Chapter 13 version 2
1983
Tanya awoke and set up with a stretch. With a contented sigh, she got up from her bunk bed and gathered her uniform. Then with a yawn and a bit of stumble, she walked over to the barracks bathrooms and began to brush her teeth and straighten her hair the best she could. It had been two years since her death and in those two years she had worked her ass off to improve her situation.
She felt she had mastered the Soul Reaper spell system and their close combat techniques. well masted as well as any Soul Reaper, she suspected when she was given an official grade on the matter she came in before couple of other students. But as a result of her hard work, she had a bit of a better understanding of how spiritual energy worked. Unlike mana, spiritual pressure was a constant force improving aspects of a person's physical attributes, strength, dexterity, and such. This meant making her spiritual pressure stronger could make her body stronger, and making her body stronger meant she could take more spiritual pressure in a positive feedback loop. This was different from body enhancement spells particularly to how they worked now. Using a body enhancement spell with spiritual pressure allowed you to release a large amount of spiritual pressure for a large gain in strength. It was a temporary boost while spiritual pressure training and training of the body were more permanent.
Through her efforts, she had gone from getting her ass thoroughly handed to her by Nicole to better than even odds she would win in a spar. The same odds for Grantz as the fight became more about tactics and less about physical strength. If she wasn't sharing her understanding with the other two she probably would win every time but she believed that helping improve those two would help her in the long run. If she continued the impression that they were her friends she would be sending a message to the academy that she may be a useful teacher down the line.
Finishing the brushing of her shoulder-length hair which immediately started to curl back into place, she wrapped it up with a hairband into a ponytail to keep out of her way.
Looking herself in the mirror she noted that spiritual pressure had done a number on her. She estimated she was now a few inches shorter than Visha, other developments made sure she would never be able to pass for a male again. With a sigh and missing her old 6 plus foot frame, she began to dress.
In the time since she had come to the academy, she had run into Visha only a couple of times. They had only ever had moments to talk here or there, more greetings than anything, and she hadn't been able to pursue any larger conversations. Tanya was busy with classes and Visha had her own classes plus her Soul Reapers officer obligations. Today she was going to make sure that that would end. With the other two skills mastered she now had a choice of the last two skills that needed to be mastered and there was no reason not to choose the one that would bring her to Visha, Zanjutsu, or swordsmanship. The reason she wanted to re-establish a working relationship with her form adjutant was simple, she was a seated officer, if something ever went wrong with her perspective employment in the 10th, having the 11th as back up would be preferable to no backup. Plus having an officer for a friend meant she could get valuable intel about perspective citation she could exploit.
Of course, she would be attending Visha's lecture with her former two lieutenants Vooren Grantz and Nicole Levenshtein. Once they've learned the language and got in themselves an understanding of how spiritual energy works they quickly rose through the ranks of the classes. And enough of her own class had been unceremoniously removed for failure to keep up with their peers or simply washed out. Some had gone to two and three but enough was just gone that there was room enough for a couple of excellent students like Vooren and Nicole to join her in class one.
Touching her uniform into its final position Tanya strapped her saber to her side and walked towards the exit to the barracks. Stopping only to grab her old Silver Wings Assault Badge from the cabinet at the end of her bed and fixing it over her left breast.
The little memento from her last life may not give her the prestige that it once did outside of her former lieutenants. But the little metal looks very impressive so she figured it probably gave some prestigious impression with the other students. And since she was allowed one uniform alteration might as well be something small.
Stepping out of the barracks she saw Nicole and Vooren making their way down the hallway towards her. Unlike her, they had remained relatively the same which led to her theory that the spiritual energy was repairing damage caused by her youthful malnutrition. Their swords had also stayed relatively similar to when they first got them with Grantz being further along in whatever transformation it was going to take. Outwardly the blade didn't actually look any different but after she told Grantz how to use the mage blade to dump spiritual energy into the sword to increase the progress of the transformation he had started doing the same to his blade. Since she knew what to look for she could sense the energy being stored in the blade if she had to guess Grantz was running mage blade constantly even while it was sheathed away. Nicole on the other hand was taking it much slower, preferring to perfect the spellcraft of this world.
"Vooren, Nicole you were looking prepared this morning" Tanya commented looking them over.
"As ready as we can be," Nicole said, seeming anxious.
