked a Huntsman academy before and have never given any indication that they were likely to. Not to mention that they brought Grimm with them to do it. If Ghira has heard about any of this he's going to be both pissed and sick about it."
"It does seem out of character even for them as a whole," she agreed. "I think the only logical assumption is that Taurus at least, if not the entire White Fang, has struck some kind of a deal with Salem."
"I agree," he said. His scowl deepened. "I find it hard to believe though that in all the years that I've spent travelling all over Remnant that I haven't run into Salem or some of her stooges. By what you told me regarding Ozpin's history with her, this has been going on for a long time."
"She seems to prefer to pull strings from afar and use others to achieve her goals," Glynda said. "It would seem that she rarely if ever ventures out from wherever it is that she calls home. If she prefers to utilize subtlety and manipulation much of the time, it is entirely possible that you may have crossed paths with some who were in her employ and never knew the difference."
"I suppose," he conceded. "And despite my travels and activities I've tried to stay under the radar as much as I can and I've tried to avoid throwing around too much power to keep from being too noticeable. I guess it's possible that I've never caught her attention enough for her to be concerned. Under the circumstances that's both good and bad. I'll be a surprise she didn't count on, but if I had run across her earlier she wouldn't still be a problem now."
"And before you get any ideas that isn't your fault either so don't take the blame for it," she warned him, scowling herself as he rolled his eyes.
"Fine, fine," he sighed. "I won't. Just so long as you stop trying to carry so much of the weight for what happened here. I know how you feel about your students despite that gruff and serious exterior you show them." She glared at him and he ignored it with a knowing smirk. "But you know as well as I do that you can't be everywhere. You couldn't be up in the tower with Pyrrha Nikos, and you couldn't be down in the library with Yang Xiao Long. They chose to act as true Huntresses despite only being first year students and I know for a fact that even if you had only been instructing them for one semester thus far, they were already better than they were when they arrived on campus and it was because of you."
"It's hard not to feel responsible," she lamented. "Unfortunately I have lost students before and the question of 'did I train them poorly', or 'did I not prepare them well enough', always arises. I can't help but feel that I didn't do enough even if I can't find the holes that prove it."
"That's no different than how I've felt since everything collapsed," he said quietly. "It a matter of scale but the way we each feel isn't any different." He took a sip of his wine. "I have to say though, this whole situation fits right into the same weirdness I was part of before."
"How so?" she asked.
"Myths and fairy tales that turn out to be true," he began. "In my world, in my country, shinigami in whatever form they were described and interpreted were thought to be creatures of old religious myths and folk tales. Yet they turned out to be real and I was the child of one. Other countries and religions had their own tales of death gods and reapers of souls but I have no idea if any of them were real too since I never encountered any or heard anyone speak of them. Some also had various forms of creator gods but I never saw or heard evidence to confirm that any of those existed either."
"There is something I have been wondering about ever since Ozpin revealed that the tale of the two brother gods who created life on Remnant was actually supposed to be true," Glynda said. "After you told me about your life and how Remnant is what is left of your world and the dimensions that were linked to it, I often wondered how life came to this world again."
"After I woke up the second time and had my wits about me I began to wonder the same thing," he admitted. "I had heard that tale before and wondered if it meant that I hadn't been the only one to survive. Thing is, I don't think even the Soul King was powerful enough to create life. He was the power that kept the dimensions from collapsing into each other and the shinigami were his tools to aid in that by regulating the flow and balance of souls in those dimensions. I haven't really thought much about it in a long time and you telling me that it is supposed to be true makes me wonder if maybe there weren't other more powerful beings out there. The only other possibility that I can think of is that the sheer power of the dimensions collapsing either altered something or someone or created something new and they became the basis of that story. I can't even think of a time frame for it because I have no idea how long I was asleep for originally."
"Well whatever they were they didn't do us any favours," she groused. "They gave us the Grimm and left us with the relics we have to try and keep hidden."
"Not to mention Seasonal Maidens and silver eyed warriors," he added by way of poking at her. "And Ozpin's body hopping."
