Chapter 12 version 3
1982
The last few days Tanya's life had revolved around simple things. If she was not attempting close combat practice with Grantz and Levenshtein she was exercising or studying. Her life was spartan, she knew it but her so-called leisure time was a necessary loss if she wanted to attain at least a mid-rank position. Her studies of the text in the library generally proved that there was some sort of information manipulation going on.
Though when it came to the Quincys it would appear very minimal. Quincy's were apparently a group of humans with high spiritual pressure who apparently did not like waiting around for the Soul Reapers to come to save them. They had developed their own way of fighting them and from at least what the book said this method somehow damaged the fabric of the universe. As they'd been wiped out by Soul Reapers and Hollows, there wasn't a need to worry about the fabric of reality tearing apart.
This extermination appears to have been unpopular with someone at the time as the books did manage to paint the Quincy's as human and not some sort of monster that needed to be dealt with. As far as she knew the Quincy's were wiped out so this in the end would not affect her. It was a good example to pay attention to though. If a person or thing becomes a problem the Soul Reapers consider dangerous to the order of the world as they understand it that danger would be removed.
Just another reason to give a good show of being a loyal Soul Reaper. After thoroughly reading the book she moved to return it to the library and find her next subject.
The sun was setting on another day of study; her muscles hurt, she was well fed, and her brain was focused on what sat before her. Several books of law were open to various pages and subjects. The legal system for the most part were simple laws about murder, theft and such, mundane things. These were rules that matched well with civilization and she could understand them easily enough. There were new laws however, outside the basics for civilizations, laws specifically aimed at Soul Reapers, or their exemptions from basic law..
From her earlier reading, she knew at minimum the Central 46 would be out of touch, possible corruption as well since nobles were involved. So she needed to build a rapport with them, toprotect herself from any of their schemings.
"Soldier, philosopher, and now legal counsel? Tanya, are you aiming for the captain seat?" Came the familiar voice of the captain of the fifth division. Aizen had apparently finished his paperwork from his class and wandered over to talk, something Tanya was more than happy to indulge him in. She had done some research since their last meeting, listening in on conversations about the fifth captain, and now understood that Aizen was one of the more personal captains and had a tendency to look for talented individuals for his division. She was most likely being talent scouted and though she was not sure about joining his division, the fact she now had two captains interested in her career was a good sign for promotion.
Leaning back in her chair before she stated "If there ever was an open position, I would consider it. However, I much prefer a middle management job."
"Then why are you so interested in these old books," Aizen asked, moving to take the seat across from her.
"Self-improvement has its own rewards, plus I like to know who I'm serving," Tanya replied.
He looked at the book with a smile "Is this about Kidos you've been using, are you worried they may fall under the forbidden Kido?"
Tanya sat up straight as the possibility that she had already broken the rules of Central 46 "I was unaware that there were forbidden Kido?" she said keeping herself as calm as possible.
"Do not worry those Kidos are about manipulation of space and time, from what I know you only use barrier Kido so you should be fine," he mused before he continued, "though by your reaction you seemed a bit tense about Central 46?"
Tanya thought through this situation, coming out and telling him she worried Central 46 were out of touch was a sure ticket for the 2nd division disappearing list. So perhaps another track would do. "I don't like breaking the rules a society is built on, I had years to understand the one I came from, but this one is so alien, I worry I might make a misstep" A simple diversion tactic while also admitting a slight truth; with any luck he would look no deeper into the situation.
The Fifth captain nodded, "Ah yes, we don't get many Europeans so it's understandable; give it time and you will find it hard to make missteps, though you should still be careful if you planned to join the 12th."
Tayna bit her lip just hearing the name unit gave her the feeling like that mad doctor was laughing and waiting for her. "I do not plan to join that division. I had less than fun experiences with R&D during the great war."
"Great war? Hmm, that explains some things, but that would be a wise choice really. The 12th is… the reason a good portion of forbidden things exist," Aizen said, shaking his head.
Tanya was interested in what the 12th could have done so she asked, "A bunch of mad scientists locked in a room left to their own devices? Sounds like a recipe for disaster and innovation."
