Chapter 14 Version 3

1983

If someone had asked Vooren Grantz his opinion on Tanya von Degurechaff three years ago he would have said she was a dedicated patriot to the fatherland and an efficient soldier. A few years before that he would have called her a monster willing to follow orders to the letter even if it would risk civilian casualties. But now, now he was not sure what he thought about her anymore.

"Vooren pick up the pace," called Tanya from the center of the field.

At this moment he was taking a knee to catch his breath as Tanya and Nicole Levenshtein worked on their anti-Shunpo or flash-step techniques. Tanya was staying true to her word about not using Empire magic when it came to dealing with Soul Reaper teachings. Which meant the best way to deal with flash step was to work on Hoho or fast movement.

Basically, the only way to beat flash step was to master moving faster than the person doing the flash step. Which meant a lot of agility and dexterity training, in this case in the form of a game of tag. Which meant Tanya's slave-driving training went into effect. Well, there were two major differences from the first time he'd been through it at her re-education boot camp. One Tanya didn't have access to the resources she once did and he did not have to worry about artillery shells raining down on him. And two Tanya was participating in the training.

It was a rather different experience when the slave driver was working side by side with you compared to when they're screaming from above. Though it was not like he would complain even if she was floating above him and yelling at him. After all, he knew that she would do right by him even if he nearly died. She had done it before when an avalanche happened during that training camp. He did not remember everything but he had been technically dead according to the other mages till Tanya had literally kicked him back to life.

So he knew she could be tough and he knew that though she would be tough he would survive it, or Tanya would kick him back to life again. This is why he and Nicole to some extent were willing to go along with Tanya's training methods. Add in that she was putting herself through the same thing ... what was good for her was good for them.

Looking up he saw Tanya and Nicole engaged in a rather dull conversation about what their future work was going to be like. Tanya seemed to be happy with the humanitarian aspects of their future job and explaining how their work would do good for the world of the living.

This interaction was different from how it had been in the empire, Tanya had never had conversations like that with many of her officers. She tended to instead focus on military matters and those were mainly short one-sided affairs about how to improve one's efforts and were always seen more as orders and commands. But now Tanya was talking to them like they were equals, even going out of her way to make sure they used their proper names instead of ranks.

He understood some of her history and knew she had come from an orphanage and had joined the military at an early age. He even assumed that this was some of the reasons that she was so devoted to the cause of the empire; it was all she knew and she had been shaped by military life. 'So maybe this was her coming out of the shell she had imposed for herself or grown into?' he sometimes thought but wasn't sure about that. All he knew for sure was she was treating them almost like friends and it was kind of weird knowing how she'd been before.

But that raised a question in his mind: she had been rather devoted to the empire and yet she easily adapted to this world, almost too easily in fact. And then there was the word Tamaya. He hadn't known it was an expression of joy before he came to this world; he had no reason to learn Japanese, but somehow Tanya did. She'd used it during the raid on Darcia. In fact, she picked up the language of this world rather quickly considering it had taken him nearly a year. Thinking of that word reminded him of an odd theory he was developing.

He found the way she adapted and learned new things strange, it may be explained by her being the military genius he knew she was, but there was something nagging at the back of his mind an odd possibility he would only take seriously because he now found himself in the afterlife. It was an old story he read on a paper about an incident from the Allied Kingdoms. The island of Eire was not a major part of the Allied Kingdoms and was rather backward so the odd stories that came out of it now and again would get sensationalized in the papers. Those stories tended to be about the many times mothers and fathers would murder their own children because they believe they had been taken by a changeling.

The Fey was not something that came up in Germanic folklore often. The word Fey meant different things in their language more about being fated to death than trickster spirits. But he'd read a few articles over the years about the craziness that was the changelings in the Allied Kingdoms and a few places in the Empire where similar creatures known as Wechselbalg appeared in some old stories and areas that were less developed. And going over his memories it was kind of scary how similar Tanya was to those old stories. Before her recent growth spurt, she would have fulfilled the category of not growing like a normal child and she did show an unusual amount of intelligence for someone her age.

Could Tanya be some sort of fey-like being? They were known for being tricksters and what better trick to play than to take an on-the-nose codename as she had done with Pixie and Fairy over the years. And it would explain her ability to adapt to any situation as she had.