She glared at him again. "Don't remind me. He could have ended up anywhere and we have no way of finding him short of him coming here or someone stumbling across him." She sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair. "With the CCT down we can't even contact and coordinate with the other Headmasters. James has gone back to Atlas and Leo in Haven has been almost impossible to get in touch with lately and that in itself is worrisome."
"Any chance that she's gotten to him?" he asked. He didn't know the man so he had no idea about his strengths or his resolve.
"I would like to think not," she answered glumly. "But considering how we've already been caught so off guard already it would be foolish to think it wasn't a possibility and his being so hard to reach is out of character."
"We'll have to consider him suspicious for now I guess," he said. "But there are other things to get to first, like taking back Beacon. We know why she wants it and so far she's had the upper hand. We need to deal her a blow she wasn't expecting and get the school out of her control."
"There are hundreds of Grimm on the grounds and in the air up there Ichigo," she reminded him. "Between experienced Huntsmen and students we have enough to keep them out of the city provided that they don't attack in large numbers, but we can't press an attack against them either."
"You won't have to," he told her. "I'll be taking them out at the school. You and the others will need to pick off any stragglers that run toward the city. I'll try to make sure that their only way out if they run is back through the Emerald Forest but some could still get through."
"You're going to take out hundreds of Grimm by yourself?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"What, you think I can't?" he smirked.
"No, I'm sure that you can, but we want to have a school left to go back to and I've seen the kind of ridiculous power you can throw around." There was that scolding teacher look again, which was pretty much completely wasted with her dressed in his borrowed clothes and with her hair down. Pretty much killed the intimidation factor that usually cowed her students. Not that it ever worked on him anyway.
"Don't worry, I won't do any more damage to the buildings or grounds than I have to," he promised. "Other than the dragon and airborne Grimm I won't be throwing around a lot of my power. I plan on taking out the ground bound Grimm with my blades and lower powered techniques."
"I'm going to hold you to that," she said. "Cause any more significant damage and I will begin to think that you're all power and no finesse."
He laughed. "There was a time when that was very much the case and my friends never failed to remind me of it. I've been training for centuries with the two best teachers I could ever have and unlike then I now know the power I have and I have the skill to go with it. I'll clear out the Grimm and give Beacon back to you Glyn-chan. You'll have it back up and running in no time."
Despite her lingering fatigue, sleep was difficult for her and she felt that the numbers 0300 displayed in green on the bedside clock were mocking her. Sleep should not have been a problem even with the several hours she had after Ichigo brought her to his apartment, and especially not after the great, stress relieving sex they'd had. They had both needed that and how, but apparently there was still too much on her mind to allow her to rest. Must have been the same for him since the space next to her in the bed that he had been occupying was empty. She had a pretty good idea where he would be.
Climbing out of bed she slipped back into the shirt she had borrowed and quietly headed for the living room where she found Ichigo standing outside on the balcony dressed in nothing but a pair of shorts and looking up at the fractured moon. In a way he was just like that moon, broken but still here. She was just as aware of the scars he bore on the inside as the ones she could see on his body in the cold light of the moon and it was remarkable to her that he was still sane. She knew that he had lost himself when he first awoke in this world and the fact that he had been able to regain himself was nothing short of a miracle.
Sliding the glass doors open she joined him, the near winter frigid night air biting at her. It only lasted a moment before she felt his reiatsu wrap around her like a warm blanket and push away the chill. She had never told him so but whenever he did that it felt like it resonated deep in her soul and she often wondered if parts of her soul had once been part of someone who had been really close to him in his past. Over the years she had managed to get him to tell her stories about his friends. After a while even he had to admit that it was good for him to talk about them and that it helped him cope and he learned to cherish those memories rather than be suffocated by them and his guilt over losing them.
She was glad that she had met him, glad that they had come to mean something to each other. He filled in something that was missing in her life. Someone she could show a different face to than the one she showed the rest of the world most of the time. She could relax and let her defences down around him. He had once told her that if it wasn't for her he may never have attempted to reconnect with society and would have continued to wander Remnant as a largely unknown and solitary soul. She was glad to hold such a special status in his heart and she was glad that she could help him reconnect and be even just a little bit less of a lone entity. He may not be nearly who or what he was at one time in that regard, but at least over the time that she had known him he had finally begun to heal and bit by bit, forgive himself.
