Chapter 19 Version 5
1988
Tanya straightened her uniform, removing her silver wing assault badge from her left breast, her black peaked hat and her boots, replacing those with Soul Reaper standard sandals.
Unlike standard dress code for the after-life military, the dress code for exhibition matches was stricter. Understandable really, her combat boots would give her a bit of an unfair advantage since she could effectively cast a mage blade on the steel-nosed tips in a pinch, something Tanya admittedly doubted would be necessary in this fight.
Considering that Yumichika Ayasegawa was her superior, Tanya only wanted to give him the fight he had hounded her for, not maim the man. She would save her lethal techniques for the hollows, especially ones that put more work on her plate.
As Tanya sat down and finally got to cleaning Tasha, the urge to shake her head at her luck overcame her. She was now the sponsor of Tanya Lehrgen's entrance into the Spiritual Arts Academy, something she had not wanted to do but with all the times General Lehrgen had looked out for her in the empire, she would bear this responsibility.
Chances of Lehrgren's survival were minimal and her efforts to find any survivors at all from the town she first met the girl in would take time. The journey to the 60th district itself took the average person around three to four months and by then she doubted anyone would care.
So here she was, stuck with responsibility over a displaced and likely orphaned teen as well as a joking Visha, commenting about how she was a godmother now… well it wouldn't have been the worst thing Being X was responsible for, admittedly it seemed unlikely that he was so far.
"Ah, look at how quickly she accepts her new role without issue." Tasha tauntingly chimed in.
"Keep that up and I'll take away that red ribbon I got you," Tanya threatened, placing her hand near the small strip of cloth tied to the pommel of her sword.
"Oh no! Not the ribbon!" Came the mocking voice of her disobedient sword.
Tanya sighed letting a tinge of annoyance enter her voice as she questioned Tasha. "Do you have nothing better to talk about than the decisions I make?"
"Well, considering I can only see the world through your actions, not really. I'm kind of the perpetual, sexy backseat driver if you think about it."
Tanya stopped cleaning her sword for a moment and muttered a few curses at Being X.
"I'm decently sure he's not listening to your insults anymore honey. The reprobate might pop up if you prayed to him though," Tasha mused.
"Please tell me you're not about to suggest doing that," Tanya grunted.
"As if I'd want to deal with Being X, even merely based on your memories I'm sure it would end with me smited for insulting its fragile ego," Tasha quickly responded.
Tanya released a breath she wasn't quite aware she was holding. "If there is one good thing about your existence so far, I at least have someone who shares my hatred of Being X now."
"You really do know how to make someone feel so loved don't you?" Tasha said, sounding rather bemused at her comment.
"I don't care what you feel as long as you're ready to fight today," Tanya responded.
"I'm ready to win, how about you?" the sword announced a vicious edge to her normally sultry tone.
"The goal is not to win, winning would just draw attention to us. We simply have to give a good show so the captains of the squads don't ask me to fight anymore." Tanya proclaimed.
"Right, of course you don't want to win because it would draw attention, are you sure your reluctance isn't because it might result in your superior officers demanding that you take command of a subsquad and separate you from Visha?" Tasha commented.
"What are you implying?" Tanya asked, narrowing her eyes at her blade.
"I'm not implying anything, all I just know is that you feel happy when Visha is around."
"She's a good worker and colleague, of course I'd be happy to be around her."
"Then why are you so afraid of taking a higher seat or at least becoming a commanding officer like Viktorya? It's as easy as picking someone you think you can beat in this division and winning, yet instead you choose to languish in your paperwork."
"As I've said before, my current seat fulfills my financial desires whilst keeping me as far away from the frontlines as possible in the 11th. I do not want to draw any undue attention whilst in this division their incessant desire for combat is distasteful and I'd just be wasting precious time and energy trying to curb that."
"Yes, precious time away from your safe office with a companion who makes you feel good with their very mere presence."
"Are you trying to imply my cost-performance is lacking?!"
