The Iron Sole Alchemist and the Soul Reapers (Chapter 15) Attempting to Settle In
by Howlin
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

I transmuted a body for Sloth that had an apparent age of fifteen. With this new body, I got Sloth enrolled in the high school with the others. This was partly a pragmatic way to make it easier for Sloth and Orihime to meet and have the Grief Seeds emptied and partly a way to introduce her around to the muggle classmates who didn't come to the Soul Society, but whom I'd told about Sloth and who'd helped keep me sane.

Keigo pulled me aside to ask, "Who's the new girl?"

"That's Sloth," I told him. "I told you about her. She recovered from her illness over the summer."

"You never told me she was so cute," said Keigo. "Why wouldn't you mention something that important?"

"Hi, I'm Mizuiru. It's nice to meet you," said Keigo's short, black haired friend to Sloth.

"I'm Sloth. Greed's mentioned you," she replied.

"Now you're in for it," said Keigo slyly. "He's putting the moves on your girl."

"He just said hi," I said, staring at Keigo.

"Oh sure, that's how it starts," he replied.

"You're an idiot," I said, walking over and waving greetings to Mizuiru.

"What have we here?" came Chizuru's voice. The bespectacled, short haired red headed girl approached the gathered group. "Another new transfer student. You are just so cute, I want to squeeze you."

Chizuru lunged toward Sloth, her hands making to grope her breasts. Tatski came to the rescue, grabbing Chizuru from behind and putting her in a headlock, then sweeping the red head off her feet and stomping hard on Chizuru's back. I noticed Sloth covertly dismiss the yo-yo she had in the hand with her Soul Gem ring on it.

"Can't you give it a rest, Chizuru," the black haired martial artist said while grinding her heel painfully into the red head's back. "Sorry about her. I'm Tatski. If I heard right, you're Sloth. I'm glad to hear you're feeling better."

"Was that normal?" asked Sloth, looking down at Chizuru.

"I knew she got like that with Orihime," I admitted. "I assumed it was an inside gag they had going."

Tatski sighed. "Nope. She's just as hormonal as Keigo and somehow less well socialized about it."

A few mintues later, class started and we all took our seats. We'd barely gotten through attendance when I heard a familiar voice calling out for Ichigo. Looking out the window, I saw an oddly dressed Lieutenant Renji Abarai. As the rest of the class could see and hear him, I concluded he must be in a gigai. Ichigo excused himself, mentioning Renji was a cousin on his way out. I reached into my bag and sent a tiny, alchemy powered, metal bug to observe and record what Renji had to say.

Trusting my surveillance device, I settled back in to class. It was interrupted again by a beeping sound. My soul phone had detected a hollow nearby. Apparently similar detection technology was built into my substitute soul reaper badge, as it was beeping too and the eyes of the stylized skull carving glowed yellow.

I'd never sensed a hollow's spirit energy before, but now knowing one was around, I could detect something that felt different from humans and soul reapers. It was distinctive. The hollow, which stood over three stories tall, was visible outside the classroom window. Wherever Ichigo and Renji had gone, they weren't here.

I pressed the substitute soul reaper badge to my chest, and my homunculus and soul reaper selves were separated. Homunculus me stayed in his seat while soul reaper me leapt out the window. As I flash stepped to get behind the hollow, I heard Sloth's voice at the outermost layer of my occlumency barriers saying, "Good luck."

Deciding to address that with Sloth later in private, I drew my zanpakto, lined up my shot, slashed the air, and called out, "Sectumsempra!" Nothing happened. The spell didn't go off. Tsumi no Rensa wasn't fighting me on the spell. It was as though I just didn't have enough energy to invoke the powerful dark curse.

I considered attempting a less powerful curse, but the hollow was continuing to advance toward the school. I couldn't risk another fizzle. Transmutation circles had been applied to the soles of my boots. As I raised a foot, preparing to make use of my more reliable alchemic abilities, a voice spoke in my mind. Past all my occlumency barriers, the voice of my sword welled up from the depths of my soul.