"Are you sure this is a wise move to take Visha's swordsman class directly? I've overheard several rumors from some of the other students." Grantz began.
Tanya waved that argument away supposably Visha would take on the four toughest looking students in a 4 on 1 fighting spar at the start of her classes. To impress on them the need for swordsmanship. She doubted this was true to some extent her old adjutant had never been that fight hungry. And, frankly, even if that had changed she doubted it would be a concern for the three of them.
They were old colleagues so no matter what she should probably go easy on them. At worst perhaps she'd call upon one of them for a one-on-one bout later in the class.
"You'll be fine. I trust Visha to know what she's doing," Tanya said as she began to walk with the two former lieutenants towards an area near the back of the academy where the sword class was held.
The two former lieutenants shared another one of those looks they always gave each other before they shrugged in unison. She wondered what those two were up to when had those silent body language conversation, but it really was not something she was concerned with.
Most of the students kept clear of their path as they made their way thru the hallways. Matsumoto had hit the nail on the head when she said Grantz looked the hero part. Which when he started his assent thru the classes had drawn notest of those who thought beating him in duels would help their own assent. SIne they did not share all the same classrooms Tanya had not been aware of this development. Which meant while Tanya was enjoying her class on long-range attack Kidos, Grantz had been involved in a series of duels.
When she got out of class it was too late to stop the enviable. He'd beaten ten plus opponents over thanks to her combat training. She had been rather annoyed by this development and dropped in german to explain how he had doomed himself to perpetual honor duels circuit. Grantz for his part apologized and explained they jumped him when his back was turned so he doubted there would be an honor duel. That given her a good chuckle so she let it slide but asked him to avoid fights in the future since it would not be good for their reputations which he agreed to.
Since then though where ever she went with Grantz students avoided them, he seemed to have gotten some kinda stigma from the whole affair. It was so bad that apparently washed off on her as the effect was present even when he was not around. It would bug her more if she was a more social creature, but as it was she only needed to make friends with her two lts and some of the teaching staff that had military positions. If the student body decided german Grantz and his german friends were trouble makes to be avoided she just had to make sure it did not spread to the teachers, and from her continued theoretical discussions with Captain Sōsuke Aizen, she believed she accomplished that.
Without much more conversation, the trio made their way to the back of the academy and found a couple of seats in the open-air arena overlooking this particular fighting square.
Besides the bleachers overlooking the fighting area, this particular one wasn't much different than the others scattered throughout the school, an area of dirt with some lines marked on the ground so they knew if they were knocked out. Tanya noticed it was slightly bigger than the others, enough for two teams of four to fight each other; perhaps that's where the rumors of four on one fights were coming from, she thought. But all in all, it was just an arena.
"So what do you think she'll be teaching in this class?" Grantz asked.
"I imagine a swordcraft that is based on the tradition of kendo, the style of combat from Japan requiring a two-handed blade that is centered on cutting the target. Which may be an issue for us." Tanya commented out loud.
Nicole made a confused noise then asked "why do you think that might be a problem for us?"
Tanya held up her one-handed saber "I doubt I'm going to be much of an outlier but our weapons may take influence from the empire. Perhaps they'll all be sabers but something tells me we won't be that lucky and we'll all need to create our own regimes on how to train ourselves with our weapons." She explained.
"Most likely it won't be too big of an issue. They've said Europeans have come here before and the katana was not always the premier weapon of Japan. I'm sure there are books in the library and a few people who can help us master how to use our weapons." She continued.
The others nodded before Grantz asked, "may not be too different from what they teach here though I mean your saber has a blade it looks more like it belongs on one of their two-handed swords."
She was hoping he wouldn't mention that up to now assumption on why her sword looked like a fusion between European and Japanese style was due to her two lives. And that was just not something she was willing to try and explain to someone who served under her in her second life. So she did what she best she could and attempted to sidestep the issue.
"I've noticed that as well. Perhaps they will be European flavored Japanese swords we won't really know until those blades finally respond to you too." And hopefully, those blades do her a favor and do as she suggested.
If they did take on a more prominent European look this would draw more questions from the two eventually. Of course, this could all go terribly wrong when Visha started one of her practice bouts and unsheathed her sword: if it didn't have any Asian influences Tanya would be doomed to have questions pointing her way soon.