"HA! Most of the time they follow orders but Central 46 has come down hard on them even when they did what 46 wanted. Some of their decisions have made me rather uneasy with them." Tanya raised an eyebrow at that statement, perhaps 46 had some detractors in the upper ranks? If so, taking a position in the 5th division had several notable benefits centering around possible protection from 46 madness. But it also had drawbacks, if the captain ever did anything to get on 46's bad side. She would have to consider this carefully.
"What kind of decisions, if you don't mind me asking?" Tanya asked, leaning forward in her seat.
"Well it's not well covered and most animosities existed well before the final order was given but they were the ones who issued the order about exterminating Quinces. I always felt we could have worked something out with them." Captain stated before he continued. "And there have been various projects that were morally grey over the years, such as the creation of artificial souls for combat purposes, followed by the artificial souls destruction."
Tanya sat back considering the new knowledge. 46 had orchestrated a genocide on a group in the living world and destruction of artificial beings they created. Add in her own suspicion about Soul King existing. This was smacking of some religious fundamentalism or need to remind people who were bosses.
"Speaking in hypotheticals Sosuke," using his name to show some comradery in what she was about to say "Central 46 may have had a good reason at the time for what they did from what I understand of them. The world of the living is changing, republic and democracy are becoming the norm and the people who end up here are slowly going to want more representation than some elders who may have lived in their district 1000 years ago." Tanya proposed before saying. "46 may need to learn to reform, or they may have discontent on their hands, and from my understanding of Soul Reapers' numbers, I doubt we could pacify it."
"Do you think 46 will reform on its own?" Aizen asked his hand under his chin as he thought.
"Doubtful, religious monarchies or religious oligarchies aren't very open to change, not unless the Soul Reapers make it clear they're not interested in putting down a peasant rebellion every time there's a particularly bad drought or taxes get too high. More people die every year because there are more people who're alive in the world than have been alive before. Eventually the number will reach a critical point and people in outer districts will set up their own republics and declare themselves independent from 46's rule and once it happens once, it happens again and again." Tanya took a moment to take a breath noticing the commander seemed raptured by her hypotheticals so she continued.
"We Soul Reapers will be powerless to do anything in the long term. If the 46th orders us to bring them down, we could do it for a while, but a large portion of our recruits come from those outer districts. If we look like dogs of oppressors our recruits will begin to dwindle with time."
"That would be a disaster for us," Sosuke stared wide at that terrible possibility.
Tanya nodded, "46, from what I understand, was meant to keep us on a short leash, something we may need, but that style of rule has passed in the living world, it is the inevitable outcome for nobles: either reform, or fading into history."
Aizen nodded before saying, "You have a mind for politics, are you sure you are not aiming for upper seats?"
"I enjoy history, political theory is simply something you come to understand when you read how the system that builds our current world came about. As for the upper seat, I would not say no but I prefer a job where I would not have to deal with politics myself." She said with a smile.
A few months after her talk with Aizen, Tanya was diligently working on the course work she received from her teacher Ōnabara. Thankfully the course work was structured around what she wanted to prioritize first and in her case it was Hakuda. In her mind she was well on course to achieving a minimal level of fitness Hakuda required. She had a few run-ins with Visha but nothing substantial. She was a busy officer, and since Tanya was not in her class yet there was no time to talk.
But that would not be today's practice: today she had set out to tutor her former lieutenants Vooren Grantz, and Nicole Levenshtein. They had not figured out how to use their magecraft from their own statements and it was about time that changed, and she needed to learn how to use Kido as well so working together in a study group made the most logical sense.
Sitting in one of the open squares on campus with her two former lieutenants they had been having a chit-chat about the Kido Spell. Their research of Kido revealed that there were three kinds of spells: Bakudō, Hadō, and Kaidō.
Bakudō spells seem to have a myriad of effects, at least the ones they could look at which varied from a smoke grenade to a simple spell that caused the target's arms to lock up and of course a shield-like spell. It seemed to be based on defense actions and nonlethal takedowns.
Hadō were offensive; they could produce what sounded a lot like lasers in some cases and other strange effects. One of the simplest spells in that category was basically flicking your finger and sending a weight of force the size of your fist at a target.
