Chapter Thirty Five, "D-10"
Every second mattered, Arisawa Tatsuki firmly believed it, and every moment wasted was a different fear brought to light. She tried questioning the lapse of time between the last day she saw Asano Keigo and how easily it had been for the rest of the Arcana to put his retrieval on the back burner. It infuriated her, more than it felt natural, and she searched for hours to find Touma's secret dwelling after learning it had been his job to find him in the first place.
Although Ichigo had complained about the Devil Arcana stalking him from morning to night, Touma was not at his home when she dropped by for a visit. Tatsuki turned away to leave, but he assured her Haruka might know where he was and that he was willing to call her.
Tatsuki suppressed the urge to sigh. "Shouldn't she be…sleeping?" Not dying—she had been dying to say that, but Ichigo was smitten with the Arcana Queen and she knew better than to say something insulting he wouldn't understand. Honestly, she hardly did herself. Nagisa was to blame for it all, the reason she had to die and come back as a monster, who dealt with a persistent headache and memories of four distant lifetimes she never wanted. The emotion to dislike Haruka was ingrained in her and she bent her will to it because the Arcana in her wished to overshadow her humanity.
Ichigo had reached Haruka, calling her on speaker. "You busy?" he asked in greeting.
"Hello, Honoka," came Haruka's smooth reply.
Tatsuki tensed at the sound of the name, hands clenching. "Hello," she said through gritted teeth, her head started to throb. Nagata started calling her by that name since she started experiencing the headaches and hadn't stopped, no matter how firmly she clung to her identity.
"How'd you know Tatsuki was here?" demanded Ichigo. "I never mentioned her."
"Because I know everything," she replied easily. "Give her the phone and get me off speaker. You don't get to know where Touma is."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ichigo grumbled, but proffered his phone, albeit reluctantly, after the radio silence that was her response.
Tatsuki took it off speaker and held it to her ear. "Hi, Wakatsuki, are you doing better?"
No matter how she worded it, it was feigned concerned.
"You're going to need to write this address down," Haruka suggested, moving along. "Touma is staying with a friend. She's not home now, but she will be in an hour and if she sees you she'll misunderstand and cause you trouble. You don't need another stalker."
She didn't catch that. "Another what?"
"Nagata. You don't need another Nagata bothering you. This woman is a she-devil. Worse than Hell. So did you find that something to write with?"
She searched her pockets for something to write with but came up empty handed. She made a writing gesture at Ichigo who slunk back into his house for a pad and pencil. Once they were both in her hands, Haruka gave her directions to Touma's location. She opened her mouth to show her appreciation, but the girl interrupted.
"The cold can soothe the pain, your headaches," she said knowingly. "If the pain escalates too much, you might want to come to me. I can ease it, but only if you are willing."
"No, thank you." Tatsuki hung up and handed Ichigo his phone back, thanking him for letting her use it. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."
It nearly took half an hour to arrive at the apartment building Haruka's directions showed her to and almost ten minutes to figure out her less than legible scribbling to find the apartment on the second floor. When she knocked, he answered, his face a mold of disappointed lines because he had been expecting his lady friend with a bottle of liquor in his hand.
Frustrated by his lackluster acknowledgment, Tatsuki bombarded him for answers about Keigo, stalking her way into the apartment and slamming the door shut behind her. He easily dismissed her inquiries, speaking only after taking deep gulps of his alcohol. Any ordinary man would have already been suffering the consequences of the excess consumption, but he was completely lucid.
Tatsuki snatched the whiskey from his hand once she reached her boiling point. She had been talking to him long enough to see that he was more concerned about feeling a buzz than tracking down Keigo.
"Have you even tried?" she snapped.
"Tried? Yes." Touma eyed his confiscated whiskey. "The problem is Nagisa gave me an order and you know things get messy if you disobey her. There really aren't enough loopholes in her order to stop me from stalking Kuro-chan, so I do my best to gather information."
She eased up. Orders rang a bell deep in the back of her head. She believed him. "What do you know?"
"The obvious," he answered. "Yamato probably took him somewhere—don't look at me like that, I'm working on it. He's only targeted Evokers lately, so he either wants us all dead or is gathering us, which means he'll strike Soul Society in search of the Tower. Well, who am I kidding? He will go for the Tower. He has a better chance at recruiting him than any of the others."