"Besides that, I'm sure there are spiritual techniques that could be employed through the use of the sword that we are unfamiliar with. The first time I heard about these Zanpakuto they referred to the Soul Reapers as wielders of sword magic. Some of it may be the transforming qualities of the blade and the ability to commune with a spirit inside to unlock further abilities. But there's also the possibility there might be brute force techniques that can be employed."
"Hmm didn't you actually say you talked to your spirit?" Nicole asked, " is there anything we should know before our encounters with them?"
"Just that, from the one meeting I've had with that entity, I would rather not have to deal with it again. I don't know if yours will be less aggressive but judging from the talks I've had with other soul reapers I would think they all are some flavor of annoying and troublesome." Tanya responded, watching more students enter the open-air class.
Nicole nodded and began to write down what Tanya was saying before asking, "Are you sure it's wise not to talk to your spirit?"
Tanya gave her an annoyed look before she said, "Probably not, but unless it becomes more talkative and explains what her problems are instead of just being a bitch, I don't think any progress can be made with that entity."
She might have devolved into a bit of a diatribe about Tasha but then she heard a jingle. Confused, she looked around wondering if she'd missed a notification that early Christmas was coming. The jingling got louder and louder as she looked. Finally, she located the source of the noise as the ring was coming from the entrance near their side of the arena. Then a giant of a man walked into her sight.
The man had spiked hair with bells hanging from it and had to be about 200 plus centimeters tall making her old height a joke by comparison. He was wearing a shinigami uniform with a captain's coat with its sleeves ripped off. She could feel spiritual energy rippling off the man. It was as if he was barely containing the energy. His presence was so all-consuming she almost missed the young pink-haired girl riding his shoulder in a shinigami uniform.
Without looking their way he crossed the stadium before taking a leisurely seat in one of the lower seats. Once he was seated she could finally get a look at his face as he and the girl were now facing their direction. The left side of his face had been marred by a long scar running from the forehead to his upper lip while the right had the eye covered by a patch, perhaps an old battle wound? she couldn't say. But she could very well guess the symbols on his coat represented the 11th division, the reported battle maniacs. So what was the captain of the 11th division doing at the academy?
A moment later Visha arrived by the same entrance. Headed to the center of the arena. She was the 10th seated officer of the 11th division. Perhaps she had invited him. But why? What purpose would having the 11th Captain at a few practice fights have… all of a sudden she had a very very bad feeling about this.
"Good morning class I am Viktoriya Ivanovna Serebryakov from division 11 and I'm here to see how your swordsmanship stacks up, beat some sense into you if you're not giving it enough practice, and most importantly make sure you understand enough of how to defend yourself so you will not die the first time you lose. And make no mistakes you will lose at some point. The question at that point will be: do you realize it before it happens and are able to make the appropriate maneuvers to spare your life, or do you end up hollow food and make killing the hollow that killed you harder for the next Soul Reaper that has to go after it?" Victoria's speech was direct and to the point and rather responsible considering what kind of division she was supposed to be in, Tanya thought.
"As you've no doubt noted, the captain the 11th Kenpachi Zaraki and his lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi are here to watch today's fights. They came because I mentioned some of the top students from class one would be here today and they want to see how good this generation of Soul Reapers is." Visha explained.
Wait, the pink-haired girl was the lieutenant? That midget who was smaller than her when she joined the military? What terrifying powers did she have in combat? Perhaps it was some form of noble privilege? She'd heard that the lieutenant was connected to the captain in some way. She would need to do more research on that.
But besides that revelation, she did not like the idea that the captain was here to evaluate them. You only needed to evaluate someone when you were scouting them and why would the 11th division come scouting the academy for new recruits. Looking at Visha she seems to be beaming and in a happy mood, Tanya had a bad feeling that her adjutant was firmly now the 11th divisions adjutant. Tanya had referred to the 203 as a group of battle maniacs perhaps the environment of battle mania that was supposedly represented by the 11th division had gone well with Visha and she thought it would do well for Tanya and the former two lieutenants as well.
This was possibly leading to a disaster but maybe she could still get control of the situation; she would have to talk to Visha…
"As you, no doubt have heard, I have a tendency to start the class off with a four-on-one bout. This is a way to knock any ideas that numbers will always be in your favor out of your mind. Sometimes you will run into an entity that can overpower numbers through sheer force of will. For today's session, I have chosen Degurechaff, Levenshtein, Grantz, and Hidenao for my opponents," Visha said with a wide smile.