"Use my power. I promise, it will not fail you. If you defeat the hollow with alchemy, you will save the students, but if it isn't slain by a zanpakto, the soul won't be able to be purified and sent on to the Soul Society."

I nodded and declared, "Bind, Tsumi no Rensa!"

Now holding the length of chain that was my zanpakto's released form, I swung it over my head once to build momentum, then lashed out toward the hollow. I added links to the end of the chain so it could reach the hollow. It wrapped around the hollow's right leg, and I added a link to complete the loop. Yanking back on the chain, I rapidly removed links from the part binding its leg. The leg severed cleanly as I retracted my chain, blood pouring from the stump.

That got the hollow's attention. On one leg, the hollow turned toward me and threw a punch. I smirked. Wrapping Tsumi no Rensa around each hand, I held the chain in front of me to intercept the punch of the three story hollow. Before the punch connected, I started rapidly removing links near my right hand and adding them near my left hand. The resulting chainsaw severed several of the hollow's fingers and forced it to pull back its hand in pain.

The hollow was injured and wide open to an attack. That was when Ichigo showed up, splitting the hollow's head down the middle with an attack from above. As the hollow disintegrated, I resealed Tsumi no Rensa into its sword form and returned it to its sheath.

"Nice of you to show up," I bantered. "I thought I was going to have to kill that hollow on my own. Where's the lieutenant?"

"Over there having trouble getting out of his gigai," said Ichigo, annoyed,

"What did he want?" I asked.

"Apparently the Soul Society sent him to hunt hollows around here," said Ichigo. "The jerk implied it was my fault so many are showing up here."

"Your fault?" I asked.

"Hollows are drawn to sources of high spirit energy, and mine tends to leak out," said Ichigo. "Like I have any choice in the matter."

"Ah well, let's get back to class," I said hopping up to the window.

Most of the class was oblivious to my soul reaper self's presence as I climbed into the classroom and got back into my body. Uryu, Chad, Orihime, and Sloth obviously saw me. The surprise was that Tatski and Keigo could see me as well. Keigo closed his eyes and shook his head, seemingly in denial. Tatski stared wide eyed. I'd need to talk to them and explain what they were seeing when I got the chance.

I didn't have the chance to talk to anyone privately until lunchtime. The fact that I actually had to eat was mildly annoying, but as I'd spent most of my formative years human, the fact that I could get hungry again never rose beyond mild annoyance. I leaned in to converse privately with Sloth before taking the first bite of my sandwich.

"I think you have telepathic abilities independent of the incubator acting as a relay," I said.

That surprised her, but she thought to me, "Can you hear this?"

"Yes, I can," I thought back.

"Are you sure this is me doing it?" she asked silently.

"I checked the foeglass just after the hollow attack when I noticed," I thought to her. "Kyubey isn't anywhere nearby."

"So I've been able to do this on my own the whole time and that little rat never mentioned it," huffed Sloth telepathically. "I wonder what other powers I have that he didn't bother to mention."

"No way of knowing until we bump into them, I guess," I thought back. "On the plus side, this means we can do legelimency training together."

"This isn't magic," thought Sloth. "No it is magic, but not that kind of magic. I hate Kyubey. He didn't have to use those terms. Anyway, this doesn't work like a spell."

"Even so," I thought, "most of what Snape taught was more about what to do with what you find after you're in someone's head more than how to get in in the first place."

I'd finished eating during our telepathic conversation. Spotting Tatski, I excused myself and went over to her. After a brief glance around to make sure we wouldn't be overheard, I said, "You aren't going crazy."

"What?" she asked startled.

"You couldn't see spirits when I started studying here, but you've gained that ability over the summer," I said.

"No, I could see them before that," said Tatski, glancing down. "I couldn't see them clearly at first, but over time, it's gotten harder to tell them apart from living people."

"The monster outside our window this morning was a kind of evil spirit called a hollow," I explained. "They feed on the souls of humans."

"You and Ichigo fought it," noted Tatski. "But you stayed in class too. How were you in two places at the same time? And what was with those black clothes?"