There was a rather long pause followed by a muttered "I don't think that even the Rus had armor this thick." followed by a louder more assertive, "Yes, and you are turning into something little better than a NEET. Instead of progressing your career you have stagnated looking for any excuse to stay locked up in this office with Visha. Well, your hard-work has once more backfired spectacularly, making people do their own paperwork has drained your excuse pool." She chuckled at that last part annoyingly.
"So then spirit of my sword, what would you have me do ? " Tanya halfheartedly asked, not feeling particularly impressed by the sword's logic.
"Well then, how about we take this in baby steps, don't throw this fight, give it your all."
"Impossible, Ayasegawa is a colleague, what if I accidentally injure him? " Tanya asked.
"Absolutely nothing would happen. The 4th division would heal him, you might accidentally get promoted and more importantly there would finally be a gauge on your power which should cut the number of challengers you recieve in half if you can even cut him."
"If I can even cut him? What do you mean? '' she questioned her irritation rising.
"Well I'm simply saying that if he's such a powerful reaper you probably couldn't even cut him, remember how the academy taught you that unless you infuse your weapon with enough reiryoku one cannot cut someone with vastly higher spiritual pressure."
"You think I'm weak enough that that may apply?" A bitter, combative edge leaked into her voice.
"Well, all you've ever killed are hollows so you wouldn't know, would you? And since you don't know... Well, I think you can see where I'm going with this."
"It's a theory that might be worth considering but I will still be careful." Tanya responded, rubbing her chin.
"I'm not asking you not to be, just don't hold back, the worst realistic outcome is that you end up in the 4th getting healed and spending more time with Visha writing up reports."
Tanya nodded her agreement, admitting that it would not be an unfavorable outcome. People would be less willing to ask a wounded officer to fight after all.
Releasing another sigh of annoyance at the whole affair, Tanya stood up, clipped Tasha to her sashand walked out of the little changing room they had provided for this exhibition match. Cracking her neck and working out her stiff joints, she moved down the hallway towards the open air and a rather irritating fight.
Stepping out of the hallway, Tanya found herself in the exhibition match arena, a coliseum-like structure built sometime after Visha joined the division, an expense justified on account of how often the regular training dojo had to be refurbished in the 11th.
The sturdy reiryoku infused wood and stone structure could seat a couple of hundred reapers or a majority of the 11th division in addition to anyone who wanted to come see or join the festivities.
And the exhibitions were festivities. A lot of the people in the stands were already half-drunk by the looks of it and no matter their current sobriety, everyone was chatting and making merry.
With at least someone from almost every division in the Gotei 13 in attendance, the arena had turned into a popular hangout, unsurprising really seeing as this was the closest to officially sanctioned bloodsport the seireitei had to offer and the lack of modern entertainment.
Tanya was willing to bet that the only division whose members were not here would be the 12th but some of the people near the back of the stands did look rather... what's the term, nerdy, yes. So it was not impossible that even some of the hermetic researcher's of the 12th division had made an appearance.
Among the crowd, Tanya spotted Visha and Rangiku hoisting a banner, apparently getting ready to cheer her on. Grantz, Nicole, and Köenig were also there surprisingly enough, she would have thought at least one of them would have had something better to do than watch an idiotic dick-measuring contest such as this.
She also saw Third seat Madarame leading his own quite larger group of individuals cheering the fifth seat on practicing some strange dance. On second look Tanya noted that there might actually be more people in attendance than she'd seen at some of the other exhibition matches in the past. Perhaps her attempts to avoid this conflict had unintentionally furthered the crowd's excitement, effectively drawing in more than the normal participants who had wanted to see her fight.
Tanya had to fight off a scowl, a side effect of the increased spectator presence would likely be word of this fight getting around and her eventual thrashing would most likely reach the ears of her potential employers which in turn may have negative effects in the long term if she went down too quickly.
"Then just fight your hardest,'' came the whispered voice of Tasha, a strange inflection that Tanya couldn't quite place graced her ears.
