Chapter 22 version 4

1994

Tanya woke to the sound of banging on her office door, she did not have a great night's sleep and since she had all her paperwork done early she decided to rely on her old and well-trained ability to sleep anywhere, honed throughout both of her lives, to get some small semblance of rest before she had to deal with the next emergency.

It was winter in the Soul Society and thanks to the 12th still refusing to run power through most of the inner districts Tanya and Visha's apartment was chilly, to say the least, the last night had been so bad that the two of them had to resort to sleeping in the same bed again, something that had become common practice whenever the nights got too cold or they simply were too drunk to open the right doors.

Unlike the nights when she was drunk enough and she could just ignore the fact that the bed was a little too small for the both of them. She had been quite conscious of the fact that they were basically right on top of each other all night.

After the first time they had woken up in the same bed together she had had a small freak out wondering what she had done but thankfully they had just been two very drunk girls and nothing more occurred, but the fact that Visha had let her sleep in the same bed had screwed with something in her mind.

A small part of her wondered if Visha would be interested in a relationship, this was not something she had ever truly acknowledged before, but she had finally just given in and stopped searching for an apartment, she was comfortable with the current situation and was willing to buy a bigger bed to accommodate the both of them.

There was no rush, of course, they had a good relationship as it was so why spoil that by pushing the envelope too fast. They seemed to be becoming more and more comfortable with each other as the years went on and it was not like they had short lifespans.

Admittedly she had no idea how to treat such a relationship. So she had fallen on the empire's military doctrine about relationships in a unit. Which for the most part was none within a single unit and especially not between officers of said unit.

It was a harsh view on power dynamics within relationships but she could understand it, after all, if two people were that close favoritism and corruption could grow from that not to mention abuse of authority.

So, Tanya had determined that she would finish her term in the 11th division, get herself transferred to another division, and then if she still was pondering it, see where this relationship might end up if pushed a little.

It was only a year or so away and it was not like Visha had shown any interest in anyone else. Shaking the stray thoughts out of her head she returned to the banging at her door, most likely official business. Standing up from her desk she walked over to the door and opened it stepping back to avoid Ikkaku Madarame fist going for where the door used to be.

"Tanya let's fight," came the cheerful voice of the third seat officer of the 11th division, his face in a bright smile.

Blinking several times she replied, "I am not interested in fighting you right now, the fourth division has no good heating and I do not want to spend nights recovering there in the cold." Before attempting to close the door on him.

She was not ducking out of his challenges as she once had, these days she often trained with Madarame at least twice a week since their Shikai had some similarities, so she was sure she would be safe from the little pink demon, but fighting was a little much this time of year.

Madarame blinked for a moment before understanding ran through his face and speaking up "Oh sorry that's a misunderstanding I don't want to fight you I want you to come fight with me against a bunch of hollows in the world of the living."

Tanya stared at him in confusion for a moment "don't you usually bring Ayasegawa on such adventures?"

Madarame nodded "He's off in the north dealing with some high spiritual pressure folks who apparently overthrew a few of the local warlords that a nearby Noble supported, Plus" he held up the piece of paper in his hand. "It's thanks to you that I even know this is happening."

Reaching up, Tanya took the paper from his hands giving it a quick read-through. It was a report from the second division that there was a large spike in hollow activity near one of the few last known Quincies.

Looking up in Surprise Tanya looked up and asked "Quincies are still around?"

Madarame nodded "Surprised me too but apparently, they are, kind of want to see how he fights but I would not have found this document at the bottom of the paperwork if not for your little challenges a few years ago."

Tanya smiled at that, it was not often that something she did was thanked for years later and this would give her an opportunity to do some good in the world of the living. Looking over the paperwork she saw it had been earmarked for investigation a couple of hours ago which meant he did not have much time.

Reaching onto the coat hangers she pulled off her sword and attached it to her belt. Neglecting her new winter coat and hat and she turned to Madarame "Well then we better not waste time, it looks like even though you found this it's a few hours old and in a situation where a high spiritual pressure person is near hollows every minute counts."

Madarame nodded and then said, "Come on, let's go show those hollows your new skills. You haven't had a good hunt since you figured out Shikai." He said as he led the way down the hallway of office rooms towards the central area of division 11.

Tanya nodded. "Yes, I have been a little bit busy with lots of little side projects."

