Justice for the Soul
Chapter 2
A Universe of Nightmares
"So, my name is Kisuke Urahara, care to tell me who you people are and where you are from," Kisuke asked them, the names clenched it for the heroes, they were in Japan, but in the Japan of a different universe, with enemies that they were powerless against.
"I'm Superman, with me are Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkgirl, and Batman, we come from another world, we wound up here by a complete accident with a teleporter, so we're stuck here until we find a way back," Superman introduced and explained the situation.
"Awe, yes, the man who was able to fight a high leveled Arrancar, and win with no damage to yourself, that was quite impressive considering you're only human, I'm assuming you're human at least," Kisuke stated as he eyed the Martian with a studying eye, a scientist's eye.
"Not all of us, in fact, I'm from a planet called Krypton, Martian Manhunter is from Mars, and Hawkgirl is from a planet called Thanagar, the rest are from our universe's Earth," Superman informed, hoping that he could get that out of the way first and foremost.
Kisuke grinned behind his fan, "Mayuri owes me a ton," he muttered to himself before speaking at a normal volume, "well, you all did some interesting stuff back there, would you like to discuss that here, or back at my place over some fresh tea, it's safer there," he asked gesturing around them.
The rest of the league nodded, except for Batman who was figuring some things out about what they just witnessed, it didn't take long to make it to the deceptively small shop, it was twice its size on the inside, and when they got inside they saw the kids from the park there and healing. "It's great to see you are doing well, the others are resting Kisuke, let's take this to the training area," the woman named Yoruichi suggested once she noticed them, which was as soon as they got inside, her detection skills were impressive and surprising to the league, except Batman.
Once they got to a panel, they uncovered it and they all headed inside, those that could fly flew down, those that couldn't like flash and Batman, just went down normally, aside from flash who sped down, once they were all down though, the questions began. "Now, would you mind showing us your powers, or telling us more about yourselves," Kisuke asked from behind his fan, the league all looked at one another, they didn't really trust this man, and they needed to know that before they could just show him their powers.
"No offense mister Urahara, but we don't fully trust you, so we would like a show of faith that we can trust you, such as telling us how Batman was able to fight against an opponent that not even Superman could fight against," Wonder Woman asked what was on everyone's minds.
"Very well, Batman, you were able to go against these beings because you have what is known as spiritual pressure, or reiatsu if you prefer, this is the only reason you were able to damage the Arrancar you fought against, and the fact that you won tells how much you have," Yoruichi informed.
"Just physical strength does nothing, nothing other than reiatsu can do anything other than make them annoyed, every being has reiatsu, but the amount you have determines what you can do after you die, most just wait in the afterlife until they are put in the reincarnation cycle. There are those that have abnormally high levels of reiatsu, they are known as soul reapers, almost like grim reapers, they fairy souls of those that have died to the afterlife, but not every soul can be gotten to in time, then they become hollows, beings that devour other souls. They also wear a bone mask formed from their heart, which is why they have holes in their chests, once a hollow removes the mask they wear is when things get complicated, through the use of an object called the hogyoku, these hollows gain the powers of a soul reaper. This includes a sword called a zanpakuto, thus strengthening their powers and making it that much harder to purify their soul, which is what killing them with a zanpakuto does, purifies their souls and sends them either back to the afterlife for reincarnation, or to hell for their sins. Back to Batman though, you have an abnormally high level of reiatsu, meaning that you can interact with any hollow, not just Arrancars, and if you wish to fight with us, we can teach you some kido spells to aid you in the fights," Kisuke offered, since they might be helping out.
"Wait, you said spells, that implies magic, meaning that my mace should have done something, it has magic hindering properties that allow damage to be done to magic users, yet it didn't, why," Hawkgirl asked, as she held out her mace in front of her to show it to them.
"We say kido spells, or just plain kido, because it's a lot easier way of saying, 'cool stuff we can do with our energy,' do you want us to say that from now on as to not confuse you, or do you think we can get back to calling it kido spells," Yoruichi asked sarcastically with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Hehehe, got you there Hawkgirl," Flash said with a light chuckle before going to flirt mode and zooming to stand next to Yoruichi, "so, as you can see, I'm the fastest man alive, able to travel at a speed that I've yet to try and find out, what about you, what can you do," he asked 'flirtatiously.'