Rolling her eyes at the sword's continued badgering, Tanya stepped forward into the large fighting square, a sandy dirt pit inside a white square painted directly onto the dirt.
Across from her stepping into the arena was Ayasegawa, he wore a grin on his face. Sunlight gleaming off his odd eyelash extensions her superior officer pointed the hilt of his sword at Tanya, the blade still sheathed in its scabbard.
"All right Degurechaff, the time has come to prove who the most beautiful sword wielder in the division is. I endured your paperwork competitions, endured your fake speeches on the merits of proper paperwork filing and now I will show you that it is not bureaucracy but beauty that determines the victor." Ayasegawa proclaimed.
Tanya tilted her head a bit in confusion, she didn't know anything about being considered a beauty, so the comment came somewhat unexpectedly, though considering how much the man was hamming it up, the compliment was most likely Ayasegawa turning her into some kind of rival to hype up the crowd.
Well two can play that game "Those weren't fake speeches. I do believe an officer should be as good with a pen as he is with his blade. To slack on the tactical and strategic side of a conflict is to arrange your doom. It does not matter if you have the best fighters in the world, if you can't feed them because you forgot to fill out a form that would bring food to the front, the end result is your troops' power being diminished." She extolled in an exaggerated fashion, drawing her own blade and taking a stance across from him with her sword up parallel in front of her.
"Do you really believe that?" he asked in a questioning tone as he drew his blade from its scabbard. He held the sword in a traditional two-handed stance with the blade pointed in her direction.
"I filled out an order yesterday to make sure that I would have a good breakfast this morning to make sure I'd be ready for this fight and I filled out an order for a large meal and medication for after this fight, under the assumption that win or lose I'm going to be in a lot of pain and I need to start the recovery process as soon as possible so I can get back to work," Tanya commented calmly.
"Hmm, then I guess there's no reason to hold back then if you're that prepared." The man mused, his easygoing smile still plastered on his face.
"I may be ready but I'm still just a lower seated shinigami without a shikai. There's no way I would be worth all your effort". She calmly stated , waiting for the signal to begin. Her patience was rewarded as one of the fight judges rang the arena's large gong, signaling the start of their fight.
Ayasegawa wasted no time charging where she was standing, slashing his sword from the right in a quick drawing cut, Tanya deflected the strike with her own bouncing the two blades off each other as she sidestepped to the left granting herself a clearer position to stab out at his shoulder. He slipped back and raised his blade before coming at her again, their blades sparking off each other when they met mid-air as they tried to slash each other.
Stepping back to gain some room Tanya aimed her blade at him and let off a Hadō #1. Shō from the hole in the hilt which Ayasegowa cheerfully dodged before coming around to face her again, his blade ready to strike at her once more.
"I must ask what that hole in your handguard is for? It is rather damaging to the beautiful craftsmanship and seems like a rather obvious weak point." Ayasegawa asked.
Tanya, taking the reprieve as a moment to recover and gather her strength from the initial assault decided to humour his question"This blade took on the characteristics of the one I had in my previous life, the Kaiser gave it to me as a reward for my efforts during the war. I'm not a fan of ceremonial pieces of equipment that I have to carry into combat so I had it modified, that hole is part of a system known as a bayonet lug. I had the blade fitted so it could be mounted onto the end of my submachine gun granting me a few extra feet in combat over a standard bayonet."
"Ah, so you damaged something beautiful to gain an advantage in combat, how predictable." He said as his body language conveyed a sense of relaxation with his movements as he insulted her.
"In a sense you're right, though I would use anything to make a situation work for me and I was always more of a spellcaster no matter the range." As if to emphasise her statement her free hand went to her empty scabbard and detached it from her belt.
She then applied a low-level mage blade intended to protect the scabbard rather than to cause any significant damage to her opponent. Blade now pointed at Ayasegawa, Tanya held her glowing scabbard down to the right.