"What use are you to him? The Evokers?" she questioned, brows furrowed and arms crossed.
"If the Evokers are dead, nobody will be protecting the crown. Nagisa is strong on her own, no doubt about it, but she's not going to fight her own brother. This makes it easier for him to take control and when he takes control, well, you'd be shit out of luck."
Tatsuki frowned, the headache growing persistent as a few memories flickered into her memory of two different Chariot hosts. The recollections were vivid now and she understood that in her situation it meant she would turn completely. She didn't want to stop being herself. "You think he can kill Enishi?"
"Kill him? No." Touma shook his head. "Erasing him is a whole different story."
"But even Enishi turns coward when facing a brother," she said darkly, face inscrutable.
Touma grinned suspiciously. "That Chariot, is why you were always at his side."
Ichigo entered her room in the morning.
"I didn't expect you to be up," he admitted, observing her curiously. She stood off to the wall pinned with hundreds of overlapping sheets of paper covered in charcoal scribbles and shapes. She looked to be rearranging them, tearing down the ones she found disagreeable and adding from a fresh stack to her left.
"I don't sleep well," she replied. "Psychosis. I endure a lot of it." She waved to an empty chair by the opened window. "I'd introduce you to my mother, but you probably can't see her. That's fine. I know she isn't real." She sighed, voice lowering. "You're argument's invalid when you're dead, mom, so shut up."
Ichigo felt a chill strum down his spine. "Are you sure she's not really there?" he asked, thinking a ghost could actually be seated there because the reality was harder to take in.
"Positive. Her spirit died when she did. The curse of birthing Arcana. It's a terrible fate. Oblivion." Haruka stood pensive and silent for several minutes. "Let me change the subject to something less morbid, I'll be able to pinpoint Keigo's location today. I have enough power. Tell Honoka that she can breathe easy and focus on that project she's thinking of procrastinate on."
"What project?"
"The one you've been assigned to together. Enishi is a terrible distraction, but he'll be too busy finding me a friend to care."
He shook his head. It was too much information to take because he didn't have a project with Tatsuki and it sounded strange that Enishi would go through the trouble of finding Haruka a friend. If he could keep her isolated in a tower where no one could reach her, he probably would have done it. He'd become her only contact with the outside.
"Slow down," he said, processing it all slowly. "What are you talking about?"
Haruka faced the chair and remained quiet for a while before turning. Her eyes were strange, one fully golden and the other its natural pale blue. "Sorry," she said lowly. "I'm in a different place right now."
He approached her, taking her gently by the shoulders and led her back to bed. "Maybe some sleep?" he suggested, voicing his concerns. "You could use some."
She drew her sketchbook close, prepared to open it. She stared blankly at her blankets. "I don't want to want more time, but you make it hard," she whispered, more to herself than him as she clambered on. She lifted her eyes to him. "Sit with me."
"You sure?"
"Please."
He sidled in beside her. She leaned into his shoulder, resting her head on it, and closed her eyes. "I promise I won't sleep long."
Ichigo took her hand, feeling her fingers intertwine with his in response. "It might help to sleep."
A few minutes after curling against him, Haruka was taking deep shallow breaths. He stared down at her for many moments and back up to the empty chair sitting by the window, remembering her words. She saw her mother when she tuned out of reality. He had heard her talking to herself before on various occasions, whispering beneath her breath to someone that was never there. He always liked to think there was someone listening, only he didn't see them because he had no spiritual energy to do so.
Haruka did not sleep long. Not nearly an hour, not nearly half of one. She woke with a solemn golden stare and a temper. Her drawings suffered the brunt of her frustration, but soon, even the room started to feel the strain of the dark energy rolling off her. Cracks ran up along the pastel wallpaper, peeking through the spaces between the sketches she pinned against them,
He approached her, placing his hand on her shoulder feeling a painful sting in his palm upon making contact. He jerked away. "Haruka!" he snapped, sensing the rise in her energy on him like a weight. The walls all around them started to squeak and the windows suffered a strong wave of her power that decorated them with sleek jagged lines. "You need to calm down. The whole building will collapse if you keep this up."
The suffocating energy disappeared instantly. She woke from her trance with a clatter of the charcoal falling from her hands and snapping in two. She turned to him. "It's not safe for you to be here, Ichigo."
