Chapter 28
Tanya was not in a good mood, no she would dare say she was livid. Her simple intelligence gathering operation had gone off the rails, and her attempts to suggest that her target convince
the kid to do something had resulted in her assuming the kid needed to be murdered. The wastefulness of nobles seemed to be stronger than she thought if that was the first place Rukia's head went to. They needed to make the kid convince his family to move to another town, one that was so far away from 13th control that it would separate Rukia from his creation as a soul reaper.
Pushing for something other than murder would be preferable but before she could get into other options the kid in question had turned up. And somehow he made the situation more complicated. Calling her an otaku had hit a nerve. She admitted it, she was versed on many subjects, and had enjoyed some anime here or there like everyone, but she was not some room dwelling, figure collecting, man-child thinking about which waifu she loved more in Evangelion. She was better than such scum. She had worked her two lives to make something of herself and to be called something that was no better than scum she would fire in her first life for not keeping their hobbies or their comments around their female coworkers to themselves or at home, well that was an insult that she could not stand.
Utterly pissed by the kid's stupidity, she let the pronouncements and anger that had been building up get out which pissed her off more. She let her control slip. It brought shame on herself, more than anything, and it made her consider leaving Rukia to whatever fate the Central 46th deemed for her. But, she could not do that. She owed Rukia for saving her life, and owing something like that in a honor-based society, only to walk away, well that could be damaging to her career and influence in the Soul Society.
So she took a moment to cut down on her anger, and re-centered her mind before she tackled the situation in front of her from another angle. If Rukia was so deep in noble's wastefulness, then she would strike at the punk. She would make him realize how much trouble he was in and what he was facing, so that he begs for a way out, preferably he would take heed of her warning and get his family to move, though she suspected that if he begged forgiveness of Central 46 and cooperated with them on order to remove his powers, he might survive.
She was sure she was getting through to him. The logic she presented should have made sense to someone of the modern world she left. Even if she knew people were willing to do stupid things for revenge, there was nothing like that here to interfere. For a moment she even thought he had agreed. Instead her ears cleared out her own hubris as she realized the kid had said he would take on the Soul Society. Even after she explained that he would be fighting monsters with decades of training, the brat simply shook it off and said he'd do it for Rukia, because she managed to save both his life and the lives of his family.
On one hand he was absolutely a lunatic. There was no way he could learn what he needed in two months. He'd be dead the first time someone pulled a shikai on him, and to believe otherwise was madness. On the other hand, though, the fact he was willing to do such an insane thing because he owed her a debt? Well that could play well. Leak that to the magazine, make sure exactly what happened got out in public in the Soul Society, and that he was willing to fight for a soul reaper out of the debt he owed her. Hmm, that would be useful in lessening Rukia's sentence. Of course the strength of that statement needed to be tested. If he went up to someone like Kenpachi and made a statement like that only to fall apart after the first punch, well that would be an embarrassment that could damage Rukia's defense.
Thus there was really only one thing she could do at this point. She needed to either beat some sense into the brat so then he would start thinking about his own survival, or to be tempered to see if he had even the slightest chance of survival. She doubted that last part but she would do what must be done, thus she allowed him to take on his soul reaper form, but when he left himself wide open she did not let such stupidity stand. She kicked him in the gut to make a point. He needed to be more serious about the matter, which thanks to logic he at least seemed to take violence and pain seriously, preparing his sword as he stood across from her.
Watching his form carefully she took a few steps to the right, giving herself an idea of his dominant hand as his sword moved to follow her. This was good, it meant she could create an opening in his form easily enough, and she suspected if she went full shikai she could put him down easy enough, though that would not make the point she wanted. No, in order to stamp into this kid's skull that he was out of his league she needed to beat him without shikai. Something like that should not be too hard if she was fast enough. He was carrying too large of a sword to keep up with her slashes, that knock-off Dragon Slayer would be too unwieldy if she got close enough and fast enough, though it was worth keeping in mind his spiritual pressure. She didn't know if Rukia had taught him any kido, but the amount that was coming off him now that he was in a soul reaper form seemed to imply he had large reserves, if he was so openly flaunting such powers. And with such large reserves, one could never be sure how exactly their opponent would handle their weapon.