"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked him.
He shook his head. "Our conversation earlier had me thinking again about why it was that I survived when everything collapsed. Physically survived," he amended when he saw the look on her face. "This isn't an angst moment, just true curiosity. Did someone or something intervene? Is there something about my hybrid nature that did it?" He smirked. "Did Orihime focus all of her will through her powers to keep me alive? That sounds like something she'd do."
"Maybe you defined your own fate," she suggested. "At the end your desire to protect overrode all else. You couldn't protect what was collapsing but you were determined to protect what came out of it."
He got a far away look in his eyes. "If fate is a millstone, then we are the grist. There is nothing we can do. So I wish for strength. If I cannot protect them from the wheel, then give me a strong blade, and enough strength to shatter fate."
Her head turned to him sharply, a questioning look in her eyes. "What is that from?"
"It's something I was thinking when we were going home from stopping Rukia's execution," he answered. "Maybe that's what I did, I shattered my own fate and survived so that I can look after this world." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Haven't been quite doing the job so far but I think I've finally pulled my head out of my ass. They'd all be disappointed in the way I've been acting for so long and I'm kinda sick of feeling sorry for myself and beating myself half to death over it. It's about time I moved on and stopped spending all of my time hiding in the shadows and got back to living. But in order to do that we have to stomp down a witch first."
"I can tell by the look on your face that you're planning something," she warned. "What are you up to?"
"When I go up there to kill that dragon I'm going to make sure that I get noticed," he smirked. "She has to have eyes and ears on the place so I'm going to give her a display she can't miss. A little shock and awe and a whole lot of dead Grimm."
Her eyes widened. "You're going to use your hollow form aren't you?"
He nodded. "I talked it over with my spirits. We want her to turn all of her focus on me. We want her to see me as the biggest threat that she needs to eliminate if her plans are to continue. What she had Cinder do was designed to divide the kingdoms, to make them mistrust each other. I want to divide her attention and have as much of it as possible on me. Any time and resources she has to spend on dealing with me are time and resources she can't use on anyone else. And I'm willing to bet that she only has a limited number of lackeys that aren't Grimm that she can send after me. She'll be sending them to their deaths."
"She might have people working on her behalf that have no choice in the matter or who don't even know it," she cautioned him.
"And we'll deal with them as we go along," he assured her. "The unwilling or coerced will get the benefit of the doubt, the willing and complicit won't. Their fate will depend on what they decide to do when I stand before them. Adam Taurus will die either way so his fate is already sealed."
"I'm sorry that you have to be involved in this Ichigo," she said sadly as she looked up into this eyes. "I really am. You shouldn't have to face something like this again."
"I should have been involved long before this," he said. "I've been fooling myself for way too long and hiding behind the belief that I was doing enough when I knew in my guts that I wasn't, that there was a greater threat out there than just the Grimm." He wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him. "You have my word Glyn-chan, I'm fully involved now and I will put an end to Salem and her plans. The witch has my full attention and she'll only live just long enough to regret it."
Two days later Glynda, Oobleck, Port, and every experienced and student Huntsman at their disposal were deployed along the borderline between the city itself and Beacon. Port and Oobleck had been filled in on the truth about Ichigo. He felt it was about time that they knew and they wouldn't be quite as surprised by what he was going to do and could help keep the others calm. Glynda herself was stationed near the air transit terminal with some of her students, Team CFVY. Team CRDL had already been given a position away from the others if for no other reason that to keep from having a fight breakout between the teams. Despite everything that had happened CRDL's leader still didn't know how to keep his bigoted mouth shut and Team CFVY had not forgotten his past treatment of their team mate Velvet.
'Maybe I should let Ichigo have a word or two with Winchester and his team.' Glynda thought evilly, careful to hide the smirk that threatened to break out on her face at the idea.