"Yeah, I got to say your column on battle tactics and strategy is an enjoyable addition compared to some of the stuff in there." Tanya gave him a look, realizing that most likely her thoughts on libertarianism had gone over his head in the little comic she was producing for the magazine.

It was probably for the best that a lot of people didn't notice the social commentary though, it would even give her some wiggle room in case Central 46 decided there was something subversive about it. She could just claim that, that was simply a misinterpretation of the work. From there she could possibly negotiate whatever punishment down to something less dangerous to herself.

With a brisk pace, the two of them walked over to the gateway to the world of the living, had a brief exchange of pleasantries with the kido division, and were on their way.

Akita Ishida held on tightly to her cousin Uryu as the trees trembled with the sounds of battle. This wasn't right, she and her cousin had gone with their grandfather for a little archery practice out in the woods. They were only supposed to be out there a few hours to improve their abilities since Uryu's father disapproved of its use.

Thankfully her own father was a supporter of the idea that it is better to have something and not need it rather than need it and not have it which had led to him being supportive of her desire to develop her gifts for self-defense even if he agreed with uncle Ryūken on staying out of the spiritual world's business.

It was only ever meant to be a simple way to keep them safe in case of a hollow attack since the soul reapers were absolute trash at saving Quincies from attacks. But now they were under attack from hollows and grandfather was fighting for his life.

She wanted to help grandfather stop these monsters but Uryu had his hand over her mouth and was holding her tight to prevent her from moving. All she could do was get glimpses of the battle from the edge of her eyes, she could just barely see Sōken Ishida killing one of the creatures with a close-range shot and that was the most excruciating part about this.

If she had her rifle she would annihilate those monsters. If she was not condemned to a small frail body, she would not need to be protected by Uryu, but she was not her old self, she was not the one who'd been through that hell of the war, she was just a little girl who thought she was going to have a peaceful life, and instead she was going to watch her grandfather die all because soul reapers wouldn't do their goddamn job.

In grief and pain she swore to herself that If she ever met one of those lazy bastards when she was older she would make them suffer as she was suffering now, they were monsters just as terrible as the hollows they would not allow Quincies to kill.

And then it subtly shifted there was an almost sudden turn in the atmosphere, the woods which had been dark and foreboding as the hollows attacked, brightened with flashes of light as the sounds of battle changed from Sōken labored breathing in the monsters' cries of victory to an unknown man screaming and a woman's chanting.

From her narrow split of vision behind the tree, she could just make out bright almost blinding flashes of silvery light as monsters were slain, straining her eyes to try and see what the hell was going on Akita was just able to see a young woman somewhere between her teens and early 20s slashing and ducking away from a beast with an odd luminescent bladed spear, she was dressed all in black with blonde hair.

With grace and elegance, the young heroine drove her blade through the chest of the creature carving a deep hole through it's sternum before following up with a series of quick and precise cuts.

Akita saw more of the odd silvery, reflective substance falling off of the blade before floating off and either gathering in the newly made wound or making its way through the air towards the reaper's back where they seemed to gather like a short cape around her shoulders, the monster fell forward and weakened before the blonde-haired girl bisected it's malformed white head.

With unnatural elegance the girl moved on and out of her sight, soon the sound of fighting stopped and Uryu let go of her, allowing her to move and get a look at the carnage of the battlefield, old memories of a lifetime ago threatening to take over for a second before she shook herself out of it and refocused on what lay before her.

The bodies and limbs were nothing compared to the carnages of her last life but it was still unpleasant to see, admittedly she cared little for the remains of the monsters what was important to her though was her grandfather laying in the field, facing the sky and covered in several bite and claw marks.,

The man was bloodied but thankfully it looked like he was still breathing. The blonde-haired angelic woman was applying some sort of medical aid to him while a bald man with a spear watched over the two.

"Think the old man is going to make it?" the bald one asked as he observed the area most likely looking for threats as some kind of guard.

"He's in a bad state but he should be fine in a little bit, I'm applying some of the best healing kido I know." the blonde-haired woman said.

Without really thinking she started to move towards the two before Uryu grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back into hiding, "What are you doing? Those are soul reapers, we don't know what they're here for." He whispered forcefully to her.

Slightly confused, she looked back to where the two reapers were looking after grandfather. She had never seen a soul reaper before and from the descriptions her father and uncle had provided she had assumed they were just lazy and perhaps even looking like monsters in their own right.

Sure the bald one looked a little rough, the blonde one was no doubt an angel, these soul reapers were heroes, people to look up to, they come from wherever they live to save grandfather and them.