Without much fanfare Tanya quickly closed the distance between the two bringing up her saber to slash at the punk. The punk fell back a step past the tree that he had been unservicely knocked into a moment before. Not going to let him attempt to stay out of her range, Tanya began to slash several times as well as stab at him, ignoring Rukia's exclamations to be careful. Eventually the kid stopped falling back and used his sword to block some of the hits revealing that though the blade was heavy, he could in fact maneuver quickly enough to block an incoming attack.
"That is better," she mused as she looked past their interlocked blades.
"Well thank you Ms aggressive. I think you almost cut me and stabbed me there a couple times."
Tilting her head Tanya said with a smile, "Better a little blood now than a lot of blood later," before she stepped back quickly and attempted to stab through his defense. This time he blocked it outright and attempted to follow up with a strike back. Tanya raised a shield with her left hand blocking it she thought successfully then jumped back as she realized he was cutting straight through the shield like it was nothing.
He followed that unexpected success with another few strikes at her which she deflected with her own blade. Yes she could consider if he was able to put his entire weight against her own blade then he might damage it. Both of them took a few steps back in her direction until they were both on the road again.
Holding her blade in front of her to keep him away she pondered what she had seen. She's seen a few people break her shield over the years but most had been extremely powerful or they had a skill that allowed them to sidestep power for esoteric attacks.
The punk's attempt was thoroughly on the side of power; his spiritual pressure output was enough that it overran the amount of pressure she put into average quick activation shields. Well she doubted it could break more than two consecutive ones. And though he'd only been using that blade for nearly a month she could tell that he had some sort of knack with it. All in all that brief exchange of swordsmanship actually improved the odds that he might be able to prove himself to the Soul Society .
If only the Central 46 wasn't an authoritarian oligarchy run by the criminally out of touch noble elders that it was. Even if that was not a thing she doubted many of the nobles with ties to the divisions would be pleased to have him attempt some sort of reconciliation.
"Hey short and aggressive, are you done coming at me? Have you gotten what you needed or are we still fighting?" the orange-haired brat asked, looking rather confused by her lack of attacks.
Tanya let out a deep breath and shook her head, "It's Tanya, Tanya von Degurechaff if you would, and it would be best to learn how to show some proper respect. Those who run the whole of Soul Society work on honor and calling someone short and aggressive would be an insult to most people's honor. Now as for continuing our little sword fight I don't think that is necessary. I will concede you have some skill and that you have the backbone to attempt the options I presented," Tanya said, lowering her sword so it pointed to the ground at her side. "However you are still untrained and are more likely than not to die when a soul reaper comes here on official business."
"Hey I get it, you don't think I have much of a chance, but I'm willing to learn if you're willing to teach. If Rukia's life depends on me putting up with a beat down from you everyday until you judge me ready it would be worth it," he said, lowering his sword before swinging it back up and over his shoulder to holster it on his back.
Tanya laughed at that, "Although I do find that an interesting prospect I'm only here for a week starting this morning and theoretically I'm supposed to be in the town over. But most importantly why should I put my life on the line to help you in this insane prospect? I'm here to help Rukia, not you."
"Because it will help you to help Rukia?" he offered back.
"There are other options that are more feasible that I can pursue that have a better chance of succeeding than the glimmering vain hope that you will somehow meet the qualifications to fight a seated officer to victory."
"You're a third seat and I seem to be doing well against you."
That elicited a chuckle from Tanya, "I was going easy trust me on that."
Ichigo let out a heavy sigh and rubbed the back of his neck before saying, "Fine then. I'll figure something out on my own."
Shaking her head Tanya looked at Rukia and said, "I figured you'd find someone who was either bravely stupid or stupidly brave. Are there any other surprises I should know about before I go deal with my duties in the other city?"
Rukia began to shake her head before she stopped, her eyes widening. Tanya would have asked what was up and what was the new item of concern when she felt it too. Drawing her blade up from the ground into a defensive posture she looked around trying to sense where the hollow was.
At that moment Rukia's phone began to beep for some unknown reason. Ichigo was looking up the hill and said two names before he started rushing away. Rukia was right behind him, quickly chasing after and Tanya soon followed after she waited for her senses to confirm that that was the direction of the hollow.
