Outsider Chronicles: Resolving a Tragedy

Being reborn is always a little odd, but being reborn into a world with an established afterlife is extremely odd. Add in the fact that my parents should not be able to have kids and a friend that literally eats humans and you got a life thats full of headaches. Aw well, at least I'm immortal!

And we're back. Nothing to add here, so lets dive straight in. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

"Alright, spill it, why did you invite him to join us?" asked Touka, jabbing a finger at me.

Kaneki had already been given his introduction to coffee as a Ghoul and sent on his way with a packet of long pork, leaving me to deal with the inevitable confrontation.

"Geeze, way to make me feel welcome Senpai," I said, ignoring the glare Touka sent my way.

"I invited him to work here because he is no more Human than we are," said Yoshimura, "Besides, he's probably known you weren't Human from the moment you met. Right Haru?"

"Pretty much," I said, "I could certainly tell you weren't Human since I sat down next to you on my first day. Didn't figure out you were a Ghoul until a bit later though."

Touka frowned.

"What do you mean?" she asked, "How can he not be Human? He's not a Ghoul."

"Right you are," I said.

"So then what are you?"

"A Vampire."

Touka stared at me.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Not at all," I said, "Vampire is one of the names my kind have been known by over the centuries. Technically though, we're called Bounts. We're a tribe of Humans who, through a rather unusual...mutation for want of a better word, have gained special abilities. We can absorb the Souls of Humans in order to extend our lifespan and gain certain abilities."

"They are also very rare," said Yoshimura, "As most of them are infertile, the number was thought to be limited and many of them were killed centuries ago. Young Haru here is the one and only exeption and is the only second generation Bount in existence."

"OK, how the hell do you know that?" I asked, "And while you're at it, perhaps you can explain exactly why every single Ghoul I've seen today seems to have Hollow Spiritual Pressure?"

"I know about you because I am very well connected," said Yoshimura, "And as for our Spiritual Pressure, the reason we feel like Hollows is because thats exactly what we are."

I blinked.

"What?"

"Its true," said Yoshimura, "The truth is, Ghouls have only existed for around 120 years. We are the result of a certain man's experiments with Souls and Hollows."

My eyes widened as I put two and two together. That certainly did explain why the body the Ghoul had killed had still had its Soul trapped within. Ghouls didn't consume the flesh, they consumed the Soul using the Flesh as a medium.

"There is a very good reason why Ghouls prefer their meat fresh," said Yoshimura, "When we kill a Human ourselves, the Soul is trapped within its body and we consume both at the same time. When we eat a body we find, we absorb the leftover Reishi within it, but don't get as much sustenance from it."

"Thats...crazy," I said, "So basically, your Hollows in Human form, right?"

"Correct."

"Then how come everyone but you has such low Spiritual Pressure?" I asked, "I doubt most Ghouls could even see a Human Soul."

"Because we are Human Souls mutated, not unlike the Souls of the Bounts," said Yoshimura, "As a result, most of us have Spiritual Energy comparable to that of Humans. That is unless we start feeding on other Ghouls."

I narrowed my eyes at Yoshimura.

"So how exactly do you know all this?" I asked.

"Because I'm not like other Ghouls," said Yoshimura, "I'm a lot older than you might think. In fact, I was one of the original guinea pigs used in our creator's experiments. Had that not occurred, I probably would have joined the Thirteen Court Guard Squads."

"I see," I muttered, "One last question. Do you know who it was that was behind the experiments?"

Yoshimura scowled.

"The Lieutenant of Squad Five at the time," he said, "Sosuke Aizen."

And that had to be the least surprising thing about this entire conversation. Honestly, that bespectacled bastard seemed to be behind just about everything that could possibly be even remotely related to the Soul Society. It wouldn't surprise me if he was somehow related to my birth. On second thoughts, lets not go there just in case it turns out I was somehow create my the Hogyoku or something. Actually, that would explain a lot… No, bad Haru, no thinking like that!

"What the hell are you two talking about?" asked Touka, apparently getting sick of having no clue what was going on.

"And I'll leave that explanation up to you Old Man," I said, getting to my feet, "As it is, I probably ought to be getting home before my parents send a search party out for me. See you tomorrow Touka!"

I made my escape before I could be dragged back into the conversation.


The next day dawned bright and early with a scolding from Mum for being out so late and nearly missing my curfew. Dad on the other hand seemed like he wasn't that worried and didn't seem at all surprised when I told them I had a job. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if he didn't know Yoshimura.