"What you saw were our souls," I answered. "We both left our bodies to fight it on its own plane. I can go into more detail if you want, but basically, there are ways to keep a body animated while its soul is out."

"And the clothes?"

"They're uniforms," I said. "Ichigo and I are soul reapers. Usually, you can't become one until after you die and pass on. Some weird things happened to us. I can give you details if you want."

"Does this have anything to do with where you guys went over the summer?" asked Tatski.

"Do you remember Rukia?" I asked.

"Who?" said Tatski.

"She was a soul reaper," I replied. "The regular kind. A spirit of the dead sent to the world of the living to protect people from hollows and help souls cross over. She gave Ichigo his powers. Rukia posed as a student here using an artificial body to let her interact with normal people."

"Why don't I remember her?" asked Tatski worried.

"The Soul Society decided Rukia'd committed a crime by giving Ichigo soul reaper powers. They took her back to face execution and they erased the memories of most people who'd met her. Over the summer, we visited the Soul Society to help Rukia. She's fine. We sorted it out."

"Okay, I could believe a lot of this, but you're saying I knew this Rukia person?"

"Soul reapers are pretty free and casual with their memory replacement technology," I said. "I don't approve, but I'm in no position to influence their policies."

"Okay, if this isn't some elaborate trick, show me something, I don't know, supernatural," said Tatski.

I clapped my hands and touched a wall, transmuting the paint and changing a patch of wall from white to red in a wave of blue alchemic light.

Tatski sank into a seated position, overwhelmed by the information I'd just provided. After a long moment, she looked up at me and said, "Won't they just erase what you've told me?"

"They don't know to," I said. "If you're worried, and I can see why you would be, I can teach you some mental exercises to protect your mind."

"Why are you doing this?" asked Tatski finally.

"I know we haven't known each other that long, but I think of you as a friend," I said. "I didn't want you to have to keep questioning if the things you're seeing were real. That's why I'm going to explain it to Keigo next."

"No, you're not," said Sloth coming up behind me. "I just got through explaining to Keigo. He took it pretty well, all things considered. I think he was most bothered that Chad and Ichigo left him out of the loop."

"We didn't talk about explaining things to Keigo," I noted.

"No, but he was the other one who could see you, so when you went to explain things to Tatski, it was pretty easy to guess where this was going," said Sloth.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you too, Greed," said Sloth, giving me a quick kiss.

When school let out, I flagged down Uryu, saying, "I've got spirit energy now. I still want to learn quincy techniques."

"You have spirit energy because you're a soul reaper," said Uryu. "You do remember soul reapers and quincies are enemies, don't you?"

"Really?" I said, staring him down skeptically. "You really expect me to believe you consider us enemies after everything that's happened?"

Uryu blushed slightly and adjusted his glasses to hide it. "Quincies are born, not made. The techniques we use require study and training, but even for people with spirit energy, if you weren't born to the clan, you won't be able to use spirit energy the same way we do."

"Disappointing," I said. "I appreciate the explanation."

"I'm sorry it wasn't the answer you wanted to hear," said Uryu, walking away.

Back at the lab, I fed Loki and made dinner for Sloth and I. The process kept me focused, but when I actually sat down to eat, I just stared at my plate for a long moment.

"Greed, what's wrong?" asked Sloth. She'd switched out of her highschooler body and back to her default four year old one when we got home.

"I'm worried I might be losing my powers," I said. "My alchemy and homunculus abilities are fine, but when I fought that hollow this morning, I couldn't cast the curse I was trying for. I didn't have any problems in the Soul Society, and once I got back I managed a fidelius charm with no trouble. Today, though, it felt like I didn't have enough power to cast the curse."

"Ichigo got his powers before you did," said Sloth, "and he'd been using them longer than you've had them before he even went to the Soul Society. Why would you be different?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "My powers aren't gone. I can still use flash step, and... Wingardium Leviosa! It looks like lower level spells still work for me."

"It seems to me like you need numbers," said Sloth. "We'll go through all the spells we know and write down which you can do and which you can't. Then we run the same test tomorrow and the day after and see if we're tracking a steady decline."

"That's a good idea," I said.