As she followed she pondered how he picked up on the directions so quickly. 'How was he so good at tracking hollows when he was so new?' she wondered.
As Tanya crested the top of the hill she was treated to the sight of a shaggy fur covered Hollow. It looked a bit like a giant hamster wearing a mask was pressing a black haired girl into the ground with its foot as another girl with hair color similar to Ichigo's was held aloft in the air by a fur-covered tentacle that was coming out of the beast's back.
Running in and attacking the beast without a plan in most situations would be suicidal. That's why she was attempting to prepare a Kido spell in hopes of separating the beast from the girls.
Apparently though Ichigo was bullheaded, and not the type to think through situations. As Tanya was preparing a spell she thought might hold the beast long enough for the girls to be freed, he simply rushed in and chopped the fur tentacle off causing the beast to stumble away, freeing both girls.
"Well well, this was not what I was told. I was under the impression I'd have three meals and a rookie soul reaper to contend with. Two soul reapers though? That's unexpected, though I do enjoy the look of that one. Doesn't she make a fine meal?" the hollow said, licking its lips as he was looking at Tanya. "But if you would do me a favor my dear and you wait your turn? I have business with this rookie."
Tanya tilted her head to the side before looking at Rukia and said, "Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that Grand Fisher?"
Rukia was holding her hands out in front of her, possibly preparing a spell, but she nodded. "I think you're right."
"Grand Fisher, who is that?" Ichigo yelled from where he stood on the front lines of this little conflict.
"A two-bit serial killer hollow known for its tendency to go after women and girls. It's also killed a few soul reapers over the years that it caught by surprise. It's not exactly known for its martial prowess, and as far as I'm aware the only reason his name gets mentioned is because he has the ability to sneak up on people the way he does. He tends to run off whenever an execution squad gets sent after him," Tanya mused, remembering his file from a few years back when she had been part of an 11th execution squad sent after him. "He's too weak to take on anything in numbers."
"Hey I've killed plenty of soul reapers in my time and I'll gladly add you to that list," Fisher said with annoyance, giving Tanya an evil eye.
"Yes, as enlightening as finding out your fetishes are probably what turned you into a hollow, I really doubt you will be killing anyone here today except maybe the kid. Depends on if he keeps running into this blade first or not," Tanya said watching the beast as the infamous lure on the beast head swung back and forth.
"Oh so you're not going to interfere in my little hunt? I would have thought someone who speaks so boldly about my inadequacies would be all over trying to prove they're better than me."
Tanya blinked then said "No no, I'm more interested in seeing if the punk can actually damage you, so why should I interfere? If you die it solves one problem for me. If he lives it also helps solve a problem. But if I help, that does nothing for me."
"What, you're just going to stand there?" Ichigo asked, sounding fairly annoyed though Tanya really didn't care.
"Oh? Stand here in the line of fire? Oh no, no I'm not going to do that, that would be foolhardy and would make the situation worse," Tanya said and took a step applying a little spiritual pressure to convert it into a flash step appearing by where the girls had toppled onto a tombstone.
"I think that here would be a good position, really. As I said I'm on patrol. I'm supposed to be protecting the living from hollows. These two," she said as she pointed down at the ground, "count as the living. You, as a soul reaper, do not for the purposes of my patrol."
"Hey, those are mine!" Fisher said in anger.
"I don't give a damn what you think is yours. My job is to make sure humans do not die from hollow activity. If you'd like to interfere and take on two reapers at once, fine, but that's fully up to you," Tanya said, pointing her blade at the beast, "but you'll find that asking us to help you commit suicide would be a quicker way to die."
"I'm going to rip this orange headed brat's head off and then I'm coming right back here to deal with you."
"Oh you may try," Tanya said and gave a smile, "but you'll find that to be quite difficult. Without your two meals here as a collateral dangling in front of the brat's face, I'm not so sure you'll find that so easy. After all, your skills rely on driving people to attack in rage. What are you going to do when you can't do that?"
The graveyard was filled with dark laughter as the hollow looked at Tanya. "Oh I don't know, maybe I'll do this."
His lure shifted and changed into a black-haired girl in a robe causing Tanya to shrug. "And that changes the battlefield, how? Why would you bring out your little toy you use to reel in people as bait into your range, help you?"
