Chapter 4, version 4

The den turned out to be exactly as advertised; it was for all intents and purposes a medieval fortress with a pair of walls surrounding a main tower in the center. The style was very reminiscent of Japanese heritage. The walls were a faded gray that looked like they had once been white, now overgrown by years of plant life, the roofs of the structures were black and tiled. She personally could not see any more details from where she stood looking at it from a nearby hill. Whoever had built the fortress had not been very knowledgeable about modern weapons or good anti-siege positioning as it lay inside a valley, giving her a chance to watch the enemy force lighting torches and fire pits as the late afternoon sun slowly dwindled in the night.

To be fair, without artillery it would take a very determined force to break into that type of solid structure. They had taken advantage of the lower water table and dug a moat around the first wall and filled it with what looked like water and spikes, making the easiest way to get into the fortress to be the front door. A perfect killing ground for anyone who tried to assault them.

Kudo came up beside her and pointed with his polearm at the structure, "That fortress is the most well-defended thing in the entire East 80. There is a rumor that there's at least one like this in every 80s district. Supposedly they used to belong to the shinigami, who may have used them to enforce their will this far out before they gave up on anything past the 60s."

He readjusted his polearm and pointed it toward the gatehouse in the outer wall, "There is only one way in and they guard it with some of their best fighters. Even getting close to it will be a problem as they use crossbows in a defensive manner, aiming for legs to cause enough damage to slow you down so their fighters can rip you apart in close quarters. "

"What kind of force does Hisakage have available?" She was curious about what they were bringing to this fight.

"We have about 200 guys who know how to fight and another 300 layabouts that may be useful and, of course, that cannon." He said the word cannon derisively, showing his disrespect for the weapon again. It was odd seeing anyone view the queen of the battlefield, a true wonder weapon such as an artillery piece, with such contempt. She hoped it was just inexperience with the weapon and assumptions due to the failure of muskets that had left him with his opinion. Hopefully, there was not another detail on the list of weird things that make this world work that would make the cannon a lot faultier than she thought. She really needed this plan to work after all.

"How many forces do you think they have?" she asked, rubbing her chin.

"We believe they keep a garrison of around 150 men inside there at all times, with another 100 men in smaller camps around the area allowing them to hit anyone who tries to besiege their fortress," Kudo explained, giving Tanya a general idea of what needed to be done. The attack would need to be done quickly, the walls needed to come down, and the 150 men inside needed to die before the hundred anti-siege forces attempted to attack them in the flank and interfere with the operation. She would have no time for attempts to get them to surrender; she needed the opening attack to be brutal.

Pondering her options she looked over her shoulder and saw Hisakage's men leading a wagon full of a large metal…. a large metal...oh damn it.

"What is that?" she said, pointing at the wagon being pulled up the hill towards her.

"That's the cannon," Kudo said, looking where she was pointing, confused by her reaction.

That was not, in fact, a cannon. It was a bombard. There's a very 500-year difference between the two, she mused, annoyed by the realization that she had jumped to conclusions on what kind of artillery they had. She did not expect anything from WWI but had hoped at least for something from the 18th century. This complicated things, but not too greatly; a bombard after all was just a tube that shoots metal cannonballs at a target, so there's not that great a difference to a cannon when it came to applying magic.

Sighing, she said, "I'll have to just work with what I got," before turning from the fortress and hefting her newly acquired polearm that Kudo secured for her. It was a neat little 6-foot spear with a blade on one side and a spike on the other. She walked over to the so-called cannon and began to look over it. It was a bombard, no mistake about it: it was heavy, hard to aim, and not a quick-firing machine. However, the balls inside the cart with the cannon were made from lead, and after taking her dagger out she was easily able to scrape something into the side of it with no real issue.

Settling on a plan she looked over the five lead balls and then back to the enemy walls before asking, "How well can you make your men march?"

"Marching? Not at all, why would they need to be able to march ?" Kudo asked.

"Timing, My plan will require your men to be able to push into the fortress in an orderly manner of some kind, and if they attempt to just mob in there is a good chance they will just be murdered by friendly fire. If you can get them in a basic order there is also a chance you will be able to make the punch into the fort more effective." She stated, hoping Kudo would agree to that part of the plan.