"Why not?"
She gave him a furtive smile. "You'll be late to school. Please go. Come back tomorrow. I'll explain everything then."
Ichigo might have persisted if she had not sounded so pleading. He had every reason to want to stay, but he couldn't deny her anything either. It felt natural to appease her and despite her declining health, she was protected by her ferocious brothers and with them on the job it seemed redundant to have any others.
As he stepped out the doorway, he paused. "Tell your brother to lay off Tatsuki."
"He won't stop."
"Order him or something."
"I'll try," she said sincerely. "Don't cross the street early. Getting hit by a car is no fun."
"Ichigo told me you've been bothering Arisawa."
Nagata sneered. "Of course, he'd squeal to you."
Haruka ripped another finished drawing from her book; the strokes in the charcoal were lighter in comparison to the rest. She started on the next, not facing her brother. "You'll be fired. I've seen your bills, you need the job."
"I'm not going to stop," he stated, oddly passionate about his endeavor. "I'm going to keep hitting on her until she punches me in the face, I don't care if costs me the teaching gig."
She lifted her face to him, eyes narrowed in uncertainty. He just said he wanted to hit on her until she punched him, which was cause for concern. "Why…?"
"Why?" he asked mockingly. "Because she needs to do it."
"Oh god, what did you do to her?" she demanded, disdained. She stopped all thought process, staring him down for answers. "Did you kill her kitten or gut her lizard? Did you seduce her sister"—at his creased eyebrows, she gasped—"her brother? You seduced her brother?"
"For fucks sake, shut up now! It's the only way she acquiesces with her Arcana memories," he divulged, still shaking his head at her. "The angrier she gets the faster she'll stop pussyfooting around and get on deck with Kurosaki's super training. You're obviously too busy trying to die to take her place and since Shima's as dead as dirt, we have no alternative but to go to the source of all evil herself."
"Shima isn't dead. He's just not—"
"Then where the shit is he? He used to be your self-appointed bitch. It doesn't make sense."
Haruka tried not averting her gaze, but he noticed. "He is doing something important, but he will come soon."
"I'm this close"—he curled his forefinger and this thumb near, leaving only a miniscule space in between—"to killing him and having him replaced by someone more reliable."
"Would you like to take his place?" she asked curiously. "It's easier transferring cards than finding a new person. You can still be Death. You can be any tarot you want."
He grimaced. "But every tarot comes with a heavy price. I'm used to Death without having to pay the toll for the rest of the Arcana. I don't care how strong it'll make me."
"Then Shima stays."
"Why not Ichigo?" he suggested.
"Ichigo can't do it," she answered immediately.
"It's not something he would be opposed to—powers are powers, especially in these times."
"He has power in our cycle, I never said he didn't," she clarified. "He simply cannot be a Tarot because he is already a Trigger."
Nagata looked flabbergasted. "Okay, let me get this straight," he begun, dragging a chair across the room only to sit on her bed. "You are telling me that you're not the Trigger."
"That would be redundant. I'm The World. A Tarot cannot be a Trigger," she explained, though somewhere in the recess of her mind she might have acknowledged the fact that she never clarified any of this. "You can only be one, never both. I never confirmed or denied it because it was convenient for me to say nothing when you hadn't realized I was Nagisa."
"You said the Trigger could be anyone, vaguely referencing the rest of the Arcana. It made sense that way because the Arcana hosts were predestined to make eventual contact with one another. It could only be one of us. That's why I was sure it was you. I met you once before and I started to experience the changes. Touma never corrected me."
"You met Ichigo early on as well. Everyone that is a part of the Arcana has made contact with him one way or another. Have you never noticed?"
"Not everyone. What about the old Magician and our Priestess? They were outsiders, awakened outside."
"I never said there was only one Trigger. There are two this cycle. Ichigo and the shinigami called Kuchiki Rukia."
"Are you shitting me right now?" he demanded, slapping a hand over the drawing she was in the midst of completing. "This sounds like really important information the whole fucking Arcana should be aware of. Why don't we know it? Why has it never occurred to you to write a guidebook so we stop having these important revelations a thousand years after our creation?"
Haruka shrugged finally meeting his exasperated gaze. "In all the torture and dying we did in the underground laboratories, I suppose it slipped my mind," she said casually. "Wouldn't writing a guidebook be stupid? That'd mean anyone could get their hands on it and know things only we should. It's stupid."