"I should have left her on the Rhine front," Tanya mentally muttered her face in her hands. With a deep sigh, she stood up with the other two, looking over and noting the mountain of a man who blocked her view a year ago getting up as well.
She just didn't like everything that was about to happen but with resignation knowing that this was a part of the academy experience that she couldn't exactly back away from she walked with the other two down onto the fighting square.
The four of them took up a position across from Visha as she began a bit of a lecture. "The first thing you need to know about combat is you need to be ready for anything an attack can come at any time at any place."
Tanya drew her sword having a feeling she knew what was about to happen, her former lieutenants seeing her do so took the hint and immediately did the same. Which left the mountain of the man now named Hidenao unready for what was about to happen.
One moment Visha was there the next moment she'd flash stepped somewhere else. Not knowing where she'd gone and knowing the common tactic was to appear behind your opponent Tanya ducked low and then swung her sword around in a 180-degree twist.
Visha was not there, though she heard the solid smack of the end of a blade hitting the back of someone's head, telling her and the Lts exactly where Visha was as the mountain of a man fell forward out cold with Visha riding on his back, her blade not even drawn.
Standing on top of the unconscious man, Visha continued her lecture. "There are three kinds of fights in the world: fights for Honor that have rules because they are about redressing a wrong; fights for fun, which are not about killing your opponent but having a hell of a great time in combat; and fights of annihilation. This is what you will be dealing with when fighting hollows. If you cannot win it is better to pull back and get aid because there is no fairness in a fight with a hollow; it's you or them. These three are from world war where fights to annihilation were commonplace which is why they knew exactly what was about to happen."
"So I expect them to be able to give a demonstration of teamwork. But if they're not able to, they will at least know areas they need to improve in by the end of this session." She flash stepped again. Grantz jumped out and rolled out from his position just avoiding having the back of his head whacked by the end of Visha's undrawn blade. Nicole seeing the location of Visha dropped one hand from her short blade and attempted to use her Bakudō number one sai spell to disable her.
Visha flash stepped out of the path of the Kido spell and behind Nicole and was about to knock her out when Tanya's blade intercepted that strike and forced it off.
"Another thing to keep in mind in a fight is to not become reliant on one trick, the more you do it the more your opponent learns that that's the thing you do and they will figure out how to counter it quickly," Visha said, stepping back a few steps.
"Nicole, prepare a spell to stop her; Vooren, you're with me, keep her off Nicole," Tanya said, watching Vista as she circled the three of them.
Nowhere in her mind had Tanya surmised that this might be the outcome of their meeting. But obviously, she could not back down now: surrendering would be bad for Visha's relationship with her captain.
So she did the best she could plan on how to survive this. Visha stopped her circling and then charged them, finally drawing her blade in one hand and sheath in the other. Grantz moved to block it and managed to stop the attack only for Visha to slam her fist into his gut, doubling him over.
He fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes after she then smacked the back of his head with the sheath of her blade.
She then closed distances with Tanya, their blades meeting a couple of times as Tanya gave ground trying to figure out a way through her defenses. She was about to attempt something when Nicole tried Bakudō number one sai again. Tanya jumped out of the way and Visha flash stepped again. Tanya already knew where she was going and she turned her head in time to see Nicole double over Visha standing where she had been.
"Four-on-one became one-on-one real quick," Visha said to the audience. "Their strategy was sound but they vocally said what their strategy was which allowed me to plan accordingly."
"Hey Vicky!" came a female voice from the audience, "Kenny thinks your old commander is holding back. And says you two should go full-throttle at each other." Looking over her shoulder for a moment she noticed that it was the pink girl that had been on the 11th captain, and who was now sitting by him, who'd yelled at them.
Moving her eyes back to Visha quickly, not wanting to give her a chance to get an advantage on her, Tanya yelled back, "I'm holding it back because the academy does not want me practicing my old magecraft."
"Boring! If the 11th Captain says you can do it, you can do it," came the voice of the pink girl.
"Pretty sure that's not how that works," Tanya shot right back.
"Well, I think," Visha said, "if your mind went to magecraft before your sword you're not taking your lessons on dealing with your spirit seriously. Which to me means it's time for an example of what your sword can do." Holding up her blade she muttered a chant. "Entrench: Rain sensen no Musō-ka."
