Chapter 5, version 4
Tanya von Degurechaff did not waste any time in leaving the old wood-cutting village experimenting after the attack on the bandit fort. She made sure that her payments were squared away and gave thanks to Gojou who helped feed her the first few days after her arrival. She left without much fanfare not that she wanted it, the more impact she had out here more likely something she did would have some sort of blowback.
For Hisakage's part, he was good to his word and assigned two men to help get her from 80 East to 78 East, where she met what amounted to a pawnbroker who she traded the chain necklace for an equivalent amount in local currency. Thinking about it most likely the Hisakage had given her the necklace and sent her to this specific pawnbroker in hopes of getting the necklace back at a later date but that was not her issue to worry about.
The whole trip between the two districts took about a week, 6 to 8 hours a day on roads that looked like they hadn't been maintained in 500 years. This did however give her a somewhat good estimate baseline for her journey. She figured as long as things were somewhat consistent she was 6 to 8 months from the central districts. Depending on if she had to stop along the way to do odd jobs for funds to travel or take a moment and enjoy a little vacation.
She had not had many vacations in her last life or the one before that, not enough time and too much work made sure of that. But now with a lifespan measured in hundreds of years, taking a few days off to just enjoy some sites and views seems downright reasonable. As of yet, she had no idea what she would do during those unplanned vacations but who knows maybe she'd pick up fishing.
Though she quickly found out the 80s weren't the only terrible districts for banditry. Over the course of several weeks as she made her way through the seventies there were attempts to accost her at least once every 3 days. Most times she was able to scare the idiots off with a swing of her Polearm and a flash of a decoy spell that looked like a bug monster she saw once in the 90s.
One time while at a bridge crossing a river she'd actually negotiated the bandit into becoming a toll bridge keeper. It had been an interesting deviation from the norm. The guy had built the bridge he wanted people to pay to use his bridge. He didn't need to threaten violence but he was so used to everyone else threatening violence he did. It was almost comical but after disarming him and explaining the more solid economic theory to him the guy had accepted a few coins and let her pass.
There were a few times though where negotiations and scare tactics fell through, those few times she had decided to go out of her way to not kill the idiots. She did rob them blind for assaulting her, but she saw no need in taking their lives. It was interesting to have that opportunity to make the choice herself. In the empire, orders did not leave much room for prisoner taking, and mages were so dangerous that both sides did not take prisoners in combat. The bandits were weaker than her, and so it was easy to beat them up, then she just tied them up to a tree. The next town she found she'd tell the local law enforcement where she left them and let them deal with them hoping they would be able to salvage those bandits' human potential.
Usually, they'd be a sheriff or some kind of town police force, once the local group had actually called themselves a militia but she'd still not seen any of the soul reapers of much renown. This had led to a much mental devaluing of this military force known as the Shinigami and the political unit known as the Gotei 13. They had obviously abandoned the outer districts for some reason but it did not seem to be the local sentiment that drove them off. Which meant to her they most likely did not have the power or logistic network to support forces out this way.
Perhaps it was due to the medieval infrastructure this world seemed to rely on. If they had a few steam engines and a train track they probably would be able to support operations all the way to the '80s as long as they had a good reactionary force. She mused one night.
Besides those incidents where she ran into bandits or had a nice couple of days in a town most of her trip was a repetitive 6 to 8-hour walk setting up camp and taking down camp and experimenting with the Zanpakutō. The sword was an interesting find, to say the least, attempting to use it as an orb had not gone exactly as well as expected; most mage spells didn't seem to do much; the spiritual energy she ran into never solidified into a proper spell. However, Zanpakutō took to Mage Blade like a fresh coat of oil. The blade seemed to soak up the spiritual energy readily. And, with the mage blade attached to the sword, it worked rather well as an impromptu woodcutting ax so she continued her spiritual pressure training every night with the thing making sure she had a good stock of wood for a fire pit.
It was about a week into this training that she began to notice something odd happening to the sword, the dull shine it once had seemed to be getting brighter, the dents in the blade seemed less notable and it had begun to have more of a curve to it. The handle of the blade gradually shrunk down; two hands could still be used on it but it was no longer as large as it had been when she first got it and could be used one-handed easier now.
It was an interesting thing to watch progress and theorizing about it was a good pastime in the night. So far she assumed that these blades were made from some spiritual material that when spiritual pressure or energy was applied to them the blade reshaped to better suit the wielder's uses. She wondered how far the blade would change to suit her needs but she suspected it would not be too great a change, she doubted it could change into anything like those old Japanese officers' blades from world war II which basically sat on top of a pistol.