"They look like they're here to help,'' She replied in a less aggressive whisper.

Uryu shook his head and pointed out "They could be here to take test subjects."

"We'll have to find his family to help him get home even if he comes too." The female voice said slightly louder than what was necessary. "He should be able to walk but who knows if he received any head injuries not to mention that he will certainly need more medical attention than we can give him here."

The aggressively bald one responded. "Shouldn't be that hard an old man like this couldn't have come too far into the woods from his family home."

Akita made an exaggerated hand symbol to convey that they seemed okay to her, only for Uryu to shake his head. "Fine," the girl said, stepping out into the open so the two could see her.

Tanya smiled when she saw the brown-haired girl poke out from behind a tree before ducking back, figuring the old man must likely have told his charges to hide, she raised her voice a bit higher in hopes of drawing the kids out and nodded her head in the direction of the trees for Madarame.

Understanding what Tanya was not saying Madarame responded "Shouldn't be that hard, an old man like this couldn't have come too far into the woods from his family home."

The conversation seemed to have the desired result as the girl popped out again, "Hello there," Tanya said, her hands continuing to move spiritual energy around in the old man's body to help him recover. "I assume this is your grandfather?" the girl nodded and seemed rather shy, "well I have good news and some bad news for you."

"Bad news?" the little girl asked sounding a bit scared,

"Yes, if I'm not mistaken your grandfather is going to scold you for coming out of hiding, good news is though he'll be alive to do it." She said with a chuckle.

The girl let out a sigh of relief before she started walking towards them. She was stopped though by a hand coming out from behind the tree, then ar black-haired boy joined her almost growling out his demand, "Soul reapers, what are you doing here? Are you going to take us away like the others?"

Confused, Tanya tilted her head as Madarame responded "We're here to protect the old man. Apparently, he has some sort of deal with the soul society. I don't know all the details but it must be something like that otherwise we would never have gotten orders to come here."

"What others?" Tanya asked as a follow-up. Before she could get an answer though, the old man coughed and opened his eyes.

"Soul reapers?" he questioned in that distressingly familiar post-blackout confused tone seemingly fully coming to his senses widening his eyes "The kids are they-"

The little girl broke free of her sibling? Maybe, they didn't look closely related but they must have had some connection if they were with the old man, and rushed over to the old man's side.

Babbling rather incoherently as the old man pat at her side to try and comfort her. Tanya decided to interject "As long as there were only two kids you're two for two as they're okay, if there's three well we'll have to deal with that bridge after we get you to safety."

The old man laughed before breaking into a coughing fit "It's just two," he confirmed before looking at them and nodding his head. "Soken Ishida, a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Tanya of the 11th Court Guard Squad, nice to meet you too sir, I'm guessing today was a bad day for a walk in the woods," She said, applying more healing kido to the area around his lungs as he cough-laughed again.

"You could say that again, well I'm just happy soul society finally saw sense and bothered to try and help us, I was starting to believe my ideas of getting us to work together was a hopeless endeavor"

"I don't know anything about that. We were simply given a mission briefing saying that there was hollow activity in the area near you that needed to be dealt with, so we dealt with it." Tanya mused, making a contemplative noise before repeating her question "The boy said something about others going missing?"

The old man muttered something before raising his voice "A few other Quincies like myself have gone missing over the last two decades or so, it has given what few remain a bad impression even though we thought we had signed a few treaties with the soul society to help look after us."

Central 46 was up to their old tricks weren't they, Tanya thought as she realized that any bureaucrat with an agenda could easily use the 11ths historically horrible bureaucracy to 'accidentally lose' pressing matters they didn't want solved without technically going against any signed treaties.

The possibility that Central 46 were so terrified of what was left of the Quincies that they would continue their operations to remove them from existence was chilling and rather wasteful. There were many possible options that could settle the situation with the Quincies and not all of them needed to be exterminated.

She accidentally let some of her annoyance creep into her voice "Well I won't claim to know what runs through the minds of those in power but right now, right here, we're here to help." She moved her hand to apply a little bit more kido to his legs.

"Do you think you can stand now?" the old man grunted and with Madarame's help, they managed to get him on his feet. The little girl was still holding tightly to him though the black-haired boy seemed too terrified to come any closer to them.

"We will help you get back to the road if you have a car or some other form of transportation?" The old man shook his head, "Unfortunate, well I have a few coins left over for my last trip to the world of the living. I should be able to find a payphone and call a taxi for you."