And then there were Kaidō spells which were the official names for healing works. An interesting field, they worked on a simple principle: restoring Reiatsu to an injured party then using the injured party and the healer's combined Reiatsu to heal the person.
From there the spells were broken down into power level one being the weakest and every spell past that getting progressively more powerful. And as she had been told they required chants. She had studied magecraft a bit while at the war college so chants she understood; however, she didn't like them. They were slow and cumbersome and she'd rather use her old mage formulas, sure she hadn't figured out how to fix the pressure issue but the speed in a battle was more important than accuracy.
Oddly enough from the materials they had available there were no illusionary or decoy spells, not even body or mind enhancement spells. This was odd because she knew all of those did work in this world. There were pressure issues but they existed. Obviously, no one had studied them or perhaps they fell under a different field of study other than Kido? She would need to do more research to find out what was going on there.
As she pondered what she could do she idly listened to the two lieutenants talking.
Grantz was looking at the book intently while Levenshtein used her knife to cut up her lunch. They'd been chatting about the very subject she was looking at when Grant asked something interesting. "You know looking at this these are kind of formulas based on speech and not math right?"
Tanya set up the thought he said tingling something at the back of her brain.
Levenshtein was cutting up the meat product they called a lunch when she responded "In a way yes it's a 3 point formula: type of spell, power of spell, name of the spell. Why do you ask?"
"Couldn't we then, say take your knife and say 'Hadō 3 Mage Blade' and effectively cause the spell to work?" Grantz commented thinking out loud.
"I don't think that's how that works..." Nicole said uncertainty.
Tanya, on the other hand, pulled out her knife, the one she had since she first arrived in this world, and beat up those failures of bandits, and attempted to do as Grantz suggested. "Hadō 3 Mage Blade"
To her surprise and the others', the blade began to glow and the pressure was stable. If anything it felt like she could apply a little bit more, maybe a five or a six.
"Our formulas work on us pushing the relevant amount of magic power into what we want to happen. There's work on determining what magic power would go in and then allowing it to take that power." A smile gracing her face as she realized what this meant.
Diminishing the mage blade on her knife she said "Vooren if we were still in the empire I would put you in for a commendation. As it is though we need to keep these spells close to our chest now. If they don't want me using the empire's method of deploying spells they won't want us using their method with untested spells."
Grantz nodded his agreement then asked, "Then how do we get them to be considered tested?"
"Most likely we will need a seated officer to oversee testing, though we can't do very much. It's not like we know how to build a gun to use an artillery spell." Tanya mused out loud.
"Oh," Nicole spoke up, seeming to have had a thought "What about using a sling to throw a rock with an artillery spell imbued in it?"
"A slingshot like a child's toy?" Tanya asked, slightly confused.
"No no, a sling like David and Goliath. When we first arrived here I was a bit concerned about our lack of ranged weaponry so I built myself one. Dad was always a stickler for the old arts so he taught me how to throw rocks at a pretty good range. It should be safe enough to toss a low-level artillery spell." Nicole started pulling out a fabric contraption from one of her pockets.
Tanya sat there for a moment thinking, they would need a safe area to test something like an artillery spell to determine what level of strength they need to be throwing in combat and they would need someone who wouldn't sell them out for experimenting with as of yet unvalidated magics.
They would also need someone who was high in spiritual power so that if anyone did come looking they might not figure out what was going on and assume the person they were with was the cause of the disturbance.
She didn't have to think too hard to come up with a very likely subject for this matter. "I might have someone who can help us test this. But we won't be able to meet up with them till the weekend." She said getting nods of agreement from her former Lts.
Rangiku Matsumoto was a perfect candidate. Most likely she would be more than interested in helping them get off-campus. She would also be high enough of a rank that no one would really ask too many questions. And as long as they gave her enough money to drink Tanya was sure she would keep quiet about the whole thing.
So Tanya penned a letter to her stating that she and a few of her friends were interested in getting off campus for a while to have a night on the town and was wondering if she could as a lieutenant help them accomplish this.
It worked like a charm. Tanya received a letter from Matsumoto saying she would be there in the evening of Saturday night to pick her and her new friends up. So all she needed to do was have them ready by then. By Saturday Tanya was waiting with Vooren Grantz and NicoleLevenshtein by the front gate of the academy. They didn't have to wait long as Matsumoto showed up within moments waving and bouncing as she ran over.