She was concerned if this process was irreversible and would get her in trouble with the soul reapers when she finally met them. She put that idea out of mind though. There was no way that this blade had not been shaped by the former bandit king of the 80s' spiritual energy. He's had to have had it at least a couple hundred years from how long the den had been in control of the 80s. So the process was most likely reversible and not something to be concerned about. However, just in case there was something else going on she was reluctant to use the blade in any of the fights she ended up in instead of relying on her polearm. Leaving the shiny blade to dangle on a strap of her belt during those fights.
The attacks on her person didn't finally stop until she reached the 60s. There seemed to be less banditry and when she finally did run into one he screamed when he took one look at her and ran away. Unsure what that had been about, she decided to stop off at the next town to see if there was any interesting news and maybe pick up some provisions.
For a price of a few coins she was able to get a nice cup of tea, she would prefer coffee but apparently that was a rarity that only prospective warlords seemed to be able to get their hands on. If she didn't want a nice calm life she might consider warlord life: the caffeine withdrawals were aggravating enough it may be worth it. The town in question was very similar to the one she left, only less about logging and more about farming general food stores. You'd think that with the price of food being so low there wouldn't be room for towns with economies built on food, but then again, the few people with high spiritual pressure probably paid good money for tomatoes and such to break up the diet.
She wouldn't say it was wealthy but it was prosperous; houses looked clean, the businesses didn't look run down and the people weren't wearing rags. Which was good because she was probably going to have to hire a tailor before she left town to fix up her uniform, since a month of travel had a tendency to wear on the clothing. It wasn't too bad yet but the raggedy pants legs, damage to the arms from breaking through the brush, and other minuscule nicks and cuts would build up over time if she was not careful. She did not want to end up in the central districts looking like a homeless person. That would be a terrible first impression to any prospective employers she found there.
Enjoying the tea she sat in a local diner listening for any rumor. She heard a crazy story about a monster with glowing eyes attacking and eating the souls of its enemies. Standard small-town myths and horror stories to keep the kids inside at night. But besides that, there was no real local news that warranted her attention. She was about to signal one of the waitresses to order something more substantial than tea when the woman she had figured for the owner of the diner approached her table. She was an older woman wearing an expensive Japanese-style dress. And looked like someone who should have no interest in talking to her right up to the moment when the words came out of her mouth.
"Hey there little girl, you wouldn't happen to be from the Germanian Kreise Empire would you?" The woman had leaned over so she wasn't towering over Tanya while she said it.
It took a moment for her to register what had just been said and once it did she looked up at the matronly older woman a bit confused. She planned not to mention the details of her past life to avoid questions, but she never planned for someone to just come up and ask her. In the end, she decided finding out why she knew about the empire was more important than keeping her secrets.
"Why yes Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff at your services, How did you know?"
The older woman laughed and said "Amazing, a man showed up here 20 years ago in a very similar uniform not speaking a lick of Japanese. It took time but he eventually learned and told us a wild tale. I always thought he was a bit crazy since I've never heard of anything like the stuff he talked about coming to be in the world of the living before but he seemed very convinced that what he was saying was true."
20 years! that bastard Being X had pulled one over on her in the end after all. She thought she'd be the first to arrive in this world and to some degree, she had kind of hoped that she could build a place for anyone who did show up here. That was one of the long-term goals that she hadn't really had time to think about since she was too focused on the short-term at the moment. But now that plan was damaged greatly if members of her last world had already been showing up as far back as 20 years ago. She had wondered who would make the list of people who meant something to her and in Being X's mind now she may never know, some of them could already have been killed and sent to the world of the living. On that thought.
She stood up and asked, "this man who showed up 20 years ago what happened to him."
"Oh, he actually settled three miles out of town to the east of here and runs a farm. Can't miss it, he got a flag on a pole out front with some double-headed dragon on it," the woman said, standing back up.
Upon hearing that she handed the old woman the money for the tea and a couple of extra coins for the tip. "Thank you for the information," she said, and then she was off to see this mysterious member of her past.
Finding the farm really was a trivial matter with the imperial flag of the empire flying so proudly above it. Perhaps she should have asked more questions before she left the diner but the curiosity of who had appeared 20 years before her head overwhelmed her good sense. To some extent whoever showed up in this world was her responsibility. If they had not interacted with her they would not have drawn Being X's notice so finding out if they're doing okay was the responsible thing to do.