Yoruichi just decided to show him a little something and disappeared from sight with a quick flash-step before appearing behind the 'fastest man alive' and stayed there until he was about to turn his head to see where she went, that was when she flash-stepped to stand on his head. Miraculously, she was able to do so without alerting him to her presence, how she was able to do so remained a mystery to the other leaguers, and it kind of spooked them out to no end, Flash even more so when she spoke from on his head, "fast, but predictable and amateurish at best."
When Flash raised his head to get her off, she was already gone and standing next to Kisuke as if she had been there the entire time, said man himself was grinning like a madman behind his fan, "since we've already seen Flash, would anyone else like to give a demonstration," he asked them.
Wonder woman decided to step up, well, step over to a bolder and pick it up with one hand before putting it down, then she flew a little bit in a circle before landing back down gracefully, "my bracelets can also deflect bullets while my lasso is unbreakable," she informed them.
Martian Manhunter did the same thing with the bolder, flew the same path before landing gracefully, and finally shape shifted into Kisuke before going back, "I am also able to read minds," he stated stoically, the two soul reapers just stared at him for a moment before shrugging.
The next one was Superman, he picked up the bolder with one hand and bounced it around, flew the path faster before hovering a little and carving an s with his heat vision, blew it cool with his freeze breath, and finally touched down, "also have super hearing and x-ray vision," he informed.
"He reminds me of Ichigo a little bit, too overpowered, while it wouldn't be an issue if it was facing an invasion of living world beings, this is a threat that means he's next to useless, even with the advanced stuff," Yoruichi commented to Kisuke quietly, but said person still heard her.
"I know, at least Ichigo has his uses, this guy is like a supped-up sports car with no gas power, and to be honest, I'm scared to see what Green Lantern has to offer since Superman's power was so lacking," Kisuke commented back as quietly, it didn't help that Superman still heard what they said.
"Oh, I'll show you what I got," Green Lantern said before he summoned forth the biggest construct he could, it started at the feet before it built itself and formed a huge robot that reached the ceiling of this underground structure, with all kinds of weaponry, from swords to missiles. "This ring allows me to make anything that I will it to make, the ring is empowered with the green color of will, there is nothing stronger than will," the thing is, the lantern believed this to be true, so when Kisuke took out his cane sword and just carved the thing in half, he was understandably shocked.
"I never heard of will having a color attached to it, I've heard of being green with envy, sickly green, red with rage, sad blue, and deathly pale, but I've never heard of willful green, have you Kisuke," Yoruichi asked with a teasing grin, these heroes are fun to mess with.
"Will is part of the emotional spectrum, I don't know much about it, but I do know that yellow is fear, and that's only because one of the lantern's belonging to the corps went rogue and turned evil," Green Lantern informed with crossed arms and a scowling face at the comment.
"You do know that will isn't an emotion right, love is an emotion, hate is an emotion, fear is an emotion, but will is not an emotion, and for the record, fear being the color of yellow is just plain dumb, I would have assigned almost any other color except pink for fear," Kisuke commented.
"Exactly, if yellow is the color of fear, does that mean that you're afraid of the color yellow," Yoruichi asked with a grin before looking at their costumes, "so does that also mean you're afraid of your comrades, because of all the yellow," and that is where the two laughed, hard.
Green Lantern was clearly not amused with the reaction he was getting going by the scowl that seemed to be permanently edged into his face, when the two finally stopped their laughter and looked to Batman expectedly, he spoke stoically, "I don't have any powers," and that was it.
"So, to sum up, we have a guy that thinks will is an emotion and afraid of the color yellow, a man with a lot of bells and whistles and nothing to show for it, a green guy that can shift into very handsome people and read minds, a woman with very little on that has bracelets and a lasso useless to us. A man that has speed, but is very predictable with his speed, a girl with a mace, that is only useful against magic, that can fly with the giant wings on her back, but out of all of them, the most useful is the guy with no powers at all," Yoruichi summed up the entire showcase.
"That seems about right," Kisuke commented before he took note of something that she said, "turn into very handsome people," he repeated to her with a raised eyebrow, she shrugged with a smirk on her face and he shook his head.
"Hey, we are not all useless, there are tons we can do, such as move civilians away from the fighting, provide a distraction, or you could train us to develop our Reiatsu," Hawkgirl stated sounding very offended, and very mad, even raised her mace as if ready to fight.
