The new Empire

by Glorty

after the Tokinada incident events changed for Ichigo, his whole life took a new turn when he finds out what really happened after Yhwachs defeat. What will the future hold for Ichigo? Only time will tell. A story about romance and betrayal, alliances and war

88. Chapter 88

Disclaimer: I do not own bleach! All credits go to Tite Kubo

Silbern Royal Office

***Two days later***

Ichigo was sitting in his office, stil thinking about that one phonecall from two days ago and what he saw when he got there, for it was anything but pleasant and good news, and everything he did see clearly bothered him to no end as he sat there in his chair, thinking deeply.

Bambietta was recalled yesterday for a briefing on the situation and Isshin took her place as commander of the eastern front for now, however there were more reasons for her recall then just that, because tomorrow, the Wandenreich would do a test of it's payload delievery of the WMDs or Weapons of Mass Destruction, which once was those balls which was now another upgraded item with Bambietta's and Shox Richter, the R sternritter's ephitets which was copied by a machine so that they could utilize those powers without using Bambietta and Shox for whatever they need, which Ichigo have had on his priority list for quite some time.

It had taken blood, tears, sweat, trial and error to get it functional, primarily because Ganju was responsible for the engine, he never really thought much about a V2 shaped rocket, which is a rocket that differs a lot in appearance from the V1 which was used, first of all the V1 had a rocket engine attached to it's top, and it also possessed wings, the V2 however, had an inbuilt engine without wings, so the V2 shared a more resemblence to modern missiles then the V1 itself, additionally the V2 had four fins to control the rocket midflight, compared to the wings of the V1.

So why did they have to change the design? Well let's take a little look at the reason behind it.

***Flashback***

Silbern Mountains

Having made a testing site in the mountains to test their marvelous design of the V1 rocket, Ganju and Kukaku was eager to show it off, with Erwig at their side and the rocket was massive, in length it was an astonishing 25 meters long, but also quite heavy, regardless Ichigo was invited to see a demonstration of the rocket.

Standing there with a bunch of high ranking officers in a safe spot, the demonstration was initiated and the all clear was given, the weapon was ready for deployment, and Ganju, in his eagerness smashed in that launch button, brimling with so much pride and joy over having created something as massive as this one as the Shiba family was a family of firework experts after all, and this was like the biggest firework rocket they had ever made... Probably not a wonder, as it is an advanced system similar to the QSR-5 and the HARS systems, it was essentially a guided smart rocket, also known as a missile or in this case, a thermonuclear missile... And it's hard to get more fireworks then that.

Regardless the missile would normally be classified as an ICBM or Intercontinental Ballistics Missile, due to it's massive range, as the engine was designed to consume as little fuel as possible while giving as much thrust as possible, that might have resulted in it's tremendous size as the vast majority of the missile, like about 90% of it was essentially the fuselage, which contained thousands of liters of fuel, after all there was a limit to how much you could restrict fuel consumption on such a weapon, however this also resulted in a massive speed boost, resulting in a very fast missile, giving it the capability to travel at about 18.000 km/h or 11.184 mph which is extremly fast.

Anyways, the engine spooled up and as the fuel was a combination of reishi and standard fuel mixed together as reishi was quite the fuel after all but probably a bit too powerful if it's as pure as you can get it, resulting in the backblast of the engine being a combination of blue and orange flames, and off it went!

Ganju was standing there, proud over his engine, which he helped design, Ichigo however stood there, not amused or impressed the slightest.

"Ohoho, this rocket is fast! I can barely even see it-huh?" Ganju said as he noticed the engine blast dying out and it fell towards the ground.

"Huh? I thought the engine didn't use much fuel... I wonder what went wrong?" Ganju said as he kept looking at the falling object in the sky.

"It probably went out of fuel..." Ichigo said less amused.

"Hmm... I think I might have adjusted it wrongly..." Ganju said in a pondering tone, thinking it through.

"I wouldn't know about that... But what do we do about this little problem?" Ichigo asked as Ganju heard him kick something, causing Ganju to look over.

Ganju was stunned, as the fuselage hadn't moved a single inch, on the top were the attachments to the engine... Which was broken, and fuel leaked out of the forcibly detached line, the same fuel that the engine was supposed to drink, was now spilling all over the ground, in short the engine had fired off the payload delievery system and left the system behind as the engine flew, in short, the object that quickly became small was just the engine and not the missile itself.

***Flashback End***

So one Ganju beating, courtesy of Kukaku, a new design, and a lot of work later, they secretly tested out the new system without informing Ichigo as to not waste his time, which actually was a massive success after a lot of trial and errors but nothing is perfect to begin with, and it was already being put into production before even being demonstrated as Ichigo had ordered it produced after hearing the results, but the demonstration had been delayed because of one order Ichigo gave, because Ichigo wanted to see it fully utilized.

The biggest trial for the V2 variant wasn't it's engine, because that was a massive success, if it was in the world of the living, it could go around the earth five times before running out of fuel, so it had quite the range, so that wasn't the problem, the problem was the fact that it was a guided missile, so in short, the guidance system was malfunctioning, resulting in a lot of missed targets, one time it was even so bad it missed the target by an astonishing 256 kilometers, but that was fixed and now it was calculated to have a 99.92% accuracy rating according to the research division, which made it very accurate.

The V2 was split into three parts, or segments, the first part was the lowest part, which housed the engine, controls and guidance system, and was located at the bottom, it was best seen as the fins was attached to that piece, and it wasn't very big in and of itself, and it had a total of five engine nozzles, which was the exhaust part where the flames came out aswell.

The second part was the largest part, namely the fuselage, which housed all the fuel to feed the engine, without the fuselage, no fuel, and no fuel means no launch, however the fuselage was actually what made up the most of this missile aswell, and was connected directly between the engine segment and the top and last segment... The warhead.