"Meanwhile, eat," said Sloth. "We know spirit energy leaks out over time and it gets refilled by eating. It's possible you were just hungry."

Every spell I knew was a lot, most of which I'd never tried casting after acquiring soul reaper powers. Sloth had me attempt each spell three times. Once normally, once wandlessly, and once wordlessly and wandlessly. Each time I failed a spell, Sloth had me eat a snack and try again to see if that helped. The entire process took three hours.

"It looks like I'm currently down to OWL level," I said, looking over the chart.

"Up to OWL level," said Sloth. "This is the first time you've cast most of these spells."

"I know," I said. "Still, I managed a fidelius charm, a wordless, wandless summoning, and some high level curses."

"Even so, you never properly confirmed you were at NEWT level before," said Sloth. "Those attempts might have been outliers."

"I hope so," I said. "I really don't like the idea of losing powers."

"Tell me about it," said Sloth. "If I had my old powers, I wouldn't have had to be defended from Chizuru's groping."

"Speaking of which," I said, "there are some experiments I'd like to run that might restore some of your powers."

"What?" asked Sloth, blinking.

"Well, my homunculus body and my soul synchronize their memories whenever they come back together. If we could get your Soul Gem to synchronize with a homunculus body the same way, then the destruction of your Soul Gem would mean losing access to your magical girl powers, not cessation of existence."

"How are you planning on doing that?" asked Sloth.

"It might not be possible," I admitted, "but when I touched your Soul Gem to that reigai, there was an information exchange. It adopted your default appearance the same way it would match the appearance of a normal soul that got inside it. We'll need to run some tests to be sure."

"What sort of tests?" asked Sloth.

"First I want to confirm my intuitions about gigai, reigai, and soul candies. They've never been used quite the same way I'm thinking about. Or if they have been, the notes are locked away in the Department of Research and Development in the Soul Society."

The first set of experiments didn't strictly require Sloth, but as this concerned her intimately, she was right there observing. I got the gigai and soul candy I'd purchased from Urahara's shop out along with the reigai Sloth had used in the Soul Society. The fact that it was full of sensors and data recorders meant even if these experiments didn't bear fruit, there would potentially be useful data to be plundered from the Department of Research and Development at a later date.

After inserting my soul candy into Sloth's reigai, I ordered it to get inside the gigai. I then used my substatute soul reaper badge to separate the three part structure. Putting the soul candy back in the reigai, I used my substitute badge to eject my soul. Soul reaper me clapped and touched the oroboros mark on homunculus me's chest. The mark glowed blue for an instant, then that body collapsed like a puppet who's strings had been cut.

"What did you just do?" demanded Sloth.

"I needed a homunculus body for the next stage of this experiment," I said. "I don't want to make a new one if I'm not sure this will work."

"You erased your other self's mind," said Sloth.

"I have a full backup of his memories," I said, tapping my temple. "Once these experiments are done, I'll get back in, we'll resynchronize, and everything'll be fine. For now, though, I need to see what happens when a soul candy in a reigai gets in."

After getting into my homunculus body, the soul candy seemed to be functioning normally. The next stage was important. Using my badge, I expelled the reigai an the soul candy pill. To my delight, the homunculus body remained animated and seemed to have retained the memories and personality of the soul candy. After blanking the homunculus' mind with alchemy again, it was time for the experiment that required Sloth's Soul Gem.

Sloth switched to the reigai, and I tried expelling her from it with my glove and badge to no effect. She tried swallowing the soul candy pill, but immediately puked it up. Next, she climbed into the gigai. The badge and glove expelled the reigai from the gigai, and left Sloth's consciousness inhabiting the reigai. Swallowing the soul candy left the soul candy inhabiting the gigai and the reigai being expelled like with the badge and glove. So far, everything was working as I'd hoped.

Using the Reigai, Sloth climbed inside my homunculus body. I was holding my breath. The body animated as expected. I used my badge to separate the homunculus body from the reigai. The homunculus body slumped to the ground like dead weight. There'd been no information transfer, no synchronization of memories. Subsequent tests confirmed data I imprinted on the homunculus didn't get into Sloth's Soul Gem, and that Sloth was unable to access the shape shifting powers inherent in a homunculus body.