"Don't be a smartass. This is serious."
"It's not serious. Ichigo fulfilled a predetermined destiny written into his DNA and helped awaken the slumbering Arcana within Karakura Town for the Fifth Cycle."
"He's the reason his sisters are at risk of dying," Nagata pressed, "and you haven't told him."
"You won't tell him either. I forbid it," she said warningly. "This is information he has no need for."
"Not until he wakes up with a tattoo he doesn't remember getting!" shouted Nagata.
Haruka pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes starting to fleck gold without her notice. "I will tell him that his continued exposure to me has given him a gift. It wouldn't be the first time this happens in his world."
"A gift. Is that it? Once he learns what this gift means, he'll strip you of your powers. He'll kill our cycle."
Haruka smiled. "It will be too late by the time he realizes he can do it."
"Stop predicting the future. Even you can't be that certain."
"You're right, but by then, I'll be dead," she responded assuredly. "So the future will be no concern of mine."
"You're a shitty girlfriend you know?"
"Yes, I will be terrible." Haruka leaned into her pillows with a small smile. "He will heal. I will, eventually, be a distant memory in his life."
"You're a shitty person in general. Conjure up some compassion; you're supposed to be the good one in this mess."
She signed. "Compassion is an anchor to this world. I am no longer bound to it. You be the compassionate one, Touma will be inconsolable and you will need him."
"Last I checked, I rarely gave a damn what happened around this joint so long as I get to do what I want. Compassion is useless to me. Touma can console himself."
Haruka lifted a sheet of paper to him, drawn in the center was the lemniscate she wore prominently on the inside of her wrist and all around it were the twenty other Arcana symbols and numbers. Squeezed between the jumbled mess were names he recognized from every cycle since the first. He picked apart all his past names from the others and lifted his eyes to meet her fully golden gaze.
"What is this?" he asked, uncomfortable with the sudden feel of her spiritual energy circulating the room, clotting the air vents, silencing the noise. Losing control of one's power was the first sign of the end.
One Arcana before had died of natural causes once, so she wasn't the first. His illness was too horrible to heal upon rebirth and though it had remained dormant long enough, it eventually awoke as the cycle came together. His sister speculated that a completed cycle could save his life, but by the time the last Arcana host was found it had been too late.
Nagata had observed the symptoms, watched the black energy slowly overpower his fragile body. His Arcana abilities activated on their own, making it dangerous for anyone to be near, so his eyes shifted from green to golden at random intervals and because of it he experienced a string of continuous mood swings. A natural death was painful, always, but the vastness that awaited it was far worse. He caught a glimpse of it once just as the First Cycle came to its conclusion and never forgot it.
"You're like a teddy bear with a knife. At some point, everyone will have been drawn to you for one reason or another and you would have already stabbed them all at least twice." She let the sheet of paper fall over her desk. "Empathy is useless to you, but it comes natural for you. You've equated death to destruction your whole existence, but you are more human than the rest of us—you feel stronger. Death is mortality. Death is renewal. Death is not just destruction. It's not bad. It's a turning point." She smiled at him, eyes losing their golden sheen. "You are hope. Protect the Arcana, protect my successor."
Nagata snapped. "Why can't you talk about your boyfriend or something instead of telling me all this cryptic bullshit I could have gone forever not knowing? Don't you have any friends—well, shit, I forgot who I was talking to, you have none."
"You don't have friends either."
"Because I chose not to! There's a difference!"
"The difference is I'm socially awkward and you don't want the Honoka Incident to happen—"
Nagata fisted the front of her sweatshirt and tugged her forward harshly. "I know what you're trying to do, quit while you're ahead before I make you!" He shoved her back harshly.
Haruka stopped her body from hitting the bed hard with her hands. "You started it."
"You need to shut up about dying! I don't need to have it on my mind any more than I already do!" He stormed toward the door, stopping before stepping out. "Look stay here, I'll find you a friend. You're so stupid you won't listen to reason but maybe there are people out there that can still surprise you. Don't die while I'm gone."
.
.
Haruka stared at Wakamura awkwardly, her art rival for as long as she remembered and her somewhat bully. Concerned, she pulled Nagata off to the side as the enigmatic drawings pinned to the wall drew Wakamura's attention away from their secret exchange.