Now to explain the warhead, we first need to explain the new devices used to hold ephitet reishi which was specifically made for the warhead, because the machine that has copied and generates the reishi of Radiation and the Bombardier, ensures that the reishi does not go active unless it is triggered by something as a safety measure, after all the last thing you want in the capital city is for a thermonuclear radioactive blast to take place... That would probably be very bad I think.

The new device was shaped like a stick or rod with two seperate storage units, because when they attempted this with the ball shaped one, it failed and overloaded, of course they used special kind of reishi so it wouldn't have caused a massive blast anyways, and it was done in a safe manner in a safe room to monitor it, but because it overloaded and broke the ball was kind of considered a failure, because it was unable to hold two ephitets at one time.

So a new design was made which worked, and then they built the internal parts of the warhead after the new design, just charge up the rod with the reishi of one or both ephitets, shove it into the warhead and lock it in place, and that's that, you got an inactive thermonuclear and possibly radioactive warhead until someone puts in the nuclear codes and the key is flipped in the command and control center, and then you got the perfect rocket for new years eve fireworks with a potentially large unhealthy dose of radiation, so if you wanna use it for new years eve, go ahead and enjoy it, because you're only gonna see it once in your life... Literally.

The warhead went on top of the missile of course, and made up the pointy part on the top and was essentially the final segment of the missile that was a total of 33.7 meters in length, however, and there is an however there and a big one too, because the both the warhead had two and the engine had one activation functions.

Because this was a delievery system and a detonator to a weapon of mass destruction, this weapon wasn't to be taken lightly or used lightly, because of the severe consequence of it's usage, and compared to Bambietta and Shox, it was much harder to control the blast and the radiation was difficult to clean up, and yes the Wandenreich knew how to solve a little radioactive problem.

The warhead and the engine had a reciever and transmit system attached to it, so it could get signals to launch, this was done in a very peculiar manner, because it was a different system from the normal systems in the world of the living.

This system was a one way system, once this system was put in place, every member, even those in the world of the living, belonging to the royal family got their access seal upgraded, now a special briefcase, an authenticator and two additional keys could appear out of it, and while Quincies would be unable to manifest complicated things like electronics and having them function, the access seal was still more of a combined access key and special and unique storage if you can call it that now.

This briefcase was essentially a nuclear football, every member of the royal family has one, however, only Ichigo has full access to the nuclear capabilities and the weapons of mass destruction, so why does the rest of the royal family have them? Well, Ichigo's briefcase was also known as the Monarch's football, which was the master system which controlled every WMD the Wandenreich had, and had the capability to grant an additional person in the royal family a number of WMDs if needed, and Ichigo could choose which weapon or missile in question, aswell as decide how many, which is why the entire royal family had their seals upgraded.

The briefcase had a laptop on top of a special harddrive, besides it was two special panels, on the left of the laptop was a panel with phone attached to the football, and on the right was a panel with a bunch of lights, a two-way key and a cover for an additional key, and it was the right panel that was the actual nuclear control system but it was a bit special.

The first keyhole was for a special yet a fairly standard key, it was the first key in the launch process, on it was three letters, namely Inactive, Active and Set, this was because the laptop was just a regular computer and could be used for everyday life, and when the keyhole was on inactive, the weapon functions were offline, simple as that, additionally it didn't lock the key in on that function so it could be removed as to ensure that no one messes with the weapon systems in case the user leaves the football, which was highly ill-advised but with the safety measures taken, the weapons was damn near impossible to hijack.

Put it on Active however, and then things start to get more interesting, for once the key is manifested, which looked like a padlock key by the way, and it was inserted and turned to Active, then the whole screen would change and every panel would go active, and all the weapons the user has availeble will show up, and they can be targeted into a specific area, now the targeting function could be saved in one of two ways, you could draft it up and save it as a file and enter it later and then insert the launch authentication code, or you could insert the launch authentication code without saving aswell.

To explain this better, let's use Yuzu as an example in a fantasy scenario where the entire system was completely ready.

Yuzu is a sweet innocent girl, she was never doing anything wrong and was always so charming, but one day on her trip back from school, a sudden urge fell over her, what could this be she wondered out loud, it felt like she wanted to cause a nuclear armageddon, so as sweet and innocent as she was, she went to her brother who just so happened to be the monarch of an empire that had planned to build about 16 million thermonuclear bombs with radiation placed on missiles... Yes you read that right, they had ordered a total of 16 million.

As her monarch brother thought she was always so sweet and innocent and he figured that it couldn't do any harm and she was always so kind to others, he decided to give her access to all 16 million thermonuclear missiles, so Yuzu went back to her room, manifested her authenticator, her two keys and the nuclear football, saying yay I'm so happy and the birds are chirping happily and the sun is so great.

So she took the control key and put it in and switched it to Active, and then immediately she had a dilemma, because she didn't know where to fire them, but hey, what about the world of the living? Deciding that it was a viable target, Yuzu now had two options, to manually insert all 16 million missiles, or let them target automatically by an automated system, the latter was faster so she decided on that.

Now Yuzu knew that if she put it back to inactive she would lose all targeting data if she didn't save them using one of the two saving procedures, one which was the saving in a file, the other was to save it in the launch system by moving the key to Set where she had to hold it there for 5 seconds until she heard a beep and a flashing red light to verify that it was now put in, however there was a problem, because Yuzu couldn't use the Set function without the launch codes.

So she opened her authenticator which was to flip open, the authenticator could be compared to a nintendo DS as it was almost equal size, and once it was flipped open, the top panel would have two screens, almost like padlock screens, one large and one small, the top one verified which code was shown, and was the short screen, and the lower one was long and had the actual code, the lower panel had four buttons, three had letters, one had a power sign, on the three buttons with letters there was the letters L, A and S respectively, which stood for Launch, Abort and Scuttle as there were different codes for the three, these were the three words that would come up on the top small screen, if L is pushed, the authenticator will turn on with the launch codes with the word Launch on the top small screen, and that's what Yuzu pushed, the one with the power sign would turn the authenticator off again.