Anyway, I was on my way to school when I suddenly sensed Kaneki's Spiritual Pressure spike somewhere nearby along with Nishikis. I sighed as I realized what was going on and change my direction to head towards the bridge where the fighting was going on.

I arrived in time to see Kaneki succumbing to his instincts and start drooling all over Hide, about to chow down on a bit of tender rump n soul. I narrowed my eyes as I noticed that the drool that was running down Kaneki's face contained flecks of white that seemed to be becoming more concentrated as he approached Hide.

"I really hope thats not what I think it is," I muttered.

I shrugged off my suspicion for now and charged forwards, landing a solid kick to the back of Kaneki's head that sent him flying into the wall with a nasty crunch. I ignored the Half-breed as he slid down the wall to land in a heap as I checked on the much more squishy Hide. As I did, I caught a rather odd scent coming from the blonds Soul. It was strong, very strong, way to strong to belong to a normal Human and it utterly reeked to my senses. Normally, a strong Soul would make my mouth water, but Hide's smelt...off, like milk on the verge of going sour. It was still drinkable, but it certainly wasn't appetising.

A low growl drew my attention away from Hide and back to Kaneki as he struggled to his feet. As expected, he didn't look that worse for ware, other than the animalistic hunger clear in his eyes and the fragments of white that clung to his chin.

"Wow, you look terrible," I said, getting to my feet.

Kaneki just glared at me as his Kagune appeared and began to thrash around. I sighed and held up my Crest.

"Fine, I didn't really want to do this, but I guess I have no choice. Zeige Dich, Wolkenritter."

White smoke erupted from my bracer, covering my body and taking the form of my Doll. Since gaining him, I had discovered that the Knight form he held before was only his default form and the form he took in the event that we separated. While I wore him, Wolkenritter could take a variety of forms, depending on what I needed. If I needed high defence, he took the form of plate armour, speed, leather armour and so on. It also seemed that Wolkenritter had a rather strange sense of humor as many of the forms he took tended to be either references or jokes while still being extremely effective. Like right now for instance, I was fighting a crazed beast corrupted by a strange procedure so he took the form of the Hunters Gear from Bloodborne and even equipped me with a Saw Cleaver and Blunderbus.

"Really?"

"Hey, it works."

"Fine, lets just kick this morons ass before he Hollowfies."

As if to prove my point, Kaneki chose that moment to give a very Hollow like howl and pounced at me. I shot him point blank, before spinning on my heel and executing a perfect cut across his chest that would have been a flawless Visceral attack in Bloodborne. As it is, it proved that Spirit based weapons like my Doll can cut a Ghouls skin as I opened a gash in Kaneki's chest and sent him flying back again. I slammed my foot into the feral Ghouls back, forcing him down onto the floor as I slammed my cleaver into the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.

"Fuck me that was way harder than it should have been," I groaned as I stepped off Kaneki's back.

"Ma ma, that was quite impressive," said a lazy voice, nearly making me jump out of my skin.

I spun around, instinctively lashing out with my now extended cleaver at the source of the voice, only for the Reishi construct to be blocked by a cane.

"Very good young man, excellent reflexes," said the owner of the cane.

It was a tall, lean man with light skin, gray eyes, messy and light-blond hair that emerged from under his green and white striped bucket hat. He wore a dark coat, which sports a white diamond pattern along its bottom half, with a dark green shirt and pants underneath, along with wooden Geta sandals. For those not keeping up, it was ol' Hat-and-Clogs himself, Kisuke Urahara.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, deciding to play dumb for now.

"Kisuke Urahara, at your service," he said, pulling out a business card with the words Urahara Shop printed on it and a little cartoon of his face and a thumbs up in the corner, "My card."

I sweatdropped. I knew I'd probably run into Urahara eventually, but I'd forgotten how of the wall he could be.

"Hmm, you beat this guy quite badly," said Urahara, eyeing Kaneki, "Did you have to be so rough?"

"If I wanted to stop him from chowing down on his friend, yes," I said, "Its not like I can use Kido to tie him up or anything."

"Hmm, true," said Urahara, "So, what do you intend to do now?"

"Well, I was going to take them back to Anteiku and get the old geezer to patch him up, but if I do that I'll definitely be late for school," I said, "I guess I should send Wolkenritter to do it."