The farm was as expected a Japanese style of house and it was finally starting to make her wonder why everything was Japanese. Was this the only afterlife or were afterlives regional affairs? If it wasn't for the fact that her soul was originally from Japan she would wonder why she did not end up in the German afterlife. Being X must have decided to toss her in this particular region of the afterlife then. And the fact that she'd run into someone along a direct path to the central districts from where she had started tended to indicate he had also particularly placed this person here as well.
That would imply that Being X was not strictly staying to the deal. Oh sure he was not actively screwing with her but it appeared he had at least set up a few dominoes to pay later dividends. The implication was annoying, to say the least, but hopefully setting up a few dominoes was all he had done and he was not going to appear to her.
Shaking her mind back to the moment she approached the front door of the farm and gave it a good knock. She was going to only find out who was here taking action. She waited a few moments and then the door opened revealing a tall 50 something with short dark hair and a beard that she did not recognize. Until the man squinted as if his eyes were not as good as they used to be before pulling out a pair of glasses and putting them on.
"Brigadier General Lehrgen?" she asked, finally placing him. Lehrgen looked at her for a moment… then shut the door in her face. She was surprised to see Erich von Lehrgen, she had expected her command staff of the 203 aerial mages or maybe someone from her command staff of the Salamander Kampfgruppe, but then again Lehrgen had been one of her closest allies in the general staff, and she heard he spoke in favor of her raid on Russy capital of Moskva during the opening days of the eastern front. They did tend to have a good working relationship, but if that was a minimal line for Being X to drop them off in this world, there were a lot of people she had good working relationships with over the years.
There was a conversation going on the other side of the door now. She could not make out much but sounded like Lehrgen was speaking in Japanese with a woman. Moments later the door opened back up and a brown-haired woman 30 something woman came into view. "Hello there little girl, and who might you be?"
Eye twitching a bit at the comment she snapped a salute in hope to signal to the woman she was here on official business "Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff, commander of the Salamander Kampfgruppe and the Imperial 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion. Madam, I am here to see an old colleague."
"And you're not one of my daughter's friends helping her mess with her dear old dad?" the woman asked.
"Ma'am I have no idea who your daughter is, though I would like to congratulate Lehrgen on his progeny."
Lehrgen finally came back into view "So you are real and not me finally losing my mind?" he asked in German.
"If you lost your mind then I'm afraid your wife has lost hers as well, and I assume you never educated your daughter on your birth language well enough that she would be able to teach some random lookalike," she responded in kind.
"Ha, yeah, Kayo, meet Tanya the Ace of Aces."
"Wait, you mean she's real?" the now-named Kayo said in surprise, giving Tanya a slightly terrified look...
"Yeah; might want to make a spot for one extra tonight, can't see an old war comrade without offering them a meal." He held the door open, allowing her to enter.
"Thank you Brigadier General but I would not like to impose on your hospitality," she said, taking a moment to take off her boots to not drag any dirt into their home and leaving the polearm against the wall outside the door.
"Nonsense, for one I have not been a Brigadier General for nearly 3 decades. I'm just a farmer now, so drop that. Erich is fine. For another, it has been nearly 40 years since we last saw each other. I want to know what you've been up to in that time. Just consider the meal payment for that knowledge," Lehrgen said, leading the way into the large living/dining room, with a table in the center for eating and a desk in the corner that seemed to have paperwork set about in large stacks. The house was very traditional Japanese but this room took more influences from European style, with good chairs to sit on around the table.
She took a seat across from him, taking her sword from her belt and laying it against the table before saying, "I'm afraid there is not much of a tale to tell. I only just appeared in this world a month ago."
"And what was the first thing you did?" Lehrgen asked pointedly.
"I defended myself from a couple of bandits." she said matter of factly.
"And is that how you got your hands on that Zanpakuto?" he said pointing at the blade.
"Oh no, I got that after helping take down a bandit camp." she answered with a shrug.
Lehrgen gave her a bemused chuckle before saying "you haven't changed a bit. Let me guess, you're heading to central."
"Yes, I thought it would be a great place to find work for someone of my skill set." She said, noting that Kayo was looking at her in some form of shock as she worked on drinks and meals.
"I'm sure you will. Soul Reapers tend to be picky about who they choose from what I hear, but I'm sure you could make it among them," Lehrgen said.