Grantz shook his head at the ridiculous thoughts, what possible motive would a devil or a dwarf have to replace some child in an orphanage with their own offspring. And besides, even if Tanya was some sort of changeling did it really change anything. She died like everyone else when her time had come and now she was given a second chance in this world. And so far she had chosen to be more friendly to people she had command over in her last life.

If she was a fey-like creature it was obvious she must have been one of those ones that did not know their origins and believed themselves human. And why cause problems for her, she saved his life once might as well keep his thoughts to himself as he did with Nicole when it came to how they died.

Unlike Nicole he did remember how they died he just kept it to himself because it was rather traumatic. The battalion had been bedding down for the night when artillery rained down on their camp. Normal artillery would have been okay for mages of the 203 to deal with but these had been gas shells. A yellow fog had engulfed half the camp; he had struggled to get several of the battalion members out of the fog using spells meant for higher atmosphere flight to keep gas from getting in his lungs.

He knew he had gotten out two or three of the battalion before he went in again and found Nicole. She apparently had been dead tired and passed out in her bunk and had not woken up during the bombardment. Her chances of living had been very little but he picked her up and carried her as far as he could before the yellow fog took him as well. Past that all he remembered was blood-burning pain and coughing. And since he prefers to forget it he was not in a rush to remind Nicole. It would be better for them just to forget how they died and live life in this world. That was what Tanya seemed to be doing and her methods tended to be the best move.

Perhaps someday he would ask Tanya how she knew that word, but for now, he was happy to let some things lie. Standing up and doing a few stretches he moved to join the two as they continued their workout. Visha had embarrassed the trio a bit with her flash step trick. It's only right that they improve so they could someday take her on.

Attaining the ability to go off campus turned out to be not as hard as Tanya once believed. Being that it was in essence a military academy she had assumed that they would need special permits in approvals. But after a year she understood it was more like a college, one that wanted to know where you were but was not going to force you to get permission for every little thing.

Which is how she had gotten permission to go to a small restaurant just outside the campus and to have lunch with an old friend. In this case Visha. After their little spar and draw Tanya was more willing to hear her out on the option of joining the 11th and perhaps any other little tidbit of information Visha was willing to share about sword spirits. She had obviously gotten her sword spirit to be cooperative so perhaps she had a trick Tanya had not thought of.

Thus she arranged a lunch meeting so they could have a conversation away from campus. In a setting that was less formal so Visha may be more willing to share her secrets.

The diner was a rather simple affair; it dealt with ramen and other traditional foods. But it would serve, and it happened to have a rather large and good selection of coffee beans. She didn't know who had brought them to this world but she was thankful every day for the simple joys of caffeine.

She had arrived first to the old diner having left soon after one of her many training sessions with her former lieutenants. But she didn't have to wait long as soon Visha walked through the door.

With a bright smile, she no quickly walked over to where Tanya was sitting and took a seat across from her. "Good afternoon lieutenant colonel." She greeted with a cheerful tone

"Good to see you too 10th seat" Tanya responded back with a little smile on her own face.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries and then ordered some food items from the waitress before they got to do anything of relevance.

"So Visha, or is it Vicky, now?" Tanya asked, noting the name used for Visha by the child-sized lieutenant.

Visha blanched then said, "It's a little of both, I go by Visha, but the lieutenant likes to give everyone nicknames. I imagine you'll have to deal with that too if you join the division."

Tanya nodded, getting a free nickname was not exactly a great signing bonus but could be worse. "If I join that is something I'll have to take up with your lieutenant though how did you join the 11th, to begin with. It does not seem like the safest division you could go to?"

Visha let out a heavy sigh, "It's not a happy story. 6 months after you passed I fell in a battle over the Russy. I woke up here unable to speak the local language or communicate with most of the people, and the first people I ran into were bandits. The real scum of the earth types, they tried to get me to do something I was not interested in doing so I fought back and kept fighting back as I ran into more and more groups.

"Apparently, the local bandits marked me for death because none of the local townsfolk would dare help me and they just threw stuff at me to go away. Unable to improve my situation and having nothing else to do I fell into a cycle of roaming and killing bandits. My life was like that for a whole year just…" she broke off whatever she was going to say and just stared off into space before shaking her head and getting back to her story.

"Anyways after a year of fighting for my life and taking whatever I could to survive from the bandit camps, I guess I kind of got labeled a bandit as well. An upcoming monster that was harassing the monsters. This resulted in the captain of the 11th division taking interest in fighting this new monster of the South.