"You brought Wakamura-san?" she asked, confused.
"I thought of bringing Honoka, but she's so pro-Ichigo and Orihime, she'd guilt trip you out of the relationship," he explained, lowering his voice. "I also thought of bringing Orihime, but I'd be facing some form of revenge later for putting you in the situation especially with how many years the girl spent liking the guy and I know how possessive you are with your lovers. Honestly, I don't see what's so attractive about Ichigo, but at this point, I don't give a shit because if you didn't listen to me about Shiki, you won't hear reason about Ichigo."
"He's not my lover," she corrected, ignoring the rest.
"Not yet."
"I don't like you talking about me that way."
Nagata grinned. "Face it Nagi, you're all types of disaster during a relationship, but hell, you are suave."
"What are you trying to say?"
"You are a female Casanova."
Haruka stared at him unfazed. "You just called me a hoe, didn't you?"
He snorted. "Did you just say hoe?"
"Casanova was a man-whore," she stressed. "I am very particular about my chastity. I don't open my legs for every man interested."
"Come on, we didn't have to go there," snapped Nagata.
"Do you think I host orgies on my hospital bed?" she continued, pleased with the disgusted look on his face. "How many men are you putting under my belt? I'm your sister; you take this Casanova bullshit to your mother."
"She's your mother too!"
"Not in this lifetime!"
"The intent of this joke was lost in your idea of Casanova! I meant it as a compliment!"
"So being a whore is a good thing?"
Wakamura turned slowly, arching an eyebrow.
"I meant you were a smooth-talker, Casanova was a whore but he couldn't have attracted all those women without being such a suave individual—you know what? Fuck this. I'm not exhausting any energy having this conversation with you. Do whatever the fuck you want with your private life! Live, read a book for once, have a kid or two—I don't give a shit—but know, to me, you'll be conceiving through the Holy Spirit, it'll be just like the Virgin Mary except every man that touches you inappropriately dies a painful death—don't you dare say anything."
He stormed out as she was about to do just that.
"So do your homeroom teachers usually call you a whore?" asked Wakamura with a nasty smile.
Haruka returned to her seat on the bed without uttering a word.
"The enemy Arcana remain inactive," Urahara announced, wrench and screwdriver in hand as he wiped his brow of sweat and approached Wakatsuki Hiko's group. He had arrived in Soul Society to fulfill a request and had since been working non-stop alongside his ex-subordinate, Kurotsuchi Mayuri, and Takamatsu Hiroki on one of many secret plans meant to counter any of Nagisa's ploys. "How are the others taking the awakening?"
"I left Muguruma and Ukitake in charge," Hiko answered, observing the work put into the small establishment. It was built in only two days and it already had the semblance of a comfortable home. "If they split the work, they can have the others up to speed before the enemy makes a move, but the Tower's proving difficult."
"He's an Evoker, isn't he?"
Hiko nodded. "He's never met her, but he knows his place is with others of his kind and that his duty is to protect Nagisa," he elaborated. "Once he's attuned to his memories, I've advised Muguruma to have him sealed and treat him as an enemy."
Kurosaki Isshin took the time to inspect the structure, joining Takamatsu who automatically erased any of his concerns about it.
"Have you contacted The Judgment?"
"No, I suspect he is preparing for the worst. It's his army that is at the helm of this operation, he has things to consider." Hiko looked over Urahara's shoulder. "How is this coming along?"
"It'll be done before the week is over," Urahara answered. "I talked to Sui-san. She agreed to strengthen the barriers for as long as necessary."
Hiko nodded. "Everything is going accordingly then."
xl: I bet no one expected Wakamura to make an appearance again. She's been such a minor character, but I agree with Nagata, Haruka doesn't have friends (at least not female friends) and I think she can use some girl talk. How Wakamura will solve any of this...well, it's still a mystery. lol
Thank you to my beta LULuckyTiger for proofing the mistakes in this.
And sorry to my readers for taking two months to update a new chapter! Many, many thanks to: animelover56348, ruler of dragons, my Little Dreamer, and Beira for reviewing the previous chapter!
P.S. - Make sure to check out the poll running in my profile page because it might just result in faster updates! It's the reader's choice what gets updated every week!