"Oh and now you're Copying Ikkaku, how borish. '' Ayasegawa proclaimed before he charged her with his sword swiping up from her right side with a single handed swing.
Taking advantage of the weaker strike Tanya blocked the strike directly with her sword Tanya then brought her reiryoku infused scabbard to try and smack his open shoulder but the flamboyant man grabbed it with his free hand, stopping that attack dry.
"So you're going to claim you learned that in war?" he asked, nodding his head at Tanya's scabbard held in her other hand.
"Nope I learned it right here, I may not like fighting but when I see a technique I can replicate and use, I will use it." She said, trying to push him away from her.
"Ha, what's that old saying? Mimicry is the most sincere form of flattery. I'm sure
Ikkaku is sincerely flattered, though why you keep insisting that you don't like fighting when you're smiling so widely as you are right now is beyond me." he stated, attempting to push back, the blades making unsettling noises as they ground off each other.
"I'm smiling because the adrenaline is pumping and I don't like fighting because warfare is an unnecessary waste of resources and lives." Tanya said, pushing back and trying to figure out how to break this stalemate.
Ayasegawa stopped pushing as hard and tilted his head. "But we're not at war?"
"Well yes, here we're not at war." Tanya responded, similarly confused by his reaction.
He seemed to push closer to her causing her to take a step back to give herself room to maneuver. "Let me see if I get this straight, you claim to dislike fighting because war is a terrible thing but this isn't about war, it's about proving one's strength. Do you have any such ideological issues fighting hollows?"
Tanya took a moment before responding "Well no, my actions here are focused on recovering resources from a fate of disuse and corruption. I can enjoy that work without issue."
"Okay then Tanya, let me propose a line of logic and you let me know if you agree with it. So it's bad to like fighting because it is the primary indicator of war and wars waste lives and resources. We however are not at war, even if you define our conflict against the hollows as a war it's a war of extinction against an enemy that cannot be reasoned with. What we are doing is training and making ourselves better to free resources from the hollows, so would it not behoove you to enjoy fighting or at least take any opportunity to improve as it comes?"
Tanya stood there stock-still with those words running through her head. There was some sound logic in what he said. She had always looked at it from the perspective of how war would derail progress and destroy civilization.
Society can not function well with the overflow of anarchic chaos that excessive conflict brings, that's why she should not like fighting. But this wasn't the world of the living where wars, despot rulers and religious tensions disrupted supply chains and trade.
There were elements out there that would destroy civilization without someone there to fight it and the defenders of this civilization must progress their own abilities in order to protect it, which would require enjoying or at least embracing violence.
The epiphany felt rather obvious in hindsight and Tanya still wasn't sure if she could ever like fighting but she could understand why everyone else in the 11th did now, it came from a place of wanting to improve their value as employees in the afterlife military and protect the things they deemed important.
"Yes!" came the sword's voice in the back of Tanya's mind as the smile seemed to grow across her face. Looking at Ayasegawa she felt the need to thank him for the insight. "I agree that your reasoning is sound." And with that she was moving, slashing at him with her blade and scabbard meeting his own blade in a flash of motion.
Tanya slashed twice before thrusting at an opening, Tasha squealing an exuberant "Yes!" With each blow despite each parried strike not penetrating Yumchika's defenses. During the fast exchange however, Tanya was able to bring the backend of her scabbard up to Ayasegawa's chest, hitting him point blank with a channeled Sho spell knocking him back a few feet.
"There it is, that refined silver sword spellcraft that looks beautiful in use but you choose to wield it like a club." Ayasegawa said proudly. "Now how are you able to cast spells from your sword and scabbard? That has been bugging me and quite a few of the other seated officers for some time now."
Smiling at the recognition of her hard work she ensured her voice carried "Kido spells require a point on your body to channel the energy. Most will use a finger or palm since they're easy focus points, however a zanpakuto is a part of your soul which in essence means the blade, as well as its decorative sheath, are an extension of your body and they already come with convenient points to channel the energy through."