I scowled at the thought. Despite what Wolkenritter had said when we first met, we could operate as two separate entities like most Bount and Doll pairs, but it felt wrong to do so and neither one of us enjoyed doing so.

"Oh don't worry, I'll take care of these two, you and the girl in the shadows should be getting to school," said Urahara, drawing a startled gasp from Touka who was stood just out of sight in the darkness, "Oh Tessai!"

"Yes boss," said a very deep voice from right behind me, making me jump out of my skin again.

Fortunately, I didn't try and attack this time because I did not want to see what the massive former Kido Corps commanded could do to me when his biceps were larger than my torso. I growled and resealed Wolkenritter, stalking over to where I had dropped my bag.

"Thanks for the help," I grumbled.

I started making my way towards school as Touka quickly caught up with me.

"So, when did you arrive?" I asked.

"About when you summoned that weird outfit," said Touka.

I winced.

"Er, can you not call it weird when I have Wolkenritter out," I said, "He can be a bit sensitive about these things."

Yeah, my Doll was had a rather odd personality. I personally think hes a massive troll, despite his default form as a Knight and his initial persona when I first met him. As I mentioned, He has a very odd sense of humor when it comes to providing me with weapons and armour and tends to get offended when people insult it, although I could always sense an undercurrent of amusement whenever he did.

"Him?" asked Touka.

"Bounts abilities manifest as entities called Dolls," I said, "Each one is unique to them and have different abilities. My Doll is called Wolkenritter and can use Reishi to form equipment for me to use. My Dads Doll can control the wind, while my Mums is fire based."

"I see," said Touka.

I glanced at my Ghoul friend, noting the dark circles under her eyes.

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"Last night I had my world entirely turned on its head," said Touka, "What do you think?"

"Point."

We walked in silence for a few moments.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Fair enough."


We fell silent as we approached the school gates and headed towards the doors. As we crossed the grounds, a loud commotion from one of the upper floors drew our attention, right before a desk came crashing through the window.

"What the hell?" said Touka, "Whats going on up there?"

I narrowed my eyes at the classroom as my senses informed me that there was two very powerful individuals up there, one that felt a lot like Hide and another that felt almost artificial.

"Move it!" shouted a girl as she came barrelling through the gates with a certain orange haired Substitute on her heels.

"Oh, so thats whats going on," I muttered as Rukia vanished through the doors and Ichigo started making his way up the wall towards his classroom.

A moment later, Kon in Ichigo's body came out the window and landed between Touka and I.

"What the…" gasped Touka.

The gasp served to draw the Mod Souls attention to the Ghoul and he gave a perverted grin as he eyed her up and down.

"Hey there baby, whats your name?" he purred.

I gave a growl and Kon shivered as my Spiritual Pressure flared. Touka on the other hand scowled and opened her mouth to respond. Before she could though, a shout from the classroom had Kon booking it from Ichigo as he leaped over us, not even pausing to give us a second look.

"What in the world just happened?" asked Touka.

"I have no idea," I grumbled as I lead the way up to class.


It was only when I let my mind wander during maths that I realised how close I was to summoning Wolkenritter and turning Kon into luncheon meat when he'd tried hitting on Touka.

"Why did I react like that?" I thought as I glanced at my friend through the corner of my eye, "I mean, shes my friend and all that, but I know she can take care of herself. So why did I feel so protective of her?"

I thought about it for a moment, before my eyes widened and I slammed my head into my desk.

"Oh for fucks sake!"

A piece of chalk bounced of my head.

"Detention, Mr Currier."

And I'm going to end it there. I'm not very pleased with the interaction between Touka and Haru in this chapter, but I think I need to have them sit down and have a good talk at some point. Whatever, I this is fine, it works and I'm done.

So, Ghouls are basically Hollows in Human Form and are the result of Aizen fucking around with his Hogyoku. Is that asshole responsible for everything wrong with the world? Wouldn't surprise me.

The reason I had Ghouls be related to Hollows is because I can see a lot of similarities between them. Hard skin, rapid healing, hell, even growing in power by eating there own. Also, have you seen some of the Kakuja?

So, what exactly is Hide to smell so different from a normal Human? You can probably guess. That should be fun!

I hope my explanation of Wolkenritters power makes sense. Basically, its so I don't regret choosing a design later when I find something cooler.

Urahara is a complete troll as usual.

Bit of chaos at the end there to show whats going on on the Bleach side of things and Haru comes to a realization that makes him swear in class. I wonder what it could be?

And with that, I'm done. Please leave me a review!