"And so he tracked me down and I didn't know him from any other bandit so we fought each other for a couple of hours. After a while he won; the various weapons I'd collected over the year had been destroyed, I was out of resources, and I could do nothing to stop him from killing me if he wanted.

"I just knelt and had a moment to think for a bit and remembered a couple of times you suggested surrendering to mages you fought, so I attempted to surrender. This apparently was the right move as captain Kenpachi had no idea what to do. He had expected a cold-blooded monster and then here I was on the ground feeling sorry for myself, hands up, and well he realized that the story of my banditry was greatly exaggerated.

"He sat with me for a while, and once I realized he wasn't going to kill me we attempted to talk. It was not the greatest attempt, but we were able to come to an understanding. Which is how I got marked for the 11th division. He was the first person to show some kindness to me in what I thought was hell. Then helped me get back to Central where I joined the academy and the rest is history.

Tanya nodded understanding the situation Visha had been in. Frankly, it was down to luck that she hadn't had a similar story to tell. "So your zanpakuto is one of the academy-issued ones."She asked as the waitress brought their food to their table.

Visha looked up at her dish and nodded, "is yours not?" she asked, sounding very curious.

"Technically, no," Tanya confirmed before she explained. "I had a similar run-in with bandits but I was able to work out an agreement with them and take out another group of bandits for them and this was one of the rewards for destroying those other bandits." She said holding up the blade. "At the time I thought all I needed this for was a little self-defense and maybe turning it in for a little reward from the government, now I need this for all the self-defense just wish it wasn't so problematic about that."

Vishna nodded then continued, "Zanpakutos can be troublesome in their first few years. I assume that's why you didn't use the first release state in the fight?"

"Tasha is more interested in deconstructing my history and elements of my personality than working with me," Tanya said matter of factly only to notice Visha was now staring at her in confusion.

"Is Tasha the name of your sword?" she asked.

"Depends on your understanding of the name, if you mean the thing they want you to find out on your own no, Tasha is just a name I came up with when I looked at that walking propaganda poster."

"So you've been able to talk and see your blade spirit, but you haven't learned its name?" Visha asked, curious.

"Yes," Tanya responded offhandedly.

"Huh, that is odd; Shikai tends to come quickly once you can start speaking to your sword, it's usually easier to harmonize with a being that you can communicate with."

Tanya raised an eyebrow then said, "She's claiming things that aren't true."

"Well maybe they're true from a certain point of view," Visha said, causing Tanya to look at her, a bit confused.

"From what I know from my own dealing with Dreamer," she said holding up her sword, "sword spirits want to fight, and because they want to fight they will see things in certain ways."

Tanya sat back thinking about this, Tasha had been rather aggressive in your opinions perhaps an instinctual blind need to fight colored views of Tanya's life and their conversation. It could explain some of the issues such as Tasha's belief that she liked to fight. Either way, Tanya now had an understanding of how her sword thought, and if you have an understanding of how something thinks you can come to an agreement with it. She didn't like fighting but maybe there was a way to appease the blade with less-lethal fights I thought for her next conversation with it.

Sitting there with her hand against her chin thinking about this she began to nod in agreement to her thinking before she stopped and said. "I heard a while back when I first met a Soul Reaper that the 11th division was involved in exhibition matches?"

Visha's eyes basically were glowing with happiness. "Oh, you've heard about my little side project, I convinced some of the higher officers that it would be a good way to keep their fighting skills sharp a few years ago."

"Wait, you came up with the idea?" Tanya asked, a bit confused; she had not expected that revelation.

"Well after I joined up with the 11th when I left the academy I wanted to help the division improve. So I went back to your training but there wasn't much I could do from that besides putting people in terrifying circumstances to test their mettle. One of the ideas I came up with was exhibition matches, little fights between divisions to improve morale and have a little fun. That's how I sold it to the captain since he really enjoys fighting. Though he doesn't take part in the matches very often, only against opponents he thinks would be worth it but he figures it will help the other members of the 11th improve," Visha explained giving Tanya a better understanding of the prospective commander and what Visha had been up to.

Sighing with a bemused smile she thought, 'Leave it to my loyal adjutant to find a way to improve a division known for its fighting.' Shaking her head she said, "My training—I hope you haven't been too rough on them."

Visha smiled and shook her head "no artillery or avalanches so far but I'm trying to get support for this idea of going out to the 80s and cleaning it up with more training. In fact, I was doing a survey for this idea two years ago in the east near an unnamed woodcutter village where I found out I had just missed you."