Tanya raised an eyebrow, she never thought too much about joining the group, but the suggestion was worth consideration. She would rather find a safe white-collar job but if there was an option to join the organization that ran this world, Lehrgen had given her some good guidance over the years. He warned her about Dacia before they entered the war, maybe he knew something she didn't and was signaling her to look at the soul reapers? A thought for later she would have to examine in more detail when she had more information.
"Well, I don't know what will happen but good to have someone giving me a note of confidence. Which reminds me of a question, have you seen anyone else from the empire?" she asked.
"No, you're the first person who showed up from my old life, heck when I first arrived and found out how death worked I figured I would never see anyone from my old life especially since I was sure I was not in the afterlife I was meant for," Lehrgen said.
"Oh what gives you that idea?" she said wondering if she would finally have someone to talk about Being X with without sounding like a loon.
"Well for one no one talks about stuff that would be common if the world of the living was our world, but for the other, I'm 90% sure when the Americans dropped that magic nuclear weapon on Berun they ripped a hole in reality."
Tanya sat there blinking for a moment "...Wait what?"
"Oh right you were dead for that, The Americans built a weapon that could destroy cities and dropped it on the capital, ending the war a couple of years after you died."
Tanya looked out a nearby window and shook her head before she finally said "Well, I missed a lot then; what happened after I died?"
Lehrgen shrugged then began "Well, your body was recovered and you were given a state funeral. No one was really sure what to do with you after that till the nuns who raised you offered a solution so you ended up being buried in a tomb at the church you grew up in. The war went on as it had been from there, more enemies popped up and we were eventually worn down and invaded."
She had not expected that turn of events but she figured the nuns just wanted her body for tourist money from war veterans. She rather approved of that in a way, in the end, her rotten corpse was working to make money to help orphans have a better life.
"If you're wondering what happened to your command the Salamander Kampfgruppe was eventually taken apart and units were reassigned to other commands in hopes your training would rub off. The 203 went back to being a quick reaction force, for first-year it was able to pull some miracles. but they were never able to replenish their lost troops at an adequate rate. Some of its commanders were eventually reassigned as time went on as well. If memory serves, your former 2nd Company Commander Weiss was leading 203 in the defense of the border town that had been cut off when the Kingdom of Ildoa joined the war. They held out for a couple of weeks but we lost communications just before Berun went up in smoke. When the war was over we learned that 203 was wiped out along with the majority of the defense force when Ildoa threw everything they had at them. Apparently, Ildoa had been given the impression that if they did not control that particular town when the war was over they would not get a piece of land from the peace conference."
Tanya felt off hearing this story, she created those battle maniacs as a good shield between her and enemy fire but hearing how it had ended for them … it just felt wrong. "Any idea what happened to the 203s that transferred out?"
"No idea, I'm afraid after the empire was carved up no one credible came forward. There was one dictator in Yugoslavia who claimed to have served in 203 but I don't believe him. He was too young to serve with your unit in its heyday: from the few times I saw your soldiers they were always at least older than you."
"A dictator? How worried should I be about my name getting damaged by this dictator?" she asked.
"Worried, he created his own 203 and used them in a terror campaign to obtain power in-country, then managed to invade southern Balkans and Greater Darcia, few folks I knew who were still in the military were asking me to come back to try and organize german states and poles and bohemians, in one military alliance. I was actually on the way to a meeting on the matter when a guy ran a red light and sent me here," he said, seeming to have made peace with his death.
Taking a moment to take an offered drink from Kayo, Tanya thought that over. Sipping the tea she said, "well as far as I was aware I never had a child under my command, so you were right as far as I am concerned."
"Ha, that's goo-"
he was interrupted by a door opening and a voice calling "Dad I'm home!"
"Please don't encourage her," he said a moment before a girl about Tanya's age, a bit taller with the same hair color as Lehrgen and blue eyes, came around carrying a large sack of something.
"I traded the rice you gave me for most of the stuff on the list, they were out of tomatoes though… oh who is this."
"Tanya von Degurechaff this Tanya von Lehrgen, Tanya this is your namesake"
Tanya had to observe that for a moment but then she nodded "Well this must be a weird moment, usually when you name someone after dead friends the friend doesn't show up" She got up and offered her hand to the other girl. "A pleasure to meet you, Tanya"
"Wait, the Aerial mage father always talked about when I was younger when he was talking about the war? That Tanya? I thought you weren't real?" She looked over to Kayo who gave a shrug and confused look as she shook her head.