"Hay Tanya! I didn't expect you to already want to break out for a little night on the town." She said while she was looking her over before she spotted Grantz and Nicole. "And these must be your new friends you were talking about and see that one of them has nice broad shoulders, definitely looks like he'll play the hero type." She said looking over Grantz appraisingly who responded by looking very uncomfortable and leaning back.
"New is relative in this situation, meet Vooren Grantz and Nicole Levenshtein, former members of my unit before I died." Matsumoto's head whipped to look at Tanya.
"Wait, you actually found some of the people you knew when you were alive?" She asked with a rather perplexed tone.
"Yes, not shocking really, my soldiers were really good in a fight and it's no surprise that they would hear about this afterlife military want to join," Tony said dismissing the whole situation.
Noting Nicole, Matsumoto leaned in real close and asked in a whisper. "She wouldn't happen to be the one you spoke about."
"No no no, I did happen to run into her surprisingly enough, who would have thought Visha would already be here," she whispered back hoping to end this conversation with a bit of information.
"Oh that is…" whatever she was about to say seemed to die on her tongue as a moment of realization washed over her face. "Hold on did you just say you know Visha as in the girl who tore her way through the southern eighties district with nothing but a shovel and brought the banditry down to near zero, Visha? The one who folks think is Zarak, the captain of the 11th division's second adopted daughter, Visha?"
Tanya was taken aback by this. She had not expected that her former adjutant was so well known or so well connected. If Visha shared a relationship with the 11th Captain that most folks thought may be of paternal nature, that meant that she had managed to embed herself well with the officers of her division. To be expected from such a loyal adjutant. It was good to hear how she landed on her feet.
"If we're talking about the 10th seated officer of division 11, yes," Tanya stated.
Matsumoto gave her a look for a moment then finally shook her head and she stated. "Girl we need to have a heart to heart about things that attract you one of these days, but for today we're just going to enjoy a nice bar I know just down the street from my days at the academy."
"How wonderful, though we were wondering if you could help us with a bit of experimentation," Tanya stated, stopping Matsumoto mid-step.
"Experimentation how?" Matsumoto asked, looking rather worried by that comment.
"Just a little Kido spell, the staff don't want us testing on campus but we need to give it a few tests somewhere safe and out of the way. After that, we'll gladly join you for your bar trip and even pay for your drinks." Tanya started with a smile.
Like a charm, the 10th lieutenant smiled and responded, "Sounds like a plan to me. I know a place a quarter-mile east of here, a small little wooded glen. No one really goes there so it should work fine."
"Lead the way, lieutenant," Tanya agreed with a smile. As Matsumoto started walking in a direction. She had hoped that there wouldn't be any questions but Matsumoto apparently was not in the mood for keeping things simple.
"So all three of you knew each other in life. That is an exceedingly rare chance that you ran into each other, but I guess if military life agreed with all of you chances would go up then I guess." Matsumoto mused.
Nicole spoke up trying to correct lt and failing, "Military ma- Air corps"
Tanya shook her head glad that she had spoken with the two beforehand but they needed to work on their retelling of her cover story. "They were some of the finest flyers I had in my unit," Tanya said, not lying on this at all; all the 203rd had been some of the finest flyers she'd ever seen. Besides that one guy who was on the Rhine front who instead of flying used his mage abilities to moonwalk out of the anti-aircraft fire. It had been such an insane sight but yet so endearing she remembered it fondly. She kind of wished that soldier had volunteered for her battalion but she'd never seen him again.
Not noticing that her two former lieutenants seemed thoroughly honored by her statement, Tanya continued, "They were also members of the organization I told you about after that hollow tried to eat me".
"Do you mean those magic welders you mentioned?" Matsumoto asked.
"Those would be the ones, in fact, we are interested in experimenting with one of our spells but it seemed best to do it off school grounds in case something goes wrong." And to avoid academic control but no reason to let her know that.
"What kind of spell would require you to go off campus to test?" the 10th lieutenant said with a smile.
Grant spoke up saying, "An artillery spell set to its lowest settings to make sure we don't accidentally blow ourselves up."