Kudo looked down the hill towards the road at the banditry that was slowly making their way to the campground in groups of two and three with no real order among them. He seemed to think a while before he finally said. "I could get some of my sub-commanders to give it a shot. The men aren't used to it; they are rather individualistic and it's not something that I've ever had to really think about training them to do so don't expect miracles."

Tanya nodded, then added, "Also, see if you can get a few men to create a pontoon or some sort of wooden structure to be put over that moat." Kudo nodded before walking off, she on the other hand turned toward the cannon problem.

Looking over at the cannon crew she put as much authority in her voice as she could muster, "All right you powder monkeys help me get this oversized slug thrower over there." Pointing to a good position that allowed the gun to overlook an area to the left of the gatehouse. The area in question was not particularly well protected; the gatehouse was more focused to fire at forward targets, and with any luck, those inside the building would be in too much shock to do anything about it.

With a shrug that might have gotten her to go full drill sergeant mode on them if they were in the Imperial army, the crew got to work pulling and pushing the bombard into place moving the five lead balls into position next to the cannon and the box full of powder she ordered to be kept 20 yards away in a tent.

She walked over to the lead balls and sat down next to them pulling out her dagger. Spells were made up of complex mathematical formulas and normally with an orb you would just need to run the formulas through your head while applying the magic to have an effect on the world. But without an orb things became more complicated, to say the least. The more complex it was to run the harder it was to keep the formula stable and make sure the proper amount of magic was flowing into it.

However, there is a way to bypass this problem: mages had been applying their art for a long time in Tanya's world and she found some of their histories a fun read. Taking her blade she began to inscribe the formula directly onto the lead ammunition. Of course, there are issues with any type of magecraft. If you were not careful to make sure that the formula was scratched in deep, parts could be destroyed during the firing of the cannon. At best this meant nothing happened but at worst the cannon could blow up: this is why she was going to take all night to make sure the writing was well and truly carved in deep with each formula. She expected she would need to find a whetstone to resharpen her dagger when this was over.

The one good thing about a siege: the defenders can sometimes get overconfident and not take the threat outside as an actual issue to be dealt with. If they had done so and done anything to attack the camp during the night Tanya may not have been able to have finished carving the formulas into the ammunition. Unfortunately, even without outside problems, when all was said and done out of the five lead balls she had been given she only was able to carve formulas into three as she did not have the magic capacity for all five. However, three was better than nothing and should be enough to do the damage that needs to be done to break into the place.

Thankfully she was able to get a few hours of sleep after completing the project but she would probably have to use what miniscule magic she had left in a mental enhancement to keep herself awake and focused. Getting out of the tent that she had procured the night before she stretched and watched the training field below. What she saw would make any drill sergeant in the Empire cry tears of shame. They were attempting to learn to march; they were attempting very hard, but the number of collisions indicated they were a long way from ever being able to pull off a simple march in any line forward.

Shaking her head she admitted to herself she would have to tell Kudo to just give up, although having good order when breaking into the fortress. Letting their attempt to charge the position as a mob would be more successful than watching them trip over each other as they failed to march through a small gap.

If she was in the Empire she would never let this pass and would be out there training them herself, but this wasn't the empire. And there were legal repercussions to be considered. What she was doing right now was helping a lesser evil take out a greater evil. If the Gotei 13 decided to look into this whole affair they would come up with that she did nothing wrong as far as she was concerned. However, if she helped them improve their standard of a soldier and this standard of a soldier was ever used against the Gotei 13 all of a sudden she'd done something very wrong. In the long run, it was safer for her if she had as little long-term influence on the lesser evil as possible.

Shaking her head she headed towards a larger section of the camp where Hisakage and Kudo had set up their command center. Kudo looked up and gave a wave. "Morning Tanya. You know, last night I thought that the whole marching idea would probably be terrible and would totally turn into a disaster, however, my sub-commanders are reporting the guys are having fun trying to learn it at the very least. Taking a lot of pressure off their nerves before the fight and keeping them loose will make sure they stay alive longer so I call that a win."

She looked at him deciding if she should mention her particular problems with their marching or not before deciding to keep it to herself. If they were finding some use out of the train wreck of the marching drills she saw, well let them get their use out of them.