Nodding, they began their trek through the forest towards the road. Tanya's mind was alight with what she would do when she got back to the soul society. They apparently had a deal with the Quinces, that was not well known, a deal that they had been failing terribly, she was going to write an official complaint and report on this incident.

She hated sticking her neck out for strangers, especially when those she was going against were her direct superiors but two lifetimes of corporate politics and dealing with vengeful malcontents had taught her that it was best to nip potential problems like this in the bud

Breaking a protection treaty with other parties was a sure sign of bad things to come and she wanted to prevent whatever stupidity had led to this situation from growing any further.

After getting the old man in his charges to safety, Tanya and Madarame quickly returned through the Senkaimon to the soul society, though before she left she had gotten the old man's number seeing him as a prime contact for the world of the living. She would most likely need more information to conduct an investigation into what was going on and file a perfect report.

She also had toyed with an idea, one she couldn't implement in front of Madarame but one that could be very profitable for her and Soken. So far as she was aware this universe was still on the same pathway of her last universe meaning she had an idea of what businesses and enterprises would be very successful in the next 20 years.

Sadly she had no way of acting on her growing desire to take advantage of her insider trading knowledge, not quite being a member of the living and all that. Soken on the other hand despite the hollow's best attempt, was alive and she was considering giving him a few tips on where may be able to grow his financial portfolio. Not to mention that if she ever needed an exit strategy, having someone with a little money and a favor owed to you is just good business.

Tanya put her dreams of playing the stock market on hold however, that was for the future, for now, she had come to Madarame's office looking over the paperwork that had been delivered with the envelope, trying to find out if her theory on what central 46 was up to was legitimate.

A quick glance did not improve her mood on that front, 90% of it appeared to be forms from the 12th division related to expenses and other tech-related damages they had contributed to throughout the soul society.

This was to be expected the 11th division did cause a lot of mayhem and got in fights that got a little rowdy. She had even laid witness to one that had spilled over into a printing building and well to put it simply the printing press no longer existed, one of the local journalists was traumatized for life and the equipment inside the building had been rendered useless as it had gotten caught in the crossfire, in fact, the paperwork for that particular catastrophe was right here in front of her, which was the concerning part.

The Seireitei Times incident had happened nearly 5 years ago and yet the paperwork only arrived just now the afterlife bureaucracy was painfully outdated but this was extreme even for them. Someone had been holding on to this clusterfuck of paperwork with the express intention of only delivering it when they needed it delivered, perhaps to hide other deliveries such as the envelope she was currently holding.

Shaking her head to try and clear her mounting paranoia, Tanya decided that the best strategy in this situation was not to accuse the central 46 of what they had done, no, the best attack would be to ensure that they couldn't do it again.

There was also the distinct possibility the 12th was fully on board or responsible for the operation, she had seen the captain of the 12th's contribution to the Seireitei Communication and this was not out of the realm of possibility if the man decided to take the chance to get more… test subjects. Either way tying the 12th's hands was the best way to deal with this situation and any action ensuring R&D was better regulated was a positive outcome in her mind.

For now, she would write a report, she would simply report the obvious: A mission briefing envelope had arrived. They had gone and saved an old Quincy, they learned that there was a treaty between this Quincy and the soul society that they claimed was being poorly upheld. That this behavior would discredit the soul society if it was left to continue and as a finisher, she would put a simple report saying that the 12th division contributed to this situation by delivering unprocessed reports and fines in bulk.

The unprofessionalism of such an act nearly resulted in the death of a human in the world of the living. Their disorganization had contributed to a possible failure of the Soul Society and must be rectified or situations like this could happen again.

She would finish the report with a simple extolling of the virtues of upholding and honorable deals and the laws of the Soul Society, because if they did not uphold their deals with people like the Quincy then what good was their society, to begin with.

Satisfied with the composition of the report in her mind she quickly wrote up a preliminary draft, rewrote it a second time just to be certain it contained the right amount of nationalism, put it in an envelope addressed to lieutenant Kusajishi, who she knew would actually look at it and sent it on its merry way to the Captain-General. Kenpachi may be in charge of the division, but she knew that the lieutenant was the one who dealt with the day-to-day operations with a surprising amount of dedication.

Shaking her head at the absurdity of her current situation she pulled out a notepad and scribbled a small reminder to look up possible ways to use the Quincy. They were a useful asset even if their powers were a little too problematic in the grand scheme of things, perhaps there was something buried in the records of the soul society library that she could use to provide a different alternative to the apparent genocide that had been assigned them.