Yuzu pushed a secret command on the laptop, namely she held in Ctrl and Shift and then pressed N three times and a code screen came up, here she could insert the launch, abort and scuttle codes, Yuzu knew that if she put in the launch codes and moved the key to Set and held it there for five seconds until the beep sounded and a light began to flash on the panel, a lot of interesting events would happen, after that she let go of the key and it fell back to Active but the light was still flashing.

Yuzu knew that the moment that beep sounded and that one light began to flash red, the box under the laptop had sent a signal to all bases with missiles in them, now these signals were being transmitted directly to the missile control center in each base, these control centers had several responsibilities, and that was to monitor the missiles and ensure that they were always ready, this box could send this signal no matter which world it were in with ease as the box had to be special in order for the nuclear football to function properly.

They did not know whether the missiles would fire, they would not know whether this was just a drill or a real launch, they wouldn't even know the target, all they knew was that an alarm sounded, and they had to prepare the missiles for launch, and while the crew prepared the checklist, the commander and the second in command had two keys, these were the missile enable keys, and they had to be turned at the same time and held for five seconds until an alert sounded and a light turned on.

But these two keys did not launch the missiles, but enabled them and caused the system to prepare for launch, there was no way to actually launch the weapons from inside the control center, it had to be done by a nuclear football but we'll get to that in a bit, anyways as the keys had been turned at the same time, the alert had gone off, the light was active, a countdown started, namely a 60 second countdown until the missiles were fully ready to launch, by then all checklists had to be completed and the launch silos cleared as they had built silos to keep them in underground, which was a benefit with the V2 design, much easier to store and mass launch.

Yuzu knew that the enable system would only function if the launch codes were inserted and set, so even if the commander and second in command turned their keys without the launch codes, nothing would happen, however once the keys had been turned and the system enabled, they couldn't stop it either, nothing could except the abort codes which would then stop and reset the entire launch system.

Yuzu watched the laptop, smiling innocently and happily as she always was, what was once red letters with base numbers were turning yellow, Yuzu knew that meant that they prepared and was 60 seconds away from launching, however, the system hasn't been set to launch just yet, because that's where the second key comes... The launch key.

Besides the panel for the first key and the lights was a large cover which hid another keyhole, which was the launch panel, the launch key was special and had a unique appearance, having an appearance of a key with three blades, Yuzu could already turn it 45 degrees to Launch and the missiles would launch immediately once ready, already when she put it on preset she could just turn it and the launch sequence would start immediately but she decided to wait until all bases had turned from red to yellow to green which indicated launch ready.

Now Yuzu had three options, she could leave it as it was and decide against turning the key and dispel it and seal it back into the access seal of hers, or she could insert the abort codes and reset the entire system, or she could turn the key and launch the missiles, additionally, even after launch the abort codes still worked as the missiles were built to self-destruct if the abort codes had been inserted after launch, just insert the abort codes and move the key to Set, no time restriction to verify, and that's that, launch stopped or nuclear armageddon aborted and Yuzu got new codes.

But Yuzu still felt an urge for total nuclear armageddon, so that's what she intended, her nice brother even let her, now she wanted these missiles to launch from the Wandenreich, which was essentially a universe of itself, into another world, but that wasn't a problem, because each base had a tower connected to a gate of the sun which opened a gateway in the sky for the missiles to launch into, allowing the missiles to travel across worlds from the Wandenreich, through the schatten and into the correct world until it reached it's target as this gate of the sun was connected to the launch system and was automated.

Yuzu then turned the key 45 degrees to the right, and held it there for five seconds as that was also a timed keyhole, which also gave power to the key where the key signaled specific launch codes into the system, which was the second launch codes, that process took five seconds to verify, and once the five seconds was over an alert sounded on the panel, and a lot of lights turned on and some flashed as each process went past from the silo doors opening, the gate of sun activating, all launch phases was done for, and the missile launched.

And as the missiles launched, Yuzu sat there as Ichigo patted her head, telling her how much of a good and nice girl she is like any good brother would as he watched those lights turn on, and as the missiles reached the world of the living and blew it to kingdom come with 16 million thermonuclear weapons, tearing the living bodies and their souls apart and destroying all living things in the world of the living and destroying the balance causing the world of the living and all of Soul Society to crash into one another and destroy one another, except for the Wandenreich which was as mentioned a world of it's own and was not affected by the balance.

Everbody except the Quincies in the Wandenreich died happily ever after, because they sure as hell weren't alive at this point... The end!

So that's kinda how that system works, it was an easier method to explain using such an unrealistic scenario, but what about the warhead? Well it had one door on it, where you could insert the ephitet reishi container, and then there was a keypad, where Ichigo could give out a special codebox, where the warhead could be transported and armed on the ground in case the Wandenreich wants to sneak a little warhead somewhere without actually launching a missile, because the warhead was the actual weapon, and not the fuselage and the engine, and it could be used as a regular bomb and carried secretly in a car or whatever and then armed secretly without anyone knowing, which made it a bit terrifying, of course there was a special code that Ichigo could give to the warhead to allow this to work, it just wouldn't work otherwise.

The code for the warhead, would be sealed in a plastic chip on a piece of paper after it was made, or rather manifested by a device on Ichigo's nuclear football, as his football had one additional function, you had to break the chip by breaking it in two and then take out the piece of paper with the code on it and then insert it on the panel inside the warhead and then you could just activate it like that, in those cases though it usually went on a very long distance detonator but a timer also worked, or if someone was suicidal, it could be detonated immediately after the code was inserted, but of course it all depended on how the system was programmed by Ichigo directly as he was the only one capable of doing such a thing, where he would use his special tabled and connect with a USB port into the warhead and program it as he sees fit for manual operations.