"Morning Kudo," she responded, "How are the other preparations going? Will we be ready for the attack in a couple of hours?"

"Yep, the last of the men we are waiting on will be here in about 2 hours so we should be able to begin the attack about midday. Do you think your cannon trick will really be able to knock down that wall?" Kudo asked as he picked up a drink from a table.

"Yes, of course, the mathematical formulas are all in place," Tanya said with a wave of her hand paying the table full of drinks more attention than the conversation, the cups were steaming and had lovely dark color, it couldn't be could it? Picking one up she sipped one and enjoyed the first caffeine buzz she had in this world.

"Yeah about that, what were you doing carving those math formulas into the cannonballs? I don't exactly get how that works."

"It's a German practice, it's for good luck, don't worry about it." Perhaps she should be worried that she had to lie this much but then again she slipped up and mentioned her salary job in her last life and got away with it. In the long term, it was nothing to worry about she'd be gone and they'd be in control of this territory too busy managing it to question some of the things she had said, hopefully.

Kudo for his part seemed to just nod and mutter something about Superior German engineering.

"Well if I've got some more time I'm going to drill the cannon crew to make sure they're ready for the fight. Let me know when it's time for the attack to begin." She said before wandering towards where the cannon had been left the night before. Taking a cup of coffee with her.

Kudo shook his head looking over at the hill where Tanya was training the cannon team. "I tell you there is something not right about her."

Hisakage looked up from the meal he was enjoying as he sat at a table that had been brought out for him. "I mean she's obviously a child soldier who lost their life fighting in a war; there's a lot wrong with that."

"No boss, there is something deeply wrong with that person. Her story does not make any sense. I know a lot about history and I know Germany was not at war during the time she died. I also know Poland was not at war during the time she died and the fact she mentions the Eastern front. I think she's lying to us about the date. I think it was more like 1943." Kudo said, pointing out issues he had with her story.

"You think she's Nazi after the spiel she gave?" Hisakage asked, raising his eyebrows.

"No, I don't think that in fact, but you don't have to be a Nazi to have served in the German army during their war. Maybe she had tacit approval for them at the beginning but the reason she has such a feeling against them now is what she saw near the end," he theorized..

"That's assuming she's not from some Nazi super-soldier program. Hell, maybe she's from an Austrian super-soldier program. Austria technically did not exist while Germany had control of it," Hisakage offered.

"I get where you're going with that," Kudo said, "but still something is just not right about her."

"Well I agree there's something off about her but in the grand scheme of things I really don't care. She wants to leave and when she helps us get what we want I see no reason to keep her around if she gives us such a headache, so this will all work out in the end. Hell if she's somehow managed to pull off that artillery scheme of hers I'll give her the most expensive thing I find in that damn castle to make sure she gets all the way to Central so we never have to worry about her again," Hisakage said before biting into a waffle from his plate.

"What's the most expensive thing a bunch of murderous bandits could have?" Kudo asked out of curiosity.

"Don't know but they've been around for at least a couple hundred years and that place used to be owned by the soul reapers so I imagine they've got to have a few goodies in there," Hisakage said with a shrug.

"That is a point." He looked up at the sun then sighed. "It's almost midday; guess it's time to start organizing this attack. Good luck boss try not to get killed in the charge."

"Same to you Kudo."

With that said, Kudo got up and stretched before walking up the hill and over to the artillery piece to give the blonde girl her orders. "Tanya, time to get this show on the road," he called out as he approached.

The girl in question had her arms on her hips overlooking the crew as she gave one of them a thorough verbal thrashing for forgetting to scrub the tube before putting down the imaginary practice round. Explaining exactly how he would have lost his arm, how far it would go, and how much blood he would lose before anyone had the chance to do anything about his injury if he did that during live fire. The mortified cannoneer was apologizing profusely and swearing he would never do it again and looking a bit gray.

She turned and looked at Kodu before nodding and yelling, "All right men this is not a drill! Prepare the cannon for the first round at the elevation to the predetermined parameters for the first wall. We're going to knock that one in and then we'll worry about the second wall and then we'll see what happens."