As I got back in my homunculus body and resynchronized, Sloth said, "I guess that experiment didn't pan out."

"I wouldn't call it a failure," I said. "We learned something about your Soul Gem. Thoughts are isolated to the Gem's hardware. It'll be more work copying you out of there, but in the meantime, it probably means mind altering potions won't have any effect on you. It'll take some additional testing to confirm."

"I've got time," said Sloth. "I am disappointed this didn't work, though."

"There was one more thing I wanted you to try with the reigai," I mentioned.

"What's that?"

"Try to transmute something."

Giving me a confused look, Sloth clapped her hands and touched a wall. Blue alchemic light poured form the wall as an archway opened into the next room.

"I don't understand," said Sloth, looking at her hands. "Why can I use alchemy now when we established I couldn't after Kyubey transformed me?"

"A reigai is a faithful reproduction of the spiritual body of a normal human soul," I said. "What exact components of the soul are required for alchemy I'm still not sure yet. That homunculi can't use alchemy without an attached soul demonstrates that component isn't the part responsible for consciousness and animation. Kyubey dumped a lot of pieces when he made your Soul Gem. The reigai has those missing pieces so you're able to use alchemy while inhabiting it."

At that point, our conversation was interrupted by my soul phone ringing. Picking it up, there was an alert about an unknown spiritual presence. The presence was near Orihime's apartment. I quickly checked my foeglass, but it remained unchanged since we returned to the world of the living. Aizen was there, but faded in the background alongside figures I presumed to be his army. Gin was still mysteriously absent.

"Orihime might be in trouble," I said. "We need to check on her."

Sloth nodded and I clapped. Whatever was going on with my soul reaper powers, my alchemy was back to its full utility now that I was back in the world of hte living, and I hadn't spent all that time learning to use the Gate to emulate apparition for nothing. The two of us arrived outside the door to Orihime's apartment almost instantly.

"Orihime!" I called out, knocking on the door.

The lock clicked open and Orihime answered the door. "Greed? Sloth? What are you doing here?"

"I got a message about an unusual spiritual presence," I said, holding up my soul phone.

"Oh, you must mean Sora," she said. "Come in, I'd love to introduce you."

"Who was that, Orihime?" asked a voice from the kitchen.

When we entered, there was a young man seated at the table. His picture had been in a small shrine in the living room. He was smiling warmly and holding a cup of tea.

"Sloth, Greed, this is my brother Sora. He came back from the Soul Society. Sora, these are Sloth and Greed. They tried to bring you back to life yesterday."

"I couldn't bring you back to life because you were already on your way?" asked Sloth.

"That's right," said Sora. "I do appreciate the thought, though."

"Does the Soul Society know you're here?" I asked.

"Are you planning on turning me in?" he asked in jest.

"Of course not," I said, "but it would be nice to know if we're going to have to fight Renji over you."

"Why would we have to fight Renji?" asked Orihime.

"He would have gotten the same alert I did," I said. "In case Ichigo didn't mention it, he was at the school this morning because he's been assigned to deal with the hollows in Karakura Town."

"I wouldn't worry about it," said Sora. "I'm sure the soul reapers have better things to do than make a fuss over me coming to visit my baby sister."

"Well, we just wanted to make sure you were okay," said Sloth. "We'll let you and your brother have some time to yourselves. It was nice meeting you, Sora."

"Likewise," I said, following Sloth's lead and heading for the door.

"I'll see you in class tomorrow," said Orihime as she closed the door behind us.

"Will the Soul Society make a fuss?" asked Sloth when we were outside. "You absorbed that library."

"Souls aren't supposed to be able to freely travel between worlds," I said. "He'd have had to use a senkaimon, and those are all controlled by the Soul Society. They don't like their own soul reapers lingering in the world of the living. That Rukia overstayed her mission was the first thing they noticed."

"So, he might be in trouble," concluded Sloth.