"I assure you Miss Lehrgen that I am very much real." She let go of her hand then looked back to Erich not sure how to not to encourage her before saying "I've been invited to stay for a meal, so if you have any questions about the old days go right ahead." she thought she heard Erich deeply sigh behind her.
Gojou looked up as a young woman in black took a seat across from him laying her shovel against the counter of his bar.
"Don't see many soul reapers around here very often. Must be another sign that luck is changing for this town," he said warmly.
The soul reaper smiled and asked, "Do you have any coffee or anything stronger than tea?"
"Coffee? I'm afraid we only have several forms of alcohol if that would please you miss?" he said fishing for her name.
"Viktoriya Serebryakova" she responded.
"Huh Russian?" he asked with a tone of curiosity
"Close enough, how'd you know?" she asked
Starting to prepare a drink he thought she'd like he said "Used to work at the hotel all the European royalty stayed at when they visited Japan, and got familiar with the various titles and names."
"Well, Miss Serebryakova." He put a drink down in front of her."What brings you to the edges of civilization?"
She shrugged "I suggested to my commanding officer that our squad would get better training out here in the boonies than we do in central. He agrees with the premise but he thinks the squad is too weak to survive a month out here. So I said I'd survive a month out here to prove him wrong. His lieutenant gave me the papers and here I am."
Taking a sip she stopped mid-taste to ask "Is this vodka?"
"Yep. So how long have you been out here?" Gojou asked.
"A month tomorrow. I've been hunting down rogue hollows. However, I only found two. Frankly, I was expecting to be attacked by bandits more, all you ever hear about in central is the 80s are full of bandit attacks."
"Oh yeah, you can thank our other good luck charm for that. She came here about a month ago and set our bandit problems straight for the foreseeable future, and even drove away a hollow with her spiritual pressure."
"Oh... well, that's good, is she still in town, maybe she'd like to be recruited?" She said before taking a deep drink of her vodka.
"Oh, Miss von Degurechaff left a few days after she solved all the bandit trouble." Serebryakova choked up on her drink in Surprise.
When she finally stopped coughing she asked, "did you just say von Degurechaff? Was her first name Tanya?"
"Well, I guess that was her full name, a friend of yours?"
"Yes, did she say where she was going?" Serebryakova asked.
"Oh yeah, she made it pretty clear where she was going, though knowing won't do you much good. She's heading to the central districts and she's already had a good month's head start on you, are you worried about her?"
Serebryakova seemed to settle after hearing Tanya's destination. "I'm not worried about her, we've been through a lot and I know she can handle herself. Besides, I'm sure I'll see her in central when I get back," She said finishing her drink.
She placed a few more coins on the table and said "May I have another?"
Author's note
I suspect I had too much fun in this chapter, probably one of the reasons it came out this quickly. And it might make this chapter a bit controversial. The issue I suspect it has included but is not limited to.
Not doing every bandit attack, I might give an interlude from bandits perspective at a later date if people want it but I felt they were not strictly needed for the story as a whole.
Zanpakutō transmutation that is currently going on. As far as I can read there nothing says that does not happen and Zaraki and Ichigo are special cases when you look into the details.
The Lehrgens, someone not going to like what I did there. And someone is not going to like me not going into more details. I am sure of that. Again I might do an interlude for them if there is a call for it later on.
But overall… this the fastest turnout yet, I started construction Saturday and finished Monday granted I been working on this idea since the end of chapter 3ish? But talking principle writing 3 days is my new record for 5000+ words. Not bad. Now I just need to hope everyone gets some enjoyment out of the work.
Please comment, review, and generally enjoy yourselves…
Betaed by TimEd, emberwing, FinalFan
FF Response to reviews.
Lord Feunoyr: That is a lot to respond to and I agree with a good portion but I reserve the right to chart the tale as it happens.
Paradox: yep you get chapters 2 to 3 days faster over there but will get more grammar errors.
You don't want me to spoiler her inner world.
there not a sword in existence that that can cut the misunderstanding field permanently
Tracitus: no don't use the bleach wiki (or do if you don't care) but no matter what do tell me if I created an issue by not explaining something. it gives me something to cover in a later chapter. mage blade is a reinforcement spell that increases the cutting ability of item, the blade magic or a Zanpakutō is that it's a weapon with transformable powers... how transformable... one person in cannon can summon a davy rocket nuclear missile luncher as their Swords final form.
EricFreak: took an hour but here you go. I hope you got enough Viktoriya to tide you over for a bit.