Now there is one thing that was not covered, and that was the scuttle codes, because they were very important actually, now a missile scuttle, is essentially the emergency removal of a missile by using the missile itself, and it was also known as an Aborted Launch, which it essentially was, because the scuttle codes were essentially abort and launch codes at the same time.

Now to get to this point, we need to talk about the system itself inside the missile, because there are two systems, the warhead system and the engine system, now the warhead could be connected to several authenticators at once, that's a fact, however, it only acknowledged two codes, which for the warhead, was the arm and disarm codes, and these were known as launch and abort codes, so when the scuttle codes were used, the warhead didn't recognize the codes and considered them the wrong codes for launch, so it would never arm at that point.

However, the engine was far different because it acknowledged all three codes, so when the scuttle codes were put in, the engine was given the command to launch when the enable keys had been turned, causing it to launch, but it had never gotten a course or heading because the scuttle codes didn't use course or headings, so the missile would just head straight up in a straight line, and after a set altitude for safety reasons which is 25.000 feet, about the same height as airliners fly, it would then be given the abort command.

Once that happens, the missile will believe that it has been ordered to attack but the attack was called off, now there was a problem, because if it crash lands the enemy might get their hands on it, and to avoid that, there are several special bombs inside the fuselage and engine, the missile will think that it's better to destroy itself then to crash land and risk falling into enemy hands, causing it to activate the bombs, which then will begin to burn, causing the missile to be engulfed in flames, before violently exploding, now these bombs were special because it forces anything inside it's range to forcibly disappear into reishi after the explosion, because there was one at the top of the fuselage, the warhead was also engulfed in flames before getting caught into the blast and being turned into pure reishi, removing all traces of the missile completely from existance, quite clever right?

However, there was also the issue with the codes in the authenticator aswell as the nuclear football which was important to note, was that if Ichigo used his launch key on Yuzu's nuclear football, nothing would happen, because the system is attached to the access seal, so only the key from the same access seal will function on the briefcase that has been summoned, additionally, when it came to the authenticator, there was also a problem that someone might see the launch codes if the authenticator was summoned and left unchecked, and while that wasn't a real threat as long as none of the keys were summoned, it could be a problem for security reasons.

If these nuclear weapons are aimed right at the world of the living and there is plenty of them, the balance is pretty much screwed and Hueco Mundo, Hell, The world of the living, both branches of the Soul Society and probably the mirror world will be destroyed, that's how dangerous these weapons are, even in the spiritual world, so you can kinda see why they use such a system to ensure that the missiles aren't fired needlessly and recklessly, so to combat this issue, a secret key command was issued to the authenticators, which consisted of holding down the power button and pressing L, S and A respectively, also called Lock-Search-Acquire, by doing so the old codes were deleted from the system and the authenticator would create new codes instead, making the old ones invalid and unusuable.

And considering that each bomb was at full power which would be slightly more powerful then the Tsar bomba, because that's in the end how powerful Bambietta's ephitet really was, the very bomb that once it exploded, sent a shockwave around the entire planet three times, the one bomb that let the whole world measure a seismic scale of 5.0 around the world after it's detonation, and the Wandenreich variant was slightly more powerful, so in short it was a weapon to be feared once unleashed, and Bambietta wasn't really any better because it was her ephitet, and this was just the blast, not including Shox's ephitet which includes radiation.

And while this wasn't really much of an issue for any royals that didn't have any missiles attached to their authenticators, it would become a problem if it happened to Ichigo, who would kinda have constant access to these missiles as he was the monarch, and considering that they were planning on making about 16 million of them, it was a very real threat, but then again, Ichigo would probably not take out the authenticator recklessly... Probably, but the Wandenreich, due to early production and the fact that they researched this technology even before the war started, resulting in Bambietta sulking a bit at a meeting, meant that the Wandenreich already had a considerable stock availeble, as they have been ready to mass produce it for a long time now, they just needed something functional really.

Out of 16 million orders, an astonishing 4765 were almost ready, the only thing they missed, was a silo to launch from, which had already been built on several bases across the empire, even Silbern Military Base would have atleast 50 silos availeble, which was built to be reusable, of course with the ordered number, a lot would be placed into storage to replace launched missiles in reusable silos, there were two types of silos but three types of launch facilities, one was the outdoors facility.

An outdoors launch facility used something similar to a space shuttle system, which held the missile in place, and then let go as it would fire, that was the system used at the testing site, however, there was also the one time usage silos which would collapse after the missile was fired due to the backblast caused by the nozzles, and then there was the reusable silos that could be refitted with a new missile after a launch.

Regardless the nuclear system was very complex and complicated and is very long to explain in too much detail, but now you have a brief idea of how the system roughly works and the risks involved and with that, let's get into the story now, and see what has really happened from two days ago, as a discussion was taking place directly in Ichigo's office between Bambietta and the chancellors.

Because what they had found, was mass graves of children age 0-6 years old give or take, along with eggs and small baby hellspawn eating the bodies of those children, and the Wandenreich had found out that they were mutated fullbringers and some Quincies along with regular souls but not all had been accounted for yet, but the research division had captured the baby hellspawn and they were now clearing out the mass graves and counting the bodies, another barrier had been put up by the paladins to ensure that regular humans keep away.

The finding was extremly disturbing and the Wandenreich urged all Quincies in the world of the living to find their nearest unit of Quincy soldiers or paladins and return to the Wandenreich for their own safety, Ichigo did this by using one of his abilities, the Heilige Beschwörung to mass communicate with the Quincies in the world of the living, resulting in the Wandenreich getting more Quincies to it as many took it seriously, however many were also in fullbring territory and was unable to escape, but plans were being made to bring them out one way or another.

"The fact of the matter is, hellspawn was seen in the world of the living, if there are more of these sites, it's bound to be tons of problems if those monsters grow." Liltotto warned.

"We can increase the spiritual watch, we have enough soldiers for it, damn it we might even have the biggest army in the spiritual world." Candice stated.