"We should stay here and talk to Renji when he arrives," I agreed.

I closed my eyes and reached out with my senses, trying to determine where Renji was from his spirit energy. I could sense Sloth next to me, an energy that wasn't quite spirit energy suffusing her reigai. I could detect Orihime's spirit energy inside her apartment. There was something I couldn't quite place. After a few minutes of concentration bordering on meditation, I felt a number of presences with spirit energy approaching.

"Greed, something's wrong," said Sloth urgently.

I opened my eyes and saw a huge, blood red gate hovering outside Orihime's apartment building. Bones were arranged on the front, and the doors spread apart, revealing a crimson light within. It resembled, but was not identical to, the gates of Hell I'd seen my first day in this world. Orihime screamed and flew out of her window, apparently being sucked toward the gate.

Sloth transformed into her magical girl form, and the two of us leaped into the air to catch Orihime. The wind pulled us off course. I tried to use the arrays on my shoes to form a foothold and correct my course, but the transmutation failed. Sloth summoned a pair of yo-yos. She threw one at the railing on Orihime's balcony and wrapped it around, giving her a solid anchor. The other yo-yo she threw at Orihime, clearly intending to wrap her leg, but the winds again blew her yo-yo off course.

Ichigo, Uryu, Chad, and Renji arrived on the scene. Ichigo leapt straight toward the gate, but Orihime disappeared inside an instant before he was in range. The gate closed and vanished into thin air once it had her.

"What happened?" demanded Ichigo.

"I got a signal on my soul phone about an unknown spiritual presence," I said, holding up the device. "Sloth and I came to make sure she was okay. The presence turned out to be her brother Sora."

"Her brother?" asked Ichigo.

"I thought you couldn't bring him back to live," said Uryu.

"I couldn't," said Sloth. "He said it was because he was already on his way back anyway."

"What about the gate?" demanded Renji. "Did her brother summon it?"

"I don't know," said Sloth. "We knew you would've gotten the same message Greed did, so we decided to wait here for you."

"Why?" asked Renji.

"Because the Soul Society's been a little unreasonable lately and we didn't want Orihime's brother to get in trouble," I said.

"Well, he's in trouble now," said Ichigo.

"Agreed," I said. "His spiritual pressure vanished around the time the gate appeared. There's no way this was a coincidence."

"We have to find where they took her," said Ichigo.

Turning to Renji, I said, "This situation calls for Bakudo 58, Kakushitsuijako."

"Um, yeah, kido's never exactly been my strong suit," said Renji. "Between that and the severe power limiters I'm under as a lieutenant in the world of the living and there's no way I could manage a fifties level kido."

"What about you, Uryu?" asked Sloth. "Is there some quincy technique you could use to find where they took Orihime?"

"Unfortunately not," said Uryu.

"Wait, spirit ribbons," said Ichigo. Then he closed his eyes and bowed his head in concentration. After a long moment, dozens of thick white ribbons surrounded Ichigo, each seemingly emerging from the ground and one end blown upward by an unfelt wind.

"What's he doing?" asked Sloth quietly.

"Spirit ribbons are the manifestation of spirit energy in the air," explained Uryu. "Each ribbon represents a different person. Ichigo is trying to find the one that connects to Orihime. If he can find it, he can use it to find her."

"It's no use," snapped Ichigo as the spirit ribbons vanished. "I can't find her spirit ribbon."

"That combined with the gate we saw tells me they've probably taken her someplace other than the world of the living," said Renji. "Despite how it looked, I don't think those were the gates of Hell. Hell wouldn't abduct a living human like that."

"What about those cards of yours?" asked Ichigo. "You found my body when Kon ran off with it."

"Worth a try," I said, taking a deck of tarot cards out of my bag and shuffling. After a few tries, I looked up and said, "Orihime's alive and we're going to find her. The cards aren't giving me anything more specific than that."

Author's comments:
This represents the beginning of the bount arc. It is my intention to integrate all of the anime filler arcs and the four movies. I'll also be drawing connections and parallels as Sloth and Greed investigate a bit deeper than Ichigo ever bothered with.