"Are you expecting another Huntsman Professor Goodwitch?" CFVY's leader, Coco Adel asked her.
Glynda turned to see Ichigo walking up the road behind them, silhouetted by the early morning sun. She rolled her eyes at his entrance and she could almost see the smirk on his face even from this distance. She could also feel the traces of his power rolling off of him as he neared. He had lowered his power levels enough that people would be able to feel it.
"Yes I am," she answered. "He's the reason why we are here. He's going to clear the grounds of Grimm and we are going to take care of any stragglers that try to flee into the city."
There was dead silence and she could feel them all staring at her like she was crazy.
"Um, pardon me Professor, but...we couldn't have heard you right," Velvet said in her timid fashion.
"There's no way one Huntsman is going to even make a dent in the number of Grimm up there!" Coco bluntly declared. "That's just crazy!"
"I can assure you Miss Adel that I have not taken leave of my senses," she answered, again having to hide the smirk that threatened to break out. Ichigo was clearly a bad influence upon her. "And you did indeed hear me correctly Miss Scarlatina. He is going to wipe out the Grimm occupying Beacon. I have known him for a long time, I even trained under him when I was a student to ensure that I would get into Beacon when I was in danger of failing my combat school because I was having trouble controlling my Semblance."
"No offence Professor, but he looks like he could be young enough to be one of your students rather than a mentor," Coco said.
"No offence taken," she told the girl, although the look on her face said otherwise. It may have been the truth but for crying out loud she wasn't that old.
"But, how is he going to defeat all of those Grimm?" Velvet asked. "There are hundreds of them."
"Do you all feel that warm sensation of static against your skin right now?" she asked them. They nodded and agreed that they did. "That is the feel of his power and an immeasurable fraction of it at that. He has lowered its level so that we can actually perceive it. Between his power and his speed the Grimm will not be able to touch him. I know you have more questions and you will have even more once this is over but for now we have a job to do and a city to protect. I will expect you all to be ready and do your best."
"Of course Professor," Coco answered. "You can count on us."
She could tell they were still disbelieving but that would change shortly even if they weren't going to actually be able to see him fighting. The first act should be more than enough to convince them. "Of that I have no doubt. I'll will return in a moment."
She walked toward Ichigo, shaking her head at the smirk she could see in his face. "You just had to make an entrance didn't you? I never figured you for the type."
"Eh, if I'm going to make a big display I might as well make an impression before hand," he laughed. "Is everything ready down here?"
"Everyone is in place," she confirmed. "Although I think Team CFVY thinks I am insane. I am going to enjoy the looks on their faces when you light things up." She looked further down the line to where Team CRDL was set up. "If we didn't need every available Huntsman I wouldn't have them here. Bullies and bigots all of them. I keep hoping they will straighten up. Maybe when you let loose it will scare them enough to take some of the starch out of them."
"Maybe I'll pay them a visit later," he sneered. "Might be fun. Maybe I'll introduce them to Zangetsu. He likes scaring the piss out of bullies."
She rolled her eyes. "That might be a little excessive but somehow there is a little part of me that would like to see that. You are a bad influence Ichigo."
"And you like it," he smirked. "Just be careful down here."
"I will, but you know I can take care of myself. I have you to thank for that after all."
"I'd kiss you but I wouldn't want to ruin your image in front of your students," he joked.
"And I appreciate you being so considerate," she said with appropriate sarcasm. "You'll just have to be sure to make up for it later."
"I'll be sure to do that," he promised. "After today I'll give Salem a couple of days to digest things. In the meantime I was thinking of going and visiting Tai and his girls and see how they're doing. You should go with me."
"There will be a lot to do here," she said. "But I'll think about it. I am worried about both girls and I haven't seen Taiyang in a while. Qrow will likely be there but I suppose I can put up with him. Now, get going. The sooner we get this done the better."
"Yes ma'am," he said. He took one step and ended up twenty feet in the air between her and her students, who were all staring at him open mouthed. "I'll try not to let too many get past me." With a swish and in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
He reappeared in the air next to Beacon Tower and the dragon that sat frozen and dormant on its edge.