"Listen, you all experienced what happened in that park, Superman's punch did nothing, as did Flash punching him at speeds that should have done something, Wonder Woman's magic empowered strength was useless, as was Hawkgirl's mace and Lantern's ring. The only other person that could have been of any use was Martian Manhunter, but now we can't even use him for infiltration, they can sense the differences in a person's spirit, and we don't even know how long it may take develop our reiatsu," Batman surmised.
"All of what was said is true, it will take a while to develop reiatsu, even longer given how strong the enemy is and how weak all of yours is, Martian Manhunter won't be of any use due to some complications with sensing and zanpakuto and how they work. The civilians won't be an issue, we already have a plan for when the final fight comes, so the rest of you are just going to be a hindrance, Batman won't be, but the reality of it is that the rest of you will be," Kisuke stated a little harshly while fanning his face.
"Kisuke, that's too harsh," another voice called out to him, the league all turned to see a teen walking towards them with orange hair dressed in a black shihakusho, he had a huge meat cleaver type sword hanging on his back.
"Ichigo, how're you doing, hope you're feeling better a little bit," Kisuke asked back to his cheery tone of voice, the way he's able to do that in an instant honestly creeped the league out, for that matter, everything about this guy creeped them out.
"Forget me, what was up with those hollows we faced, they had zanpakuto and everything, what are they, and for that matter, who are these people," Ichigo yelled at the man, he was clearly impatient and the league could tell he was thick headed.
"Don't worry about those hollows right now Ichigo, these are some people from another world that wound up here by accident, we're going to be helping them get back, and since you're all healed up, go home and rest," Yoruichi ordered as she pushed the boy out the door.
Once he was out of earshot, Flash spoke up, "why isn't he in on this little meeting, I mean, isn't he one of the people that can help," he sounded confused about something, and he wasn't the only one, the rest of the league shared his confused look.
"Yes, but not in his state, he needs to learn how to control a part of his power, a power that I can't help him with, also, he needs to learn some discipline, he acts too brashly and doesn't think, he just does things out of instinct, that is something we can't have in the days to come. When I say the days to come, it's more like a month, maybe longer, you came here at the worst possible moment for you, because this isn't going to be a battle, this is going to be a war," Kisuke said with a dark look in his eyes, the same look he had earlier before Ichigo came.
"Why do I feel like we just walked into a house of horrors," Flash asked with a very frightened look on his face, he could tell that there was a smile on Kisuke's face, a smile that said that they might not make it out alive.
"It can't be that bad Flash, all we have to do is train our reiatsu, it can't be that bad, right," Superman asked, he was the most powerful being on their world, whether or not he'll admit it is debatable, but he must still consider himself powerful if he thinks this.
"Oh, come on man, the first few minutes of arriving in this world, we encounter enemies that only Batman, who doesn't have any powers to begin with, can beat because we don't have reiatsu, which is the only thing that can hurt these guys," Flash started to point out the obvious.
"Then this man insults us while pointing out that we're all but useless against them and said it would be useless to train us with our reiatsu, calling us weak just because we can't access this reiatsu," Wonder Woman growled, if she could just get her hands on the man's throat.
"Not to mention keeping a kid around so that he can fight in said war that's coming, but won't tell said kid anything, I'm not a fan of sending a kid into a war in the first place, but at least give him information since he is," Green Lantern commented with crossed arms.
"Enough," Batman growled and forced the leaguers to look at him, "we don't have time for this, a war is coming, a war that only a select few can fight in, but until the war comes, we are all going to be training, and I do mean all of us, and we are not to interfere with Kisuke's decisions. This is not our world, our world is not as distorted as this one, yes, there is only one of us that can do anything against this threat, deal with it, we don't have time to debate something that is not our problem, we're helping, not giving advice," he ended things with a bat-glare for good measure.
"Fine," everyone chorused, they didn't like it, but they knew that Batman was right, they didn't have any right to mess with this world, or give advice when it wasn't theirs to give, and with a war coming, there really was no time to be arguing amongst themselves.
"Glad that everyone can agree, I hope you brought your pencils boys and girls, because it's now time for school to start, I can't wait to start," Kisuke said with a sickening smile, well, the smile itself wasn't sickening, it was the aura around him that made it sickening, "time for hell."