Likely she would find nothing and if so she would just go about her life though if she did find something it was always good to write reports suggesting a possible alternative rather than just complaining at the status quo, hopefully, the ruling cabinet would see reason and use the Quincy as the potential assets or at least let them live their lives in relative peace.

Perhaps there was a way to prevent their powers from destroying hollows completely or maybe they'd just be useful as a quick reactionary force whenever the Soul Society was slowed down due to unorganized paperwork she thought, eyeing said stack of paperwork with an evil glare.

Taking a moment to calm down and take a deep breath, she left the Third-Seat's office and made her way out of the 11th division. It had been a long day and she wanted to go home for the night. Hopefully, the heat from the bakery would keep the building warm enough and they would not need to share a bed.

"Yes that's what you're hoping" came the annoying voice of Tasha.

Quiet you, you got a taste of battle today even in Shikai you should be more than satisfied." Tanya said walking through the snow.

"Yes I got a taste and I can't wait for the real meal." The spirit mused

"What are you on about?" Tanya asked suspicious of her blade's ramblings.

"Oh, I'm just playing the odds that something interesting will happen when you finally move to try and leave the 11th division. Just my personal pet theory, don't worry about it."

Feeling her hair buffet her hat, she clamped down on her annoyance and just ignored the blade as she kept heading home.

Mayuri Kurotsuchi was not in a good mood. His scheme to get another Quincy research subject had failed spectacularly as his usual method of using the ineptitude of the neanderthal-like 11th Squad to obfuscate his machinations seemed to have been closed to him when he was not looking.

Not only that but one of the people responsible for his operation going sideways appeared to have correctly deduced he did it on purpose and carefully worded a letter to give him grief without actually claiming he was responsible.

This was an unexpected result and worth studying, however, he was currently too infuriated by losing his test subject to focus on that at the moment. He'd been using that loophole for nearly 25 years in order to hide his efforts to attain Quincy subjects and to have it ripped away from him and have a no-named reaper throw him under the bus as the one responsible for a near-death situation of a Quincy was infuriating.

He was so annoyed with the girl that when he'd seen her name he'd even suspected she might be some sort of Quincy soul that he missed who managed to get over their hatred of soul reapers and join them in order to save their kind. But the chances of that were near zero perhaps there was some loyalty based on nationality but he doubted she was a secret Quincy.

Oh, how he wanted a little recompense for this but anything too overt would just be problematic for his objectives. Ultimately it really didn't matter in the long run as he was already nearing the end of what Quincies could teach him, losing the one was not so bad.

Really the most annoying bit was her report put emphasis on the old treaty which would mean that people would be more careful about keeping an eye out for the remaining Quincies who still lived. That meant his efforts to get any new Quincy subjects were going to be too much effort for such a paltry reward.

Perhaps he'd try again in the next 40 to 50 years, probably for the best really, the subjects left in the wild were getting low in number and there weren't many newly born Quincy family lines in the last couple hundred years. Let them have a decade or five to procreate, he could always start up experiments again then.

For now, though, Mayuri needed a pick me up, so he added the girl's name to the Division 12's blacklist, backdated it to the Seireitei Times incident, and added on the maximum 50 percent, 5-year extension for "Failure to sign off on restitution of fines by payment date.". Her attempts to get anything out of division 12 for the next decade would be stalled and denied. No modern technology, no modern conveniences, no technical support, let's see how she likes that.

Arthur note

And here we go another chapter out folks, nothing to major, just a little tease about Tanya's Shikai, a little "will they, won't they", me taking a hammer to canon and set up of conflict with R&D, hope everyone enjoys and has some fun with theories from this chapter.

Also that Tanya wars, i mentioned last week, basically gets 4+ 1000+ word chapters each day… I can't keep up, holy moly is that success.

Please comment, review, and generally enjoy yourselves…

Edited by : Lord Feunoyr Starstruck, Emberwing

review response

Rairi Valelira, skrapsynneh: thanks, for reviews here more

EricFreak: can't wait to hear your reaction to this chapter, been working a long time on this one.

Kisame Hoshigaki:na your reading exactly what i want in to it.

Cinderfall20412: I hadn't given it much thought... which odd considering i've given every other aspect of shikai a lot of thought. for now i'll say she can speek both, for rest i'll think on this.