The crew had been drilled to efficiency; it seemed they immediately got to work adjusting the cannon to the proper elevation and prepping the load. He expected them to toss the lead ball down the barrel as soon as they were done, but something odd happened. Tanya put her hand on the ball; a moment later the etchings she carved into the ball began to glow a light blue, the same as her eyes which had also begun to glow.

"The hell," he began before she responded by cutting him off.

"German mathematics applied with spiritual pressure, don't worry about it," before she sipped her coffee.

The frankness and uncaringness about how insane that sounded resulted in him holding his tongue, unsure how to respond to that. She was supposed to be new to the uses of spiritual pressure. How had she already figured out how to apply it through German mathematics? Not to mention she seemed really chipper right now compared to when they first met. Was this some need for battle coming out?

Down below the Hisakage was getting the men to stack up ready to rush any breach in the wall; several groups were carrying ramshackle wooden bridges that could be placed over the moat so they wouldn't need to worry about falling into the spike pits of doom that they were.

"Time for the show to begin," Tanya said, picking up a torch and making sure her crew were not in front of her cannon and about to be reduced into red mist before she placed the torch against the torch hole at the end of the barrel. A moment later a thunderous boom sent the cannon back about afoot.

The cannonball soared high over the valley and for a moment there he thought it was going to miss then the orb glowed and redirected downwards smashing the wall before exploding in a matter that should not have happened if it was just a lead ball. The old wall crumbled revealing that it was not as solid as it had appeared. It was hollow, perhaps storage rooms. However it was designed, it was now being put to the test as it collapsed inward creating a road of rubble into the first ring of defenses.

"Made to look impressive but not that defendable against artillery. That's good: I was worried I was going to have to use the second ball on the first wall," Tanya muttered before giving the order to have the cannon and readjust for the second wall. She sipped more from her cup as the crew spent a minute cleaning and reloading the gun only stopping to touch ammo causing it to glow like the other.

A moment later the cannon boomed again sending a second spiritual pressure armed ball high before it also redirected downwards crashing into the second wall and blowing it up as well as the first wall had been.

"And now we have an open road to the main keep," the short girl mused as she ordered the third and final ball with markings on it to be loaded.

About a hundred men had gathered near the first breach preparing to defend it as Hisakage and his forces stumbled at an attempted march towards the shattered wall keeping their shields up as crossbow bolts and other ammunition rained down upon them. They would reach the moat any moment now and be able to place the bridges; then they have their hand full with the force at the wall.

"And time for the trash to be removed." The girl muttered before firing the third round. This round did something different: it soared high and redirected like the other one towards where the enemy was gathering near the first wall, but it exploded above their head sending shards of metal throughout the compact line of men that had formed there. Of the 150+ that had gathered there, maybe 25 were still standing, some of the others were trying to get back up but most looked like they would not be doing so.

"Fire those last balls at will boys," Tanya said before picking up her Polearm and walking to the stand next to Kudo.

"How are you able to apply German mathematics like that," he asked the girl, her eyes still glowing for some reason.

Looking it up at him she said "It's all practice." before walking down the hill towards where Hisakage and his men had breached the wall getting their way deeper into the fortress.

Kudo knew he should have followed as well but he finally figured out what was wrong with her, and was left stunned. Maybe she wasn't a Nazi but whatever she was she was definitely part of some clandestine operation to use spiritual pressure in the world of the living. There's no way someone normal could figure that out quick enough to be able to apply it like that.

Tanya stepped carefully over the bodies trying not to slip in anything that used to be a living being. Part of her hated being back here again, killing and wasting human potential for short-term gain. But she was able to rationalize it away. In this world death meant being sent back to the world of the living, she freed these bandits of their medieval mindsets and sent them to have better productive lives in the late 1970s or '80s. If they could remember this experience they would probably thank her.

Shaking her head she made her way deeper in keeping her polearm at ready stance. She didn't plan to do any fighting, but if the warlord got himself killed she had suspicion Kudo may skimp out on the deal. The way he looked at her didn't sit right with her.

Walking past a moaning pile of what used to be men she headed toward the second wall, it would seem they had managed to put up a defense here as there were more of her bandit allies' bodies than their enemies'. But her allies had broken through and were currently using a make-shift battering ram on the wooden door of the main keep.