"Huh I'm going to have to remember that. All right then, come at-"
Tanya didn't wait for him to finish, instead kicking off the ground with a short application of the flight spell and using what momentum she had to barrel herself at him in a quick charge. Ayasegawa managed to raise his guard before the two of them clashed but she barreled him over and rolled across the arena ground to bleed off her excess momentum before coming to a rest, one knee on the ground and one foot underneath her ready to get back on her feet.
Watching the downed reaper she saw him rise back up from the ground covered in minor gashes and bruises from where they had tumbled into each other. She probably looked no better, already feeling several minor injuries where his blade head slashed her. Sticking her scabbard into the ground she put her left hand over a hole in her upper shirt and used a minor healing kido to seal the wound before she picked it back up and got back into a proper stance across from the black-haired man.
Ayasegawa was laughing as he said, "That's the first time I've seen anyone just use themselves as a human projectile."
"Usually, I miss just enough so only the blade meets the target," Tanya explained as she readied her stance for a second time." But I was worried I'd hurt you too badly if I did that." She was lying actually, her control of the flight spell had not been perfect to say the least and the complex calculations were next to impossible to pull off in the heat of battle without an orb taking the majority of the mathematical burden off her.
"Ha well, why don't you try it now I'm sure I'll be fine." Ayasegawa annoyingly called her bluff preparing to defend himself
"Maybe I will, maybe I won't, depends on if I see an opportunity." At that she moved. Charging across the square at him, Ayasegawa responded with the same, a short but complex dance of parrying, dodging and countering started, Tanya began to point the knuckle guard of her sword at Yumichika's head.
"Yes, this is it you are finally worthy of hearing my name, Shiru-"
Not letting herself be distracted by what her sword was droning on about, Tanya screamed the chant for the Sho spell Simultaneously, Ayasegawa cast the same spell too. Tanya's eyes glanced just in time to see that he had unfurled his finger around his sword to point at her head. Everything went black as she saw Ayasegawa go flying.
Waking up, Tanya looked around, confused as she was no longer in the coliseum, by the clashing styles of modern and turn of the century structures she assumed she had somehow been drawn into her inner world once again.
Catching a flash of red and movement she turned her head to see, Tasha dancing in the middle of the street laughing as she spun around.
"Spirit, I was in the middle of a fight, why have you summoned me here?" Tanya said annoyed her memory a little bit hazy about what had just happened.
"You got knocked the heck out!" Tasha replied as she danced to music only she could hear. Unexpectedly Tasha grabbed Tanya's hands and forced her wielder to join her in an improvised waltz. "It doesn't matter that you got knocked out though—you finally, finally had something penetrate that thick skull of yours."
It was all Tanya could do to keep up with the red-clad part of her soul but she was able to piece together what Tasha was saying. "You wanted me to take joy in improving my capacity for violence since I'm a defender of civilization?"
Tasha rolled her eyes then said "Close enough for government work I suppose, but no I wanted you to understand that you can take joy in fighting now. If you have to phrase it like that to be able to accept what you've always felt then fine."
"I did not," she attempted to deny but the look Tasha gave her made her rethink her statement before finally sighing and continuing. "I have always enjoyed the thrill of winning."
Tasha smiled, finally letting go of Tanya and taking a step back as she ended the waltz. "Admitting something is the first step to acceptance. Oh well, it's still such a shame you can't hear the music you were making a short while ago, but you'll get there one day."
"Yes, well, you hearing imaginary sounds is fine, however, could you not have told me this outright? If Ayasegawa could figure it out I'm pretty sure you, being a part of me, would have come up with it too."
"Oh sure and then your paranoid little mind would have come to the conclusion that I was a pawn of Being X sent here to turn you into a new berserker for his cause and you would not only have ignored my point of view but anyone else who ever pointed it out as well."
"I'm pretty sure I'm more reasonable than that," Tanya replied.