Tanya's smile melted at that her suspicious nature wondering if Being X had been involved in that coincidence before she knocked that old idea away. "Amazingly small world we live in. I probably could have gotten here safer if I'd known that, though then I wouldn't have run into Erich von Lehrgen."

"Wait, Brigadier General Lehrgen is here?" Visha asked, sounding surprised by this news.

"Yes, I was as surprised as you. He's doing well out in the 60s and owns a little farm. He apparently had a long life after we died and has had a long life here too. As far as I'm aware he's the person who's been here the longest." she said.

"Amazing. I bet he had a mini heart attack when you showed up," Visha said playfully.

"Well, he was surprised but I wouldn't think he was that surprised." Tanya responded thoughtfully before continuing, "Apparently we were better friends than I thought: I was under the impression we were simple co-workers but he apparently named his daughter after me."

Visha dropped her fork and looked at her, stunned. "I would not have expected that. Out of curiosity should we be worried about this Tanya Lehrgen coming to join the division?"

Tanya sat there for a moment tapping her finger on her chin before she responded, "I would think not, but I never actually checked to see if she had high spiritual pressure. She was just Lehrgen's kid. I will say she is absolutely enamored with flying stories, so who knows? maybe she'll be involved in the first Soul Society planes or blimps."

"That is a possibility," Visha said before continuing, "Were you aware that there is a technique that allows you to walk on air?"

"I was not," Tanya responded, intrigued. "I am going to have to look that up when I get back to the academy."

The conversation continued for some time between the two discussing things that amounted to pleasurable chit-chatting. Visha shared a few more of her stories of her time in the Soul Society and Tanya explains how her adventure had gone but before long they had finished their meal. Tanya, being a proper former employer, offered to pay for the entire meal since she was the one to schedule this meeting and after a while, they got ready to leave.

As they stepped out of the diner, Visha leaned in and gave Tanya a one-armed hug which happened to confirm that she had grown considerably since their last large-scale meeting. "I'm glad you're in this world, Tanya. It feels like we've been given a second chance to live our lives free of that war and I'm glad you're here with me to do it."

Coughing a bit uncomfortable with how close Visha had been guessing the truth of the situation, Tanya said, "I'm glad I'm here too. This place is much more peaceful than the front, and a second chance to have peace is always good."

They exchanged smiles and goodbyes and then separated for the night.

Sitting down in her barracks bed, Tanya laid her sword across her lap. Armed with what little knowledge she had gained from her conversation with Visha, she was going to engage the Tasha entity in a conversation. One that she hoped would at least progress their relations beyond the snippiness that she had shown at their first meeting.

Not caring that a few people were still awake and could actually see her meditating this time and could figure out she was communicating with her sword, she closed her eyes and tried to enter her inner world.

When she opened her eyes again she was back in the middle of the street, though things were slightly different. To her left were standard skyscrapers of her first life; to her right, skyscrapers very strongly resembling buildings of her Tanya life.

Looking around she saw Tasha was sitting on the right side sipping what appeared to be a cup of coffee again. Getting up and brushing her academy clothing off she began to walk over to her sword's table.

"You know that will stunt your growth." Tanya mused as she approached the table.

Tasha coughs and spits up some of her coffee hitting her chest to clear her airway. "One date with your girlfriend and you're already making jokes. Who could have seen that coming?"

Tanya gave Tasha a look of annoyance, then said "I'm just going to assume you meant platonic girlfriend."

Tasha smiled then stated with a chuckle, "Your assumptions are your assumptions; my assumptions are my own. But I assume we are not here to discuss your inner circle of friends and which one might be your best friend. You're here for my release state and name aren't you?"

Tanya nodded "I understand that as a sword you like to fight and it is in your nature to pick fights where you can. That is not within my nature but I am willing to meet you halfway. The 11th division has exhibition fights and I promise to join them if you are willing to work with me."

Tasha chuckled and rolled her eyes, "Yes, you only fight because you want me to give you something, that is the only reason." She sighed in annoyance, then said, "Well, that's a step in the right direction at least."

"If you just told me what you wanted I could take quite a few steps in the direction you want, I'm sure," Tanya poked after hearing her exaggerated response.

"Oh I'm sure you would but as soon as you had what you wanted from me you would fall back on your old habits. Telling you would only encourage you to treat the situation as work you need to be done with before you can have what you want. This means you'd most likely stop the moment you felt you had everything you needed from me," Tasha mused.