"Tanya!" She heard the familiar deep tones of Hisakage and found him overseeing his men working to break the door down. He had a few nicks here or there and was covered in blood, probably not his by his demeanor.

"Hisakage, good to see you doing fine, how many of these guys do you think you have left to deal with?" She asked

"Ah hard to say, if I had to put money down… 25 seems like a good guess, just need to break into the tower keep and we can put an end to this fight," he said with a laugh

"Hmm shouldn't take long then that door will buckle any moment by looks of it," She responded.

"Yeah you can say that again. That door is as old as the fort. I'm surprised it hasn't been fouled by time and critters," he commented

"They must have gotten someone to explain how to care for wood at some point." she missed as she heard a crack sounding the door giving way. Three of her allies tried to rush at the moment the door came down but all they got was a sword slicing through them.

"Who dares kill my underlings and destroy my home!" boomed a voice and a giant of a man came through the doorway carrying a katana in his hand. He looked over the group in front of him, his eyes glazing past Hisakage and landed on her.

"It was you wasn't it, some world war brat thinking they can cause trouble because they were so modern," with a swipe another of her bandit allies died to the katana as he shoved his way toward them some of his underlings engaging her allies in battle behind him.

"I would like to point out I did no such thing," she said, buying time to apply a mage blade to her polearm and switch her enhancement spell up so more of it was focused for close-quarter combat.

"That's what all the upstarts say when they realize they will be fighting me."

"And who are you?" She asked stepping to the side away from Hisakage keeping the giant's eyes on her in hopes that Hisakage would take any opening she made to attack.

"I am Torii the Giant, ruler of east and king over all I see"

'Great bandit lord that thinks he's king, there is no way he surrenders then,' Tanya thought.

"Well king, I'm afraid the revolutionary forces have breached the capital and want you removed from office."

"Then they will die!" He swung at her with the katana and she moved to block with the blade of her polearm expecting the katana to cut itself in two on her mage blade. That did not happen as both blades spark off each other.

"What?" the king asked, confused, leaving himself open for Hisakage to shove a blade in his back and out his chest slicing through his heart.

King stumbled forward, his grip on his blade weakening and allowing her to slash down with her own polearm, knocking the blade from his hands.

"That is not a fair fight" king muttered before she brought down the spike end of the polearm on his forehead ending the fight quickly.

"Huh, thought you would come up with a one-liner to send him out on?" Hisakage asked as he came over to look at the former king's body.

"Monologing just gives them a chance to kill you," she said leaning down and picking up the king's former sword, she was wondering how it had managed to stop a mage blade. The blade was dented and dull with age but overall in fine condition, barely used by lack of chips out of it. Looking over towards the keep she saw the last of the enemy dying or surrendering, being outnumbered 4 to one tended to have that result.

"Holy hell that's a Zanpakuto!" Hisakage said looking at what she was holding.

"A what?" She asked, giving the blade a few practice swings with one hand, it was too heavy for her liking and had less range than her polearm.

"A weapon of the shinigami you know those guys who basically can perform blade magic" Hisakage answered

She in fact did not know that bit of information. She heard enough to know that shinigami were part of the system that ran this place, but this was first hearing about blade magic. Looking over the blade again she wondered if the blade was forged from something that allowed for the creation and maintaining of spells, could it be used as a replacement orb? But another thought hit her then, if this was a weapon similar to Orb and belonged to those who ruled this world, they would probably pay very well for its return and perhaps help set her up somewhere nice to live.

"Hey Hisakage, mind if I have this sword?"

Author's note

And this ends what I have been mentally calling her arrival arc, she has a somewhat understanding of the world, some resources, and objectives. Now begins the road trip arc which should take a couple of chapters. After that, I have ideas for at least 2 maybe 3 (or more) arches before we get to the main bleach plot stuff that starts in 2001.

I hope I did a good job on this chapter and live up to expectations, there is always a concern in the back of my mind I'll screw it up somehow.

Please comment, review, and generally enjoy yourselves…

Betaed by blarker654, FinalFan, RefugeInAbsrdity

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Lord Xantos A. Fowl

I do to

Lord Feunoyr

lot of lords here today, here chapter 4, and as for the rest of your massive review i agree with lost of it, lot of it already to my thinking.