"It's not the size of our army that matters when it comes to the hellspawn, once those monsters grow they're damn hard to kill for the average soldier." Bambietta stated bluntly.

Bambietta had been invited by Sabrina and Ichigo to join in on the zoo, leaving her to wonder the same thing Ichigo asked, since when did Silbern get a zoo? Not that it really mattered anyways, they couldn't keep track of every development after all, regardless she had spent the night in Silbern as she returned yesterday, because of this she didn't put on her uniform but rather her more civilian clothing with the shirt, suit aswell as the her jabot tie, but she had changed into pants rather then the skirt, which was understandable as it was -3 degrees celsius outside, it's a wonder it hadn't begun to snow yet, Ichigo himself was even in his full suit.

"But as long as they have the panzershreck it shouldn't really be much of a problem." Candice said.

"But isn't the amount of crosses in the field limited?" Meninas asked.

"It is, but crosses are also small and can take the shape of anything, if they get a box full of crosses they will have a lot of ammunition, besides, we also have artillery that functions against them and bombers." Candice replied.

"And what happens if those crosses run out because they are more in numbers then we have crosses? Besides bombers and artillery is widely inaccurate on moving targets, the amount of bombing sorties air command has to order is immense for this, our entire airforce will be put on hellspawn hunting at this rate, besides the pilots will become exhausted after a while and we'll push them over the brink, mistakes will be made." Bambietta stated.

"So what? We focus on the Dominion and ignore the hellspawn?" Candice asked.

"It doesn't seem like we can do that either." Meninas put in.

"We can't do it, simple as that." Uryu stated.

"We ignore them they'll start to breed and procreate like crazy, that's guaranteed... And you've been awfully quiet." Liltotto put in as she focused on Ichigo.

Ichigo just sat there, Ichigo did have the sofa chairs removed and placed outside the office, but not the sofas the was on the sides of the table which was used by Bambietta and the chancellors, the reason for this was because Ichigo felt there wasn't any need for them, since there were chairs that was just as comfortable should they ever be needed, besides Ichigo felt it looked too messy with those sofa chairs, so Ichigo would instead manifest his throne when sitting on the edge when needed, so it was prone to change whenever Ichigo felt like it, so nothing was constant.

Ichigo just sat there, relaxing his head on his fist in a usual manner, before giving off a sigh and then speaking up, but it was clear that someone needed to take charge, no matter how cold it would seem, Ichigo knew he had a duty to fulfill, so it was time to put them to work.

"What even made the hellspawn to begin with? I outright refuse to accept an answer like they always existed, there has to be some sort of proper relations somewhere, a place we can look for clues." Ichigo said in a rather hinting manner.

Now this was one thing that caught the chancellors of guard, Bambietta figured Ichigo had some idea but she didn't catch on, surprisingly it was the least suspecting person that caught on, which actually surprised everyone in the room.

"Ahh... The mutated fullbringers." Meninas said as she spoke up.

"Exactly, the research division has already gotten some... Albeit circumstancial evidence that there is a genetic connection between them and the hellspawn, and it does add up with them being so much hated by the fullbringers, and those mass graves in Taiwan is a treasure trove of genetic information, it's sad that so many kids are dead but they are dead and I don't really think they'll mind if we do some genetic testing on their bodies, you should all have gotten files on this, did you skip out on your job and avoided reading them or did you forget them?.. Not that it matters anyways." Ichigo said plainly before he continued to issue orders at this point.

"Liltotto, have the research division assemble a team to do autopsies on the bodies of mutated fullbringers, drag out any genetic information you can find, if we find that we can see if there is some sort of weakness we can exploit, and I want you to personally supervise this task, additionally, have Kisuke look into how the hellspawn got into the world of the living to begin with, whatever you need you will have understood?" Ichigo said as Liltotto nodded, causing Ichigo to continue.

"Ishida, according to our information these genetic changes is caused by a virus, Fort Cardinal has a female who is a mutated fullbringer, I have arranged to have her transported here, we'll assume the worst case that it is a virus, and we need more information, ensure that the female is put in quarantine and take blood samples, ensure she feels safe and comfortable and treat her accordingly, she is not an enemy, and to our knowledge, this virus only affects fullbringers but we aren't too sure, that's your job to find out, and find out how this virus operates, I want you to personally supervise this aswell, understood?" Ichigo said as Uryu nodded, causing Ichigo to continue.

"Candice, does our allies know of the situation? And how did they react?" Ichigo asked.

"All our allies are aware of the situation, and they are quite alarmed by this development, however the east branch and the Dhahe tribe are already spread thin and unable to do anything, and the west branch is quite focused on dragons at this point but Wing Bind has assured us that the sabres are ready for deployment to the world of the living, but they'll have to reorganize their forces, they are also trying to train up a standing army of regular soldiers outside Wing Bind to counter any military threat aswell at this point but they are still in training." Candice replied.

"Very well, contact them and ask if they can deploy the sabres to the world of the living to assist our paladins, if there are more sites with hellspawn, I want to know about it, ensure that there is a good line of communication between us, we'll handle the situation together, and warn them about how dangerous the hellspawn is, ensure that they are aware that unecessary risks can be very fatal when it comes to the hellspawn, understood?" Ichigo asked as Candice nodded.

"Meninas, how does the military industry hold up?" Ichigo asked.

"Production is moving rapidly but the factories are working at full speed and power, I don't think we can push them anymore as they are close to their limits, people are working overtime for the war effort and the machines are operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week." Meninas replied.

"Alright, find additional spots to build more factories, I want another six factories for crosses, and three factories for the Sentinel car, two more factories for helicopters, is this possible and do we have enough manpower to do this?" Ichigo asked.

"It should be possible, I think, I will do what I can." Meninas replied.