"No, the only way to make sure our relationship sticks is to work through it one day at a time and unfortunately my hints are going to go over your head for a good long time until one day it just all makes sense, I just wish your head wasn't thicker than the armour on a panzer four," Tasha commented.

"I think you're over-exaggerating the situation," Tanya responded, putting her arms under her chest.

"Well, Salarygirl, it'll be up to you to prove me wrong. I've just got no faith in you doing that. Hell, I have more faith that Being X is quietly watching us and laughing. Waiting for the day he can come out of the shadows and reveal his grand scheme to annoy the hell out of both of us." Tasha said before sipping her coffee.

"On that I can agree with you at least, our escape from his active participation in our life does not mean he hasn't put some grand scheme into motion which will only reveal itself at the moment of our next death."

"'Our'—how sweet, I didn't think you'd admit the fact that we share a plight in this," Tasha said, her eyebrow raised.

Tanya shrugged. "Supposedly you're part of my soul somehow just given form inside a sword. Which means for most intents and purposes we are one being. Pretending we do not have some commonality in problems is foolhardy."

"Good words, you're still not learning my name," Tasha said.

"And I'm not learning it, why?" Tanya asked.

"You're not ready, you're almost there. I would bring it down from a hundred years to the low fifties now." Tasha mused.

Tanya sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose "So why is the street divided between buildings from the 21st century and those from the early 20th?" Tanya asked, hoping to change the subject.

"Why is there a moon covered in trenches floating in the sky above us?" Tasha countered while pointing up, resulting in Tanya following her finger.

Tasha was not lying, there was a moon that looked like it was covered in trench works floating just above the city. It was just close enough she swore she could even see artillery fire going off on the surface. "Okay I did not see that coming," Tanya said, a bit confused by this new addition.

"Well, you should have looked up the last time. It was there then as well. My theory is it's related to your way of compartmentalizing your life: on one side of the street is your life in Japan as a simple salaryman. On the other is your life as Tanya, the military commander in the backline and up above," she pointed up again, "is the hellish war that took your life. And if you walk down this street to its end, you should find a rather familiar train station as well."

"So you're saying elements of my life are painted into this world in various ways, for lack of better words?" Tanya asked to confirm.

"Of course. This is your inner world at a calm center, everything is organized as it should or at least as you subconsciously think it should be. I imagine if we give it a couple of years the third center of this little city will appear. One that will bear a striking resemblance to the soul society," Tasha commented.

Tanya nodded to the idea behind how the inner world worked making some sense to her. "Should I ask what would happen if I went poking around in this world?"

"Oh, probably not much, most of the buildings are empty for now, though things might change someday," Tasha said, looking about the street.

"And why would they change?" Tanya asked

"Your emotional state affects this world, it's built off how you mentally stable are. If something were to disturb you, let's say enrage you for as an example, things in this world would change."

Tanya nodded and sighed then said, "Well I guess this has been a much more progress-oriented talk. See you next time I'm interested in negotiating; maybe we can get it down to 25 years."

Tasha chuckled. "25 maybe 30 either way do not feel you need to stay away from me. The more we talk the more likely you'll be able to hear my name. "

Tanya nodded in agreement then closed her eyes.

She opened them then found herself on her bed once more and immediately regretted sitting up while doing the meditation. She had sat at a bad angle and her back had stiffened up. Popping it free she lay back down and made a note to lie down next time as she slid her sword onto the side of her bed.

Author's note

So then chapter 14 here, what to say, guess would be a slice of life chapter mixed with a bit of developments for a few folks. I had fun writing this, and those who were allowed to see it first seemed to like the third part of the chapter greatly.

Please comment, review, and generally enjoy yourselves…

Edited by: FinalFan, emberwing

response to reviews on fanfiction

EricFreak: well after chapter 13 realised Grantz is now conically harem protagonist over on space battles so I have to do something about that crush sooner or later, LMAO. as for if Visha crushing on Tanya you should have good idea now.

skrapsynneh: here's more, and chapter 15 just good as this one in my mind so get hyped.

AnimeA55Kicker: Doomed is strong word

NightmareKnight1: there were some issues that prevented all of them from looking at it i assume,

PsylentFox: it dose sound cool, but unfochently already came up with a cool one, though yours may influence the final product a bit.

Lord Xantos A. Fowl: have to go through and fixed that

Grocamol: the mental gymnastic are fun thought...

Jctherebel: here more