"You got into a dick-measuring contest with God and even after he took yours away you kept fighting him. You are exceptionally stubborn, being stubborn is good in a fight, but when dealing with metaphysical understanding of ourselves it's better to take the slow road." Tasha explained.
Annoyed, Tanya sighed. "So I've come to an understanding of myself. I like winning fights. What exactly does this get me?"
"It gets you my name for one." Popping her red cap off and bowing with a flourish she introduced herself "Greetings Tanya von Degurechaff, I am Shirubātitania" She stood back up and grabbed Tanya's hand. "May we have a pleasurable working relationship."
Tanya's eyes blinked open and she found herself looking up at a black star that was blocking out most of the sky. It took her a moment to realize the black star was wearing an eye patch and had a scar on the other side of his face.
Chuckling the captain of the 11th Zaraki reached down and hauled her up to her feet by the scruff of her clothing. "Not a bad match, not a bad match at all, finally got a bit of ya fight back aincha?" he said looking over to where Ayasegawa was being helped up by Ikkaku.
"You managed to duel the fifth seat to a draw impressive and precedent enough that I am going to arrange a fight between you and the seventh seat, he's been a little too comfortable in his position if you ask me, do me a favor and make sure that he improves or his position will be filled with a person who deserves it. Hah!" Kenpachi finished with a savage laugh before heading back towards the stands.
Tanya stood there a bit shocked as her captain walked off, she had not expected being ordered to take out a member of the officers as a possible result of today. But then again she had hoped to avoid winning before going and attempting the opposite.
Well perhaps taking over the 7th Seat wouldn't be so bad, it would come with a suitable pay bump and having a few years as a higher ranking officer under her belt wouldn't look terrible on her resume for when she wanted to switch to a less violent division.
Shaking her head in wonder at the way her day had gone, Tanya turned and walked towards one of the stadium exits, noting that Visha, Rangiku, and the other members of the 203rd were waving her over. Bearing a relaxed smile and honestly feeling more relieved than she had expected, she made her way to them.
Unbeknownst to Tanya, Rangiku and Visha had set up an after-fight celebration party for her. They had used the shinigami women's association to fund this little get-together, renting a bar out for the evening, which meant that Tanya only knew about five percent of the people in the room which was filled with talking and laughter.
She, Visha, Rangiku, and Nicole were sitting at a table near the center of the bar, alcohol had been flowing freely and she was already a bit tipsy. She could see Grantz and Köenig talking to some female soul reapers from the 4th division from where she sat.
Tanya was not very familiar with the SWA, oh she knew it existed and she knew it was led by the pink haired demon child, but she had avoided the Union so far since she was not particularly interested in paying union dues just because she happened to be one gender or another.
Though if she were to become a high ranking officer as the Captain of the 11th suggested-threatened-ordered her to, then she most likely would have to start learning about the institution by joining it.
What had driven Tanya to break her drinking ban, was a lovely chat she just had with Miss Matsumoto where Tanya learned she had been mistaken on how fate had landed her in the 11th division.
From the brief description Matsumoto had given Tanya of the events the captain of the 10th had relayed to the older blonde, it sounded like there had been a chance for her to end up in one of three divisions but the Captain-General, being a supreme HR Man by the sound of it, had decided it would be best for her development if she spent her first term of service in the 11th division.
Apparently her lack of displayed sword skill had led the Captain-General to believe it was a flaw that the combat focused 11th would be best suited to correct. Tasha, who had decided to keep the nickname for private use, wouldn't stop laughing at what she referred to as a "Typical Tanya backfire".
Tanya obviously didn't quite agree with the procedure but the Captain-General had been doing this for somewhere around 2,000 years, so she would defer to his expertise for now.
In her particular case however she chose to drown the depressing thoughts about how she would have been in a nice safe division if she had only shown her more well rounded competence .
Nicole had caught Tanya up on her career and the current goings-on in her division, apparently the Captain of the 13th was prone to bouts of sickness so she had been getting particularly skilled at healing kido and attained the rank of 6th Seat.