"That's all I'm asking, supervise this personally, I want those factories up and running as soon as possible, so put them on high priority, If you lack funding then speak with Uryu and he will give you whatever you need, I don't care how much it is, just get it done!" Ichigo said as Meninas nodded.

"Bambi, I want you to speak to your father, he can take as many officers as he needs, I want him to launch military drills for the units inside this empire, additionally have him ensure that the units are ready for deployment at a moments notice, and have him look for anything that might be missing, be it inventory, vehicles or equipment and have it stocked up, if he needs something produced, have him speak with Meninas directly, you should have time for that before we leave, as a matter of fact you can call him once we are done here from my phone." Ichigo said as Bambietta nodded.

"Good, then you all have your jobs to do, in the meantime I will reprioritize other things." Ichigo said as this little meeting concluded and they all did what they had to do, even Ichigo himself now had some phone calls to make which he would take after Bambietta, some calls he didn't really want to make.

After Bambietta had finished her call, and Ernst got his orders, Bambietta handed the phone over to Ichigo as he gestured for it and dialed in a specific number, and then he got through.

"Hello? Kukaku?" Ichigo asked into the phone as the opposite end responded, Bambietta didn't hear what was said though.

"Yeah, uhm, I look forwards to the test tomorrow, but I also need you for another important job." Ichigo said as Kukaku responded into the phone afterwards.

"Yeah, we got the missile trucks right? Those that can put the missiles in silos and carry them around?" Ichigo said as Kukaku responded into the phone afterwards.

"Okey, there are several bases with finished silos, have the missiles fully loaded, fueled up and ensure that they are ready for firing." Ichigo said as Kukaku responded into the phone afterwards.

"Yeah I know... But I have a bad feeling we'll be needing them soon, and I fear that our options are becoming very limited, and time doesn't appear to be on our side." Ichigo said as Kukaku responded into the phone afterwards.

Bambietta overheard Ichigo's words and from the looks of it, the nuclear option was a very real option given the circumstances, if the hellspawn was breeding then it was a very real threat they were facing, and with no knowledge on how to truly defeat these monsters, a nuclear attack seemed like the only viable option at this point, and from Bambietta's understanding, Ichigo had no intention of letting her into the field, but then again, she couldn't be everwhere at once, but she did want to enter the battlefield again, so why Ichigo never let her out was beyond her, but she never said anything on it, she hadn't even mentioned it to him, perhaps Ichigo had other intentions, or maybe it was because he needed her elsewhere, she didn't really know.

"I know they haven't been officially approved yet, but consider this an unofficial approval, just get it done, we might need them very soon... And yes I know the risks of a massive attack, just get it done, please!.. Bye." Ichigo said as he hung up rather annoyed, which was rather surprising for Bambietta, because Kukaku was always punctual and never really argued against things, but evidently this time she did.

It was hard to blame her though, because Kukaku knew what a nuclear attack would do, just about the majority of the royal family did, so the fact that Kukaku was hesitant shouldn't really have been surprising at all.

Eventually the doors opened and Sabrina entered, rather happy and very much looking forwards to the trip, she was also wearing a rather nice attire, but this was because of rules in the royal family, and while Ichigo hasn't really been that strict with those rules when it comes to Sabrina due to her age, she willingly followed them.

This rule was simple, because the royal family had four attire and clothing categories that regulated what to wear, namely home clothing, public clothing, formal clothing and military clothing, and we all know that military clothing is a uniform, however the three others were much different.

Home clothing was actually rather public clothing to wear at home, just like sweat pants and so on, however they would never be seen on a royal in public, on occassions or events, because on occassions, events or in public, you had to wear either public clothing or the formal clothing.

The public clothing was pretty much formal clothing, but not the royal attire, because the royal attire were made to be extravagant and was made for formal occassions or to wear during special meetings, like Ichigo's royal attire which was made to be very special which he wears on occassion, however the standard clothing was very nice, like Ichigo's public clothing, which consisted of a light grey suit jacket, suit pants, suit vest, tie of similar color, a black shirt and black shiny shoes, and Bambietta wore just as nice clothing, and so did Sabrina.

And while these rules might sound strict, they aren't as strict as you think because Ichigo has made these rules rather loose, because if the circumstances says so, then you can wear less formal clothing, like if Ichigo wanted to play a football match in public, or for instance a trip out into forest, now I highly doubt you'll see Ichigo play football in a suit and tie, much less so out in the forest, because the circumstances says that football clothing or outdoors clothing is more appropriate, and just like Bambietta, she would normally wear a longer skirt then her usual short skirt which she has on her uniform, aswell as the stockings she used which was usually nylons, compared to the long socks she used with her uniform.

But as it had gotten cold outside, the circumstances said that it was more appropriate to wear something that would be warmer and better to use, so instead she wore pants that matched her suit, aswell as heels made for winter, usually Bambietta's shoes had thicker heels which was more easier to balance on, and she dropped the stockings and garter belt for black socks instead.

Sabrina however, wore pink pants, a pink shirt with a collar, aswell as a white jabot tie around her neck, aswell as pink pants and pink frilly socks underneath her black boots made for winter, even her headband was pink along with her coat, because a coat was the more formal thing to wear in public, so even Sabrina was prone to those rules.

"You ready?" Ichigo asked Sabrina as he noticed several servants stood by the door with coats and a scarf and one with a silver plate with a bunch of items on it.

Sabrina nodded as the servants entered, Sabrina was already dressed up prior so the coats were for Ichigo and Bambietta, and the servants helped put them on, after a little bit of research on this zoo, thanks to the internet, they discovered that it was a combined indoor and outdoor zoo which was located outside the city, and since it was partial outdoor, Bambietta decided to wear a scarf, figuring it might get cold.

The plate came and on it was Ichigo's wallet, which just happened to have a bunch of cash and a card which was connected to the entire treasury, as the treasury was the property of the royal family after all, Bambietta also got her wallet with a similar card, aswell as accessories such as watches and so on, after they had gotten everything and gotten properly dressed, they left for the motorpool.