"Not bad Little Red, not bad at all." He sighed and looked to a specific spot in the middle of what was once Ozpin's office. "I'm sorry you had to see a friend die in order to bring that power out."
He looked around and saw the grounds absolutely crawling with Grimm, the sky was full of them too and it made his blood boil. He had seen this school filled with bright eyed and optimistic young people who wanted to do their best to help their world and now it was reduced to this. And for what? He didn't even care what Salem's motivation was, didn't care if she was siding with the mythical God of Destruction or if she was mad at the world because she had a bad childhood and was all butt hurt about it...it didn't matter in the least.
"You guys ready?" he asked his spirits.
"Hell yeah King," his hollow cackled. "Let's give this witch a show she ain't gonna forget!"
"Show Salem who protects this world Ichigo," the Old Man added calmly but with a hard edge to his voice.
"All right then," Ichigo said by way of agreement, a Zaraki-esque grin on his face.
Reaching up over his right shoulder he grasped the handle of his large blade and pulled it forth, twirling it once before extending it straight out in front of him. Since learning it he probably used Resurreccion more often than he used his bankai, and he didn't use that very much. There was no need, he hadn't encountered anything yet were he actually needed to use that much power to defeat it. When he used Resurreccion it was mostly just to let Zangetsu have some fun slaughtering Grimm, even if they posed little challenge. He didn't even need to use the release, he could just let him take over but this was a different occasion. Handing over control didn't make much of a disturbance but they wanted a big show here so they decided to forgo the shortcut and be more...formal about it.
Grasping his right wrist with his left hand as he rose above the damaged tower, he let his power begin to flow. "Reign, Zangetsu!"
The world exploded, or at least that's what it looked like to anyone who was watching. He was obscured by a blast of black and red energy that swirled around him like a hurricane, the wind screaming like a tortured beast. The shock wave exploded outward and slammed through the airborne Grimm with pure brute force, smashing and crushing nearly all of them and filling the sky with their dissipating, smoky black remains. Every living thing across the kingdom and beyond felt like a suffocating weight had been dropped upon them and it felt very much like a blade was at their throats.
All of the Huntsmen and Huntresses gathered to protect the city, even the experienced ones felt the killing intent and the cold feeling of death sliding down their spines. The students stood shaking, both terrified and in awe of what they were seeing. Only one person stood like an island of calm, arms crossed beneath her breasts and the riding crop held in her right hand idly tapping against her side.
"Show off," she cracked with a smirk, making those near her wonder about her sanity.
When the black and red fountain of energy suddenly burst outward, killing any other airborne Grimm that hadn't been wise enough to leave the area already, she was the only one who knew what was there, he was too far away for anyone to see him. Good thing really, because the sight of that pale white body clad only in a pair of ragged hakama, the demonic horned mask, and the hole in the middle of his chest would have sent many of them fleeing. If not that then the ear splitting and monstrous roar that came from him certainly would have and very nearly did if not for her stern glare holding them in place and her orders to stand fast.
Ichigo's instincts told him that he was indeed being watched and it wasn't just by the hundreds of Grimm down below. He let himself drop until he was just below the frozen dragon and he stared into its stony face as he let the red orb of a Cero form between his horns. He was going to obliterate it totally, no fatal wounding and letting it dissipate, he was going for a clean and total burn. Fortunately his control was such now that he could limit the amount of inevitable damage he was going to do to the tower.
He let the doom blast go and in less than three seconds the Grimm dragon was just a bad memory. The crimson Cero continued on through the sky on a slightly upward trajectory for miles, slowly dissipating as it went. Ichigo turned back to the hordes of Grimm populating the campus and growled before disappearing in a static burst of Sonido.