Standing up, Visha gestured towards the bar "I'll go get us more drinks." and before Tanya could say no her former subordinate had wandered off. Shaking her head she wished Christina Pringsheim was here.
The Brown haired lieutenant of the third company of her battalion was the only one who could keep up with Visha when it came to drinking. She'd seen her in fact drink Visha and the rest of the battalion under the table which would serve as a helpful distraction in preventing her own overindulgence. Oh well, she trusted Visha to get her home safe anyways no matter how drunk she got.
Looking back from where Visha had wandered off she saw that Rangiku was staring at her with a bemused smile before noticing that she had been caught and speaking up "So make any moves on your trench based daydream?"
Tanya blinked a bit before she remembered what she was talking about and responding "Miss Matsumoto, I will remind you that a trench dream is nought but a daydream, it is something that happens when you are near death, half-starved and in pain for days on end with exhaustion clouding your mind. That is not something I would do in the real world. Nor do I think Visha would be interested."
"Trenchdream?" Nicole asked from where she was sitting tilting her head in confusion.
"Really you would have no interest in pursuing the relationship in the real world?"
"That I did not say, I simply see no reason to tamper with a good thing and as I previously stated I do not think Visha would feel the same way."
The drunk Nicole blinked a few times before she sat up straight. "Now hold on a moment, am I understanding this right? You actually do think about relationships and you are interested in Visha?"
"I said no such thing and you will forget that Nicole, that's an order, and for good measure you will never mention this conversation to anyone again that's an order," Tanya ordered glaring at her.
"See that might actually work if we were in the same division and I didn't technically outrank you as a 6th seat." Nicole shot back before continuing "And I think you're assuming too much when it comes to Visha, some of the boys had a theory that you two would someday fall for each other after the war due to the fact that you two were so close, me personally I just thought she saw you as her little sister. Then again I also thought you didn't actually have an interest in relationships at all so..." She shrugged.
"I'm not, it was a trench dream." Tanya said
"And yet from what I heard you have gone out of your way to stay in the squad near her," Matsumoto mused, tapping her chin. "almost like deep down, you wanted to be near her more."
"You're seeing shadows where there are none, there's nothing there. If I was actually interested in pursuing a romantic relationship I would have accepted Visha's offer to live with her." Tanya said, waving the idea away before sipping more of her drink.
"Then how about we put that to the test," Rangiku suggested with a smile. "Why don't you accept that offer and see what happens, worst comes to worst you're out of the 11th division barracks where you get challenged to a fight every day, something I remind you that you've been complaining about for years, you get free access to her coffee and if something happens, it happens."
"It won't." Tanya said, rolling her eyes though she had to admit that on second thought some of what Rangiku said made sense, if she paid Visha for a room in her apartment she could be out of the 11th barracks tonight and she did have enough of a nest egg for it to work, especially if she won her fight against the 7th Seat. The relationship idea was preposterous but getting out of the 11th barracks was a preferable outcome at this point.
A moment later a large container of sake was put down on the table as Visha took a seat next to Tanya.
"Viktoriya, would you mind if I rented a room at your home while I do some apartment hunting on my own?" Tanya asked.
Visha smiled and gave Tanya a side hug, "Of course you can."
Arthur note
And there's the chapter we all been waiting for, now to await the pitchforks and torches, I had two editor folk tell me the bayonet saber was stupid… well as far as I'm aware that canon, so kinda stuck with it HA.
Please comment, review, and generally enjoy yourselves…
Edited By: Final Fan, Emberwing, Lord Feunoyr, Starstruck, Simon.h
Jctherebel: here hoping this is just as great
PsylentFox: not Kenpachi just yet but sure you like this chapter.
EricFreak: Tahsa got her coffee this chapter.
Spica75: thank you
James the apple: don't die just yet you got wait just bit more.
AnimeA55Kicker: operative word currently
Scarlet Anne: coming now actually
TheLost01: and more.
13thDiscipleOfIna: keep giving me comments and reviews and i'll keep going!