Silbern City

***Short While Later, Enroute***

As usual it was a motorcade, but this time one thing was different, Ichigo, Sabrina and Bambietta was sitting in the rear of the same limousine, and the driver was as usual, the commander of the K.G who was always attached to Ichigo, namely Ulrik, and besides him, which was rather unusual, wasn't a guard, but rather the commander of the A.N.U, Pascal himself, and he didn't always sit in the same car but this time he did, if anything it always varied.

Bambietta sat besides Ichigo, both of them facing the front of the car while Sabrina faced the side of the rear of the car.

"Your royal highness?" Pascal said as he focused backwards into the car at Sabrina.

Sabrina however, was preoccupied looking out the window, trying to show her teddy the city, so she never really noticed Pascal trying to contact her directly, but she did hear him, but she assumed he was attempting to contact Ichigo, as she briefly forgot that the proper title for her sister and Ichigo, was her and his majesty respectively.

"Sabrina, someone is trying to talk to you." Bambietta said to Sabrina, getting her attention as Bambietta pointed at Pascal, causing her to look behind her as Pascal finally got her attention.

"A letter has arrived for you." Pascal said as he handed it over to Sabrina, causing her to grab it and just look at it before opening it and taking out the letter with a bunch of words.

However there was a slight problem though... Because Sabrina had just gotten a letter, a written letter to be precise with a bunch of words, and she couldn't read yet, causing Sabrina to just look at both Ichigo and Bambietta as she reached out for both of them, leaving them rather confused for a brief moment, wondering whether she wanted to show off the letter or if they wanted to read it for her.

"You want us to read it?" Bambietta asked as Sabrina nodded, causing Ichigo to reach over and grab it.

Ichigo looked at it while Bambietta peeked over by leaning her head on Ichigo's shoulder, the two read it silently first, taking in what it said so they could read it back to her properly, and the two quickly realized, it was an invitation.

"You've been invited to a tea and sleepover party by the viscountess of Schärberg, Amanda von Stelzner evidently which is held during this weekend from friday to sunday, evidently she felt the need to stress out that Alice was also invited" Ichigo said to Sabrina, surprising her a bit, first she was invited to the zoo, and now a tea and sleepover party?

"Ahh I remember her, if I recall correctly she was one of the kids who Sabrina played with during that party and our wedding, correct?" Bambietta asked as Sabrina nodded rather content.

It wasn't just regular kids Sabrina had gotten in contact with, she did get in contact with the other kids of aristocrats aswell, and Amanda was a 6 year old girl and the firstborn child of count Anton von Stelzner and his wife, countess Chriselle where Anton was the family head, effectively making Amanda the heir to the Stelzner family, and as the heir, she got the title of viscountess, now Anton and Chriselle had three children, namely Amanda, Troy and Markus, but as there wasn't any gender discrimination in the Wandenreich, the first born child became the heir regardless of gender.

The heir of a count or countess who supervised a county, which was their area, the heir, always got the title of viscount or viscountess depending on gender, but what about the dukes and duchesses whom governed entire states and was above the counts and countesses, what about their heirs? Well they got titles too, namely the title of visduke or visduchess, depending on gender, so let's use the Brickner family where Kurt Brickner, the father of Alice was the family head.

Alice was the firstborn child of Duke Kurt and Duchess Lisa von Brickner, in fact she was the only child of Kurt and Lisa, atleast for now as it was hard to say if they had any intention of getting a second child, regardless, Alice was actually visduchess of Silbern, Alice von Brickner, so the heirs get the title of their parents with a vis on the beginning, which is essentially was another word for vice, which meant second-in-command, and the title did come with authority and power from birth, even more so then the second and third child had, but it also came with responsibility and duties once the child was ready to take on duties, but it had less authority and power then that of the family head, namely the parent.

"Hmm, Schärberg? That's quite the distance." Bambietta replied.

"How far away is Schärberg?" Sabrina asked curiously.

"It's a bit far, not really sure... How far is it?" Ichigo asked.

"According to the GPS, from Silbern it's about 2933 kilometers away." Pascal stated, or for those who use miles, about 1822.4 miles away, that's almost the same distance from Norway to Spain in the real world, giving a bit to the example.

"Oh, I think that's far." Sabrina said as Ichigo chuckled.

"Do you want to go?" Bambietta asked.

"Will you go with me?" Sabrina asked.

"We got our own work to do so, and besides, this invitation is for you, but you will have your guards and maids with you." Ichigo stated.

This caused Sabrina to be a bit hesitant in responding, not really knowing what she should say at this, she had never been far away from home before so this was very new to her, but Ichigo felt that this might be good for her, to allow her to connect with other aristocrats and to give her some space of her own.

"The choice is yours, but I think you should go, this is a good opportunity for you to connect with other aristocrats and get to know other people, a bit of yourself time." Ichigo said as Bambietta actually agreed by nodding.

"Is that going to be a long drive?" Sabrina asked.

"By car it's about 30 hours of driving, but aren't you going to use the aircraft?" Pascal asked.

"I'm going to fly!?" Sabrina asked rather surprised.

"Of course you are, it's a long distance, and going by aircraft is much faster then taking the trip by car." Ichigo replied.

"If you take the aircraft, you will get to the nearest airport in just 4 hours, then it will be about 30 minutes of driving to the residence, so the trip will be about 4 and a half hours in total if you use the aircraft." Pascal stated.

"Ohh... You think I should go nee-san?" Sabrina asked.

"I agree that it might be good for you, but the choice is ultimately yours, and you will also have to skip kindergarden that day to make it, but no worries, we'll take care of that." Bambietta stated.

Thinking about it, Sabrina eventually just nodded.

"You want to go?" Bambietta asked as Sabrina nodded.

"Alright, I will have Samund make all the necessary preperations." Ichigo said as he reached for the internal car phone.