Within a dimly lit castle in a rocky, desolate, twilight landscape that seemed impossibly close to the fractured moon, the master of the Grimm sat at the head of a long, rough hewn table, gazing out the windows at Remnant's shattered satellite. It was a moment of idle and peaceful speculation after a meeting with her underlings and she was rather satisfied that things were progressing according to plan. A Seer entered the room and came towards her seemingly in a hurry which immediately caught her interest. The vision it showed her was that of an otherwise unidentifiable orange haired man dressed mostly in black with a large sword on his back...and he was standing in midair next to the frozen dragon that was perched on the edge of Beacon Tower. Her brows furrowed at this but before she could ponder it the man rose higher into the air and pulled the sword from his back. A moment later the world exploded in a storm of black and red energy. The pressure wave radiating out from him was almost visible and it tore through most of the flying Grimm, reducing them to a cloud of rapidly dissipating black vapour.
She tensed up, not knowing what she was witnessing. Who was this man and how could he hold such power? When the storm of energy broke even she was chilled to the bone with the demonic roar that seemed to shake the very air and at the sight of what now stood in the air above Beacon. Something stirred in her mind, the recollection of tales centuries old or more that described something very much like what she was looking at now, tales that even she thought to be mere myth or the over embellishment of something with a small grain of truth to it.
Many of the tales simply referred to the being as Death because that was all that was left in its wake. The mask, the horns, the ashen white skin, and the most disconcerting, the hole in its chest certainly gave credence to that notion. She had seen areas of the world where this creature had supposedly left its mark but as time went on she had dismissed it as the overcooked stories of a more primitive time. Obviously she could not do that now. Her eyes widened as the creature drifted down in the sky to a position in front of and just below the dragon that the silver eyed girl had incapacitated. A crimson orb of energy began to grow between the creatures horns and before she could utter a sound of alarm it fired and in mere seconds the dragon was gone with not a trace left to be seen.
She shot to her feet and had the edge of the table in a death grip. This was not possible! Even in its frozen state there should not be any single being powerful enough in this world to kill it let alone obliterate it like it was nothing!
Her attention was drawn back to what the Seer was showing her when the demon suddenly disappeared. The Seer at Beacon that was providing the view frantically twisted and turned, looking for the beast. She could hear Grimm dying by the dozens and every so often a blur could be seen moving among them, little more than a sudden appearance and disappearance that occurred at almost the same moment. The air was full of the slowly fading smoky vapour of hundreds of dead Grimm. He was killing all of them...one man, one demon, whatever he was he was wiping out all of the Grimm she had sent to make sure Beacon was in her sole control and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was losing control and possession of the relic!
If Beacon was liberated and all of the Grimm killed, it would give hope back to the people of Vale and it would give hope to others outside the kingdom as the word spread. This was a critical setback and it was coming at the hands of something that should only exist on the crumbling pages of some ancient book of folk tales and myths!
She continued to watch and listen to the destruction the Seer was showing her, her rage growing and boiling. She nearly jumped back when something suddenly appeared in front of the Seer at Beacon. It clicked and clacked furiously and she heard the sickening squelch as its attempts to defend itself failed and its tentacles were ripped off. A crack appeared in the orb as a clawed hand seized it and she found herself face to face with the demon and staring into its black and yellow eyes.
"Well well," the creature said, its voice a mocking, watery, warbling, double timbre. Even to her it was a very chilling sound. "There you are witch. It wasn't very nice of you to send all these little pests here but it's all good now since they're all dead. So weak it was hardly worth the effort."
"Who...or what are you?" she seethed. She did not like the feeling she was getting from this creature, it made her feel like it was looming over her very soul and was ready to tear it to shreds.
"I'm a lot of things," it answered. "None of which you've ever heard of." The beast chuckled and it was no less a chilling sound than its voice. "You could say that I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." It chuckled again, a little more maniacally this time. "I've always wanted to say that."
"You're insane," she challenged.
"I'm even worse than insane," it countered darkly. "I've already been to the dark side of the mind and back, but I've remained mostly unknown since then."
"So you are the beast from the myths," she surmised.
"The myths pale in comparison to reality," he said. "And you've made the worst mistake you ever could witch. You've gained my attention and given me reason to show myself. You've reminded me of why I exist and that is not a good thing for you."
"And just why do you exist?" she asked, regaining a bit of her calm.