"An artillery spell?" Matsumoto asked as they walked "How did you guys use that during the Great war?"
"You'd be surprised what you could do when you can imbue a few rounds of your machine gun to have an explosive effect. I believe people used to believe we were just using explosive ammunition.." Tanya supplies then continued "I would imagine spell casting methods we used were lost in transition after the last of our group died."
"Probably for the best they were lost really," the 10th lieutenant said, "Something tells me your methods would have drawn the notice of the Soul Society sooner or later. 46 does not like living people with powers meddling in spiritual affairs and your ability to use Kido spells probably means you could meddle in spiritual affairs."
"Yes, I have been reading that. If I ever do make it back to the world of the living, I might make sure that any record that are still around are completely destroyed just to make sure no poor fellow accidentally draws 46's ire," Tanya said off handedly.
"Yeah I'd probably do that too," Matsumoto chuckled in amusement at the idea. "But anyway here we are," she said, pointing to what appeared to be a small forest in the middle of these districts, possibly a game reserve, Tanya thought.
"Sure this won't cause any problems for anyone?" she asked.
"Oh no no, this property used to belong to some minor Noble about a hundred years ago but they were removed from their office by 46 and ever since then this property has been abandoned," Matsumoto replied.
Tanya nodded then said, "Well let's find somewhere near the middle where the blast won't draw much notice and we'll have plenty of time to get away if someone does notice it."
They began to track their way deep into the wooded park. Just one look at the terribly maintained walkways and overgrown trees confirmed Matsumoto's story. The place was thoroughly abandoned but one person's abandoned pleasure park was another person's artillery range as they say.
After 10 minutes they finally reached the center of the park where they began to set up. Nicole began to throw a few practice slingshots, while Tanya and Grantz worked on building a shelter with some fallen branches and logs. They plan to use a shielding spell but it was best to have a little something extra in case something went wrong.
Matsumoto stood by watching the group working before asking "So this artillery spell it's not going to level half the forest is it? "
Nicole spoke up saying "I'm planning to only use the smallest amount of power I can put into it so at best maybe three trees will fall over. During the war, we could put a lot more power into it. There was this one raid on industrial district D-"
Tanya broke in to say "Romania, most people outside Germany know it as Romania."
"Right Romania, the full battalion launched an attack and a whole industrial center went sky high."
"That was mostly the secondary explosions" Grantz supplied before mentioning "Hell of a night, international law said we had to announce attacks on military targets close to civilians, so Tanya made the announcement, everyone laughed it off as a joke because of her voice."
"I don't remember most of that night," Tanya said most of what she remembered during that night was vague since she was running on fumes. Most she remembered was her dropping the hard edge she always put to her voice to give the legal notification of the attack. And being slightly annoyed that everyone picked up that she put effort into changing her voice even if they got the wrong idea from it.
"I swear you said something odd that night after the place went up in a fireball," Grantz muttered as he finished pushing a log in place.
Tanya shrugged, not sure what he was talking about, "What is important is that I think we're ready for the test. Nicole, take a position behind us and we'll form a shield when you toss the rock, oh and you might want to get behind us as well miss Matsumoto." Tanya suggested.
Once everyone was in position Nicole began to spin the rock and supplied a basic chant "Steel Rain from the sky, Hadō 22 artillery" and then the rock was unleashed. Tanya and Grantz raised up a barrier in front of them just in case something went wrong the stone soared high before smacking into a tree causing a blast of light and fire as the tree was snapped in half.
"Tamaya!" Matsumoto shouted. "You could put a firework show on with that thing. The training you got during the war must have really paid off, not many people can toss out 20th level spells and not—" Nicole fell to the ground appearing to be completely exhausted. "—that," the 10th lieutenant chuckled
Tanya went over to check up on Nicole and when she was sure she was okay she said "Well we now know that we need to build up a lot of energy to pull off a spell-like that. If 20 was the first number that came to your mind for a low-level spell, I'm going to need a lot more for spiritual energy in case we ever need to blast anything bigger."
She looked back at where Grantz and Matsumoto were standing, noting that Grantz was giving her an odd look before she noticed they weren't alone.