The blade shifted, changing from a sword to a shovel. Tanya blinked confused as she mentally translated the Dreamer of the Rhine Front before Visha said, "Go ahead and use your magic. I'm technically a teacher at the academy and you've had time to study how magic in this world works so it should be relatively safe now."
Shrugging Tanya employed a mental enhancement spell. Her eyes began to glow as she watched Visha carefully. She had no idea what that shovel could do but she wasn't going to take it lightly.
Visha charged forward wielding the thing like a battle-ax and Tanya deflected it with her saber, Visha immediately pulled the ax back in a low position, blade pointed at Tanya's gut, and then the handle of the ax suddenly telescoped out. Tanya barely stopped it with a shield spell before it hit her.
She jumped back to give herself more room to evaluate the situation. The shovel returned to its roughly 3-ft length. That gave Tanya room to maneuver but, with the ability for it to extend who knows how far, she would need to be careful.
Visha started to swing the shovel ax again and mid-swing it began to telescope out to a full 6 ft length making it a long halberd-like weapon. Being within those 6 ft Tanya was forced to block it again with her shields but this time she ran towards Visha: since this ax was blocked by her shield she thought she should be able to tap her with her blade and put an end to this fight.
As a blade moved to tap Visha she flashed out of sight. Tanya didn't need to guess where she was going as she had before, for with her enhancement spell she had actually caught a bit of the movement's direction so she was able to spin around and place the blade at Visha's neck. Of course, looking down she saw that Visha's shovel was at her gut; they tapped each other roughly the same time so the fight could be considered a draw.
"Excellent," Visha said, stepping back. "Need to work on your blade work and improving your self-defense abilities but an excellent showing on a one-on-one spar."
Tanya sheathed her sword, breathing a sigh of relief that the fight was over. "Looks like you had fun, miss Degurechaff."
Tanya waved her hand as she moved over to inspect her fallen lieutenants. "It's just the adrenaline," she muttered as she knelt down to look over the fallen pair. With a sigh, she ended the mental enhancement spell.
The two were fine; they would just have some bumps and bruises for a while. They would need to improve their training to counter the flash step. Looking up she spotted the 11th Captain watching her closely with a horrifying smile on his face.
Visha came up to help her get the two lieutenants up and said "I told Captain Zaraki that you were the one who helped to train me so he wanted to see you fight. I think he might be interested in offering you a position in the 11th division once you're out of the academy."
So it was as she had feared. Fine, she could play this game. Tanya responded, "At the moment I'm currently sponsored by the 10th division, so I may be already spoken for by their captain," hoping that would end the discussion.
Visha's eyes went wide before she asked, "Did you not hear what happened to the 10th division's captain recently?"
"No, I've been rather busy learning," Tanya said, confused by Visha's question.
"The 10th division captain is missing and believed to be killed in action by a Hollow," Visha explained.
That was not something she had expected but she could still work with this. "Unfortunately I will have to speak with captain Matsumoto then find out what's happening?"
"The 10th lieutenant didn't take over for the captain, from what I heard Tōshirō Hitsugaya will be taking over for their fallen captain."
And like that all her plans were set aflame. She didn't know for sure if Tōshirō would hold a grudge but the few fights she'd won against him could be used by lesser parties to create problems for him and his new command which would give him ample reason to deny her entry into his unit. Better to find a different one then.
Helping Grantz stand up she said "I may have to take your Captain's offer up then. Let him know I will consider it."
She shook her head, beaten by the inevitable bad luck that seemed to follow her. Was being X still screwing with her? Maybe she's a little too paranoid about him; she hadn't heard a peep from him since their second deal and he seemed to be keeping to it. It was a terrifying realization that a captain had been taken out by a hollow. She needed to find a safe, secure position fast.
Arthur note
So… fighting… one of those things I'm not sure I'm good at. Manly have done gun and mech play, swordplay has not been my thing.
Please comment and review, and generally enjoy yourselves…
Betaed by: FinalFan
Writer response to reviews
Grocamol: oh yeah it was harder than writing Tanya that for sure.
EricFreak: here chapter 13 Tanya back accounts were screaming that night
bossboss: here you go
TooBad69: I think the time skip worked on this chapter let me know
PsylentFox: well we have 18 years to see about that
skrapsynneh: new chapter is here!