"To protect," he growled. "To rid the world of threats like you so that the world can live in peace."
She projected an air of amusement even if that was not what she felt. "I have roamed this world for centuries demon, and I am capable of things you cannot dream of."
The demon then shocked her by beginning to laugh, a laugh that mocked her and suggested that he was truly amused by her claim and that it meant nothing to him. "Witch, I can read your face like the pages of a book. I unnerve you, I am a variable you didn't count on and can't account for." It pinned her with its gaze and even through the Seer it felt like he was looking directly into her soul. "I am older than this world. I was here before it ever existed. I have fought and killed things far more powerful than you could ever hope to be. You are nothing but an annoying little bug. I will slaughter your Grimm by the thousand. I will kill every minion and lackey you send and dismantle all of your schemes until you and your despair are all that is left."
"Do not underestimate me beast," she said darkly.
"Still talking tough?" the demon mocked. The tone of its voice was now even more ominous. "You wanted to know what I am so I'll tell you the truth. I'm a Death God, a reaper of souls, but with no afterlife anymore all that's left is the black oblivion of the absence of life. Too bad that Hell's gone too. I would love nothing more than to see those gates open after I kill you and see the Kushanada drag your screaming soul into the depths for an eternity of punishment." He moved closer to the Seer until his black and yellow eyes were all that she could see. "I am coming for you Salem and there is nothing you can do to stop me. There won't be any mercy."
The image cracked even more then shattered, cutting off the beast's maniacal laughter and actually causing her to jerk away and stumble back into her chair. Sending the Seer away she took a moment to calm herself. Undoubtedly the creature was powerful, what he did at Beacon was proof of that. But a Death God? Preposterous. Its talk of the afterlife and Hell could be nothing but the product of insanity. Undeniably however it had dealt her a serious blow in liberating Beacon and she could not dismiss the enormous threat it posed. She would have to find out who this man was that turned into such a beast and kill him, he posed too much of a danger to the plans she had been patiently crafting for so long. But she was nothing if not patient. She could take the time to work through this like she always did and she would eventually get what she wanted. She was confident that everything she wanted would come in time.
Why then did it feel like something cold and ominous was crawling down her spine?
One moment there was nothing in front of them, and in the next with the sound of a static burst there was a creature that could only come from one's nightmares. The students were startled but didn't run, perhaps being too shocked to do so. Most warily raised their weapons at the beast that simply stood there with a massive blade held in one clawed hand and a much smaller trench knife styled blade in the other.
"Hold your positions," Glynda commanded in a sighing tone filled with exasperation. The students caught this and were rather bewildered by the site of their Professor holding her glasses in one hand and pinching the bridge of her nose with the other. She put the glasses back on and with a stern look on her face she purposely strode towards the monster.
"Professor!" the leader of Team CFVY and her rabbit eared team mate both called out in concern.
"It's all right ladies," she bit out sternly. "No harm will come to any of us."
She stared the beast in the eyes as she stopped within arms reach. The two stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity to those around them before Professor Goodwitch raised her riding crop and soundly smacked the monster right between the horns with it.
"Transform back right now or else I'll hit you again," she warned crossly.
"Ah you're no fun Glyn-chan," the beast said quietly enough that only she heard it.
A red tinged black mist began to flow off of the creature, finally engulfing it entirely before dissipating to reveal Ichigo looking just as he did before he went up to the school. He wasn't alone however. To his right, dressed in his white shihakusho and grinning like a madman was Hollow Zangetsu. To his left was Old Man Zangetsu. She promptly swatted both Ichigo and his Hollow in the head with he riding crop.
"Ow!" Ichigo yelped as he rubbed the sore spot.
"Hey, what'd I do?" the Hollow protested.
"If it wasn't your idea then it was his so I am merely saving time by punishing you both," she explained, trying to keep the smirk off her face.
"Actually we all agreed upon it," the Old Man said calmly.
Her eyes widened for a moment as she turned towards him. She pointed her crop at him menacingly. "You are supposed to be the reasonable one of the group! First that form and now all three of you appearing," she looked at Ichigo. "Did you hit your head while you were up there and lose your senses?"