"That was quite a magnificent show," a tall man with white hair in Captain's robe said as he stood just behind Matsumoto who nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Gin why the hell did you pop up now of all times." Matsumoto yelled, seeming to have some sort of relationship by the looks of it with the suddenly appearing captain. The wind blew enough that she saw that his Haori markings indicated Gin was the leader of the third division.
"What, I can't come and check on an old friend when they wander into the woods with three strangers that I've never met before?" he asked, attempting to sound wounded.
"Well technically yes, but I find it odd that you just happened to look for me," Matsumoto asked.
Gin shrugged "Well technically I'm looking for these three, the staff wanted me to keep an eye on them since they were so gung ho about using their Kido in strange and unusual ways. Gin Ichimaru, by the way, captain of the third. I think that what they're doing is quite splendid, but I believe one of you was warned not to use their Kido craft directly?
"I was warned not to use my silent casting for any offensive spells. All I was using was a defensive spell in case someone else testing an offensive spell went wrong though I will admit this could have been done better." Tanya stated.
"Well then, I think I won't be reporting what exactly happened. Just try to be more careful in the future about who's following. You never know what a person's end goals are," Gin said, walking back toward the woods.
"I will keep that in mind," Tanya said, taking the signal as a warning about testing magic. Thankfully they only needed this one test as a proof of concept for now. When they finally graduated, whenever that would be, they could test to their heart's content.
Giving a proper respectful head nod, Tanya added, "Nice to meet you, Captain Ichimaru."
"Nice to meet you, Miss Degurechaff. And please take care of Matsumoto here. I believe you have promised to pay for her drinks tonight, don't forget to do that." He said walking further away and setting off alarm bells in Tanya's head. There had only been one place she'd mentioned that, at the academy gate, meaning he had managed not only to get close enough to eavesdrop on them but to do it for the entire time since then—and who knew how long before—without being noticed. Did the 3rd division share some sort of connection to the second division and their secret police? She would have to treat their interactions with care.
Watching Gin leave Matsumoto gave a very annoyed sigh before she shrugged the whole encounter off and said, "Welp, you three have had your fun. Now to the bar, and Grantz, as a proper man, you better carry Nicole."
"Yes ma'am," Grantz said, lifting Nicole up while still giving Tanya an odd look that made her wonder what he was thinking.
Author note
Yeah real issue with this chapter that bugs me is time movement. I want to do some time at the academy but I don't want to detail every detail which means… time skips… not sure I'm doing a good job of those skips, with this chapter.
Please comment and review, and generally enjoy yourselves…
Betaed by: FinalFan, Buzztech
Fanfiction author note
This chapter cursed, first I screw up and send a view-only version of the chapter to my beta team and don't find out till a week later, which is why this week was late. then it does come out, and well some folks pointed things I could do better when comes time skips and I AGREE, all in all, do not expect chapter 13 next week, because I may be doing chapter 12B instead, to better fill out her time at the academy. also going on vacation next week as well so I'll get more writing done but internet access could be a pain.
chapter 13 and 14 are done and sent to the beta that why can't just use their numbers.
bcchamorroc: I hope you enjoyed the Tanya and Aizen interaction in this chapter.
japs.p9: Visha shows up heavily in chapters 13 and 14
David Alejandro Gmez Fernandez: I'm not sure... perhaps you find out more in chapter 14,
farcochat: thank you and I hope you enjoy this chapter, I hope I can keep living up to that high praise.
arthurpendragon1940: thanks for the cookie, and I'll keep at it as long people keep reading it and responding. as for Tanya reference real world, that just how she is.
luther10120111: here you go
EricFreak: funny I'm going to a theme park as well next week, just wait till chapter 14 my man, I think and the people I share this with behind the closed doors think I did a very good job on the latter half of that chapter.
Keywielder: MY humor hit sometimes.
All Guest: yep about 1 year before that in fact... I might actually have the timeline off by two years but there is nothing that shows up that really would force me to fix that. yeah, I thought about using the salaryman, but he just did not feel right for her sword. Aizen is a perfectly reasonable person exactly the kind of person Tanya can get along with.
Grocamol: all the schemes most likely
TooBad69: Will do
PsylentFox: Yes... terrible things Aizen's worldview