"And I will talk to mommy and daddy later." Bambietta said as Ichigo suddenly sweatdropped.

"Uhm... Yeah... I forgot about them." Ichigo said rather dumbfounded.

The call had been made and Bambietta would speak with Ernst and Ausilia later, when they got to the zoo, they arrived almost the same time as the Brickner family did, however the other kids, who were commoners had already met up and waited for them, it was quickly obvious that the parents hadn't been told who they were specifically as they got quite the surprise when they noticed nobility and royalty exiting, they definitely hadn't prepared for that, much to the amusement of Ichigo who struggled to avoid laughing, it wasn't every day you meet royalty, or nobility after all.

But the parents of the other children quickly regained themselves and they continued on to the zoo, now this was an unofficial event, so nobody, not even the staff workers knew that the nobility would be present, much less royalty itself, so it was quite the surprise for everyone in the zoo, as a lot of attention was given to the group they were with.

But much to Bambietta's happiness it seems that Sabrina has been steadily making friends in kindergarden, as she was friends with commoners and nobility alike, and that wasn't really bad at all, the same can be said for Alice as her parents were rather content with what they saw, as their daughter and Sabrina was both very happy along with the other children.

As the children were looking at the animals, Ichigo took this time to speak to Kurt directly about the tea and sleep over party, and he confirmed the invitation and said that Alice had indeed every intention of going, Ichigo did offer up a space in the royal aircraft Sabrina would be using, but Alice would probably leave later then Sabrina, which Ichigo understood as there was some family coming to visit from Alice's maternal side and they wanted to see Alice a bit before she headed off, so she would use the Brickner family jet.

Almost all noble households in the Wandenreich had their own private jet, if not all, atleast Ichigo didn't know of any Quincy nobles who didn't possess a private jet, but there was a difference, because the nobility mostly utilized a small Cessna Citation Latitude with modified engines to increase the range, going so far as doubling it, and every noble household had one of those, Ichigo didn't know if any families possessed two or more, while Ichigo possessed five massive Boeing 747-700 series aircraft which were massive flying cities in comparison.

Of course there was a difference, as Ichigo had the entire treasury in his pocket, where the nobility did not, so Ichigo had enough money to maintain and fly them as much as he wanted, after all the bigger the aircraft, the more expensive the usage is, aswell as the maintainance, and that's a fact, Ichigo's five massive private jets were very expensive not just to buy but to use and to maintain compared to the smaller private jets like the Cessna Citation Latitude which was very cheap in comparison, but expensive enough that despite being very wealthy, not even the brickner family got more then one.

Regardless, Sabrina was also happy that Alice would join, despite them not flying together as Sabrina would leave at about 10.00, give or take, Ichigo didn't know who else would be there but according to Kurt there would be some there that has already verified their arrival and there was more counting, so a lot of aristocratic children would be present, for now though, Ichigo relaxed with the other parents, enjoying his break as it was a nice change of pace, Ichigo didn't know how they got the animals though, he didn't know the Wandenreich had giraffes, and quite frankly, he couldn't care less.

To be continued

A/N: JennadeDamaged, no you are right, turns out I looked at the wrong notes which was taken out, or rather, the bunch of draft files I have, causing a mistake in two chapters, they will be immediately corrected, thanks for bringing this fault to light.

I know I have called Bambietta's tie Gothic or scarf like before, and the reason for that is because I didn't know the true name of the tie she used and only found a hit on it when I searched gothic, but evidently it's actually called a Jabot tie, something I've been trying to figure out for months now, only to recently realize it and do a last minute edit on it, I finally found the name of that tie, and the tie is also prominent in many animes amongst nobility and higher statuses.

Alright, so I decided to continue the entire next chapter as a very boring zoo chapter...Just kidding I have no intentions of keeping to the zoo part for the next chapter, the next chapter will take place tomorrow where a nuclear test will take place, so let's look forwards to the next chapter, next week where we go and blow something up and start new years celebration early... With a nuke.

So Sabrina got invited to a party, not really sure if I want to make a chapter with that party in mind, we'll see what happens, so stay tuned :)

I decided to just stop explaining the launch system because as mentioned because it just became too long and this is just the rough and oversimplified explanation of the entire system as it is very complex and advanced, and a lot of computer is involved, if anything this is one of the most advanced systems besides the HARS and the QSR-5 monitor, and I did not include the launch protocols in full either, because a lot more things would happen in case of an actual launch, as mentioned, using such a weapon is risky, even in the spiritual world because it can destroy the balance that holds the world together, because we all know that one nuclear bomb can kill millions of people, however that also applies directly to Bambietta's ephitet aswell, so even Bambietta has to use her ephitet carefully, and plan out the power consumption of the orbs before firing, otherwise it is the same result as a nuclear bomb, because the explosion from the bomb is caused by a copy of her ephitet created by a machine and stored in a ephitet container placed inside the actual warhead, so yeah, very dangerous weapons that can actually destroy an entire world both humanitarian and spiritually as these are spiritual weapons after all.

You might wonder, why does the royal family also have briefcases that are essentially nuclear footballs, well to answer that, you need to think about the fact that any royal can serve as temporary regent if Ichigo is incapacitated or unavaileble, in which case Ichigo can ensure that a temporary regent has certain and limited amount nuclear weapons availeble in case they really are needed, but the last thing Ichigo wants is to give away the entire arsenal because that would just be reckless of him, which would happen if he gave away his nuclear football, so it was a easier and safer to give them all their own briefcases, authenticators and keys, where a set amount by Ichigo can be transfered over to another authenticator to allow the weapons to work with two or more authenticators for specific weapons.

Additionally, there have been a request to include tanks in this story in my PM, and while I have had no plans to include tanks, I will let the readers decide, should I include tanks in the story or should I just leave it and not include tanks directly? Leave a review or send me a PM with your thoughts and I will follow the majority. :)