"Didn't see the harm in letting people you teach and trust know," he said. "Not like I'm going to reveal it to the general population or anything."
She sighed in exasperation. "Team CFVY can be counted on to keep a secret. She glanced down the line. "Team CRDL on the other hand are not quite so reliable just yet."
"I can have a little chat with them later," Hollow Zangetsu offered with a crazed grin. "I may even be able to convince them to straighten up and cause you fewer headaches. For the bunny girl's sake too." He was aware of Team CRDL's feelings about the Faunus and he didn't like their antics anymore than Ichigo did.
"Not that I can stop you but just promise me that there will be no violence," she said.
"Sure, take all the fun out of it," he groused. "Don't worry, I won't hurt them. I owe you that much. You've been the best thing to happen to the King, to us, since we woke up here so I'll respect your request."
"We will go and make sure that the buildings and the sub levels are free of any stragglers," the Old Man said. "We will let you know when it's clear Ichigo."
"All right," he acknowledged. "We'll get ready to fly some of the staff up so they can assess the damage." At that the two spirits disappeared, headed back up to the school.
"So, do you think she got your message?" Glynda asked him.
"Oh she got it alright," he grinned. "She had a small Grimm that looks like a black crystal ball with tentacles watching everything. When I caught it I could see her through it, it seems to act like a communication device too. We had a little chat. She covered it pretty well but I know I got to her. Taking back Beacon was a major blow to her."
"If only the CCT wasn't down," she lamented. "This would be a perfect time to get in touch with the others and get the word out that Beacon is liberated and to get more information out there about the attack and ease people's fears."
"I can always use a garganta to get us places quickly so we can get the word out," he suggested. "And if the techs are having trouble getting the CCT here back up we can also hit Ironwood up for a little help since the system is built on Atlas tech."
"Unfortunately that falls into the hands of the Council and they seem to be only just keeping themselves from panicking about things," she said glumly. "They're behaving like typical politicians. Despite the state of things they are still arguing with each other over what to do. It has to do with the provisions of the CCT Act. The system runs on a cooperative effort between the kingdoms and with no long range communications because the system is down they are worried about violating the terms of the act by acting without that cooperation to try and fix the system. They can't even decide on who should travel to the other kingdoms to discuss it."
"This is why I always tried to stay out of the politics of any situations I've been in," Ichigo growled. "What stupidity. Should just go take care of it ourselves. It would be worth the headache for me to go and scream at them after it's done and drill some freaking logic into their heads."
"I'm going to have a hard enough time explaining to them how we managed to regain control of the school and explaining that show you put on," she told him. "With Ozpin gone I have to represent Beacon now."
"You won't have to face them alone," he assured her. "We'll tell them what they need to know and nothing else and I will make it clear to them that there is no time for their political games and bullshit. They're supposed to be leaders so it's time for them to actually lead."
She gave him another tap with her crop. "You have no concept of subtlety," she admonished lightly. "But if they continue to act as they are then things will only get worse. Fine, we'll see if we can give them a jolt, just don't overdo it."
"Me?" he asked incredulously, unable to keep the amused smile off his face.
"Yes you," she returned. "Her face turned slightly red. "As a matter of fact I was nearly late meeting everyone this morning to go over the plan because you had to overdo things."
He smiled. "Hey, I didn't hear any complaints at the time and you were the one that asked me to join you in the shower."
Her face turned redder and she hit him with her riding crop again. "Oh shut up." She had to wait for him to stop laughing before she spoke again, which was good because she used the time to regain her composure. "Thank you Ichigo," she said sincerely. "Thank you for returning Beacon to us."
"You're welcome," he acknowledged. "I know how much this place means to you and I know how much defeating that witch means to you too. I can't undo the damage that was done while I stayed hiding in the shadows and didn't get involved, but I will do whatever it takes and fight whatever shows its ugly head so that you and everyone else can live in peace."
She looked to see a bluish glow come to his eyes. "I swear it on my soul."