"Bait?" she heard Ichigo's voice say, causing her to look over to him and see he was no longer looking confused, he was looking absolutely pissed.
Still releasing that dark imposing laugh Grand Fisher spoke. "I have hunted this prey before and last time I took something special from it."
"You have got to be kidding me," Tasha muttered, getting Tanya's silent agreement as Ichigo practically launched himself at the monster, smashing his blade into the ground with an unstyled strike as he missed wildly.
Tanya shook her head and watched as Ichigo slashed at a hair tentacle before nearly being engulfed in them. If he had died then she would not have been surprised but he somehow cut his way free forcing the beast to step a few feet back. The hollow, taking a moment in the break of the combat, fled into the woods causing the orange-haired idiot to run after him.
"Yes, give up nearby allies and chase the monster into the woods," Tanya said, shaking her head.
She looked up in time to see Rukia climbing up after them and following.
"If they both died do you think we'll get out of this situation?" Tanya asked Tasha.
"Probably not, more likely we'll get blamed for her death which would not be great for your career prospects," Tasha mused in her ear.
"Hopefully she's smart enough not to get herself killed. At least the idiot is putting out so much spiritual pressure that it would be impossible not to find him in the woods," Tanya mused, "but first we need to deal with these two," she said looking down at the two girls. Hearing a twig snap she looked over at the path that they had taken to get up here and saw the orange-haired idiot. It took her a moment to remember that he put something in his body to replace his soul so she waved him over.
"Hey Gikon, get over here and help me move these bodies. I need to get them somewhere safe."
"Wait, I thought you were the bad guy. Why are you now helping?"
Tanya blinked and looked at the artificial soul, "and here I thought most of you Gikon would follow simple orders. That's something else I have to keep in mind for the future if I ever get my hands on one. But since you're falling behind on the madness we find ourselves in, I am not the bad guy. I'm simply the concerned friend," she said as nicely as possible before ramping up to full drill sergeant. "Now do me a favor and carry these two girls down the mountain to safety, do you get me?"
"Yes ma'am!" the artificial soul said, snapping a rather competent salute so complimentative she might not have noticed that through the entire thing his eyes were staring directly at her chest.
"Oh great it's one of the pervert models," she mused as she turned back towards the woods, before she said, "also if I find out you did anything to those girls I will cut off those limbs from that lion body he keeps you in and drop you in a lake."
She doubted that would do anything to harm the artificial soul but she figured the threat of an unpleasant experience would be enough to keep him in line.
With casual ease she jumped up onto the terrace above where the girls lay and started heading deeper into the cemetery woods. She had a general idea of which way the idiots had gone thanks to his impressive spiritual pressure, but had a more confident idea thanks to the path of chaos and destruction left in their wake. Trees, railings, gravestones, it did not matter, if it was standing and in the way it had been shattered, cut, smashed, etc. The path was very clear and not hard to follow at all, and all the while a storm rolled in, darkening the sky, and it began to rain.
She was quite able to follow the path once they got into the trees and came upon Rukia standing by and watching Ichigo fight the hollow with no skill and all fury. The hollow for its points seemed to be more powerful and faster than the kid or at least more seasoned than she would have assumed at first. As much as she put down his skills, it would not be too surprising to take out a soul reaper. Even with the element of surprise that would require some effort in learning how to fight after all.
That was until he closed range and had his blade blocked, although it was rather morbid she gave a hearty chuckle when the hollow gave him the advice to actually think about what they were doing before closing range and followed that up by stabbing the idiot in the chest.
She considered at this moment continuing to stay out of this but really, the logical reason to test if he was any good at killing a skilled hollow had been thrown out the moment the hollow in question had revealed its connection to the situation. His off-balance behavior made this too personal and it was not going to give her the answers she wanted.
Though if he did somehow overcome the monster it would still factor well. Killing a known soul reaper murderer is good propaganda.
Smiling, Tanya said so Rukia could hear, "keep the fight going as long as possible and don't interfere unless it looks like he's going to die. I have an idea."
With that she wandered into the woods next to the clearing, finding a tree in a good position at the edge of the clearing. Taking up her sword she carefully carved Germanic runes into the bark of the tree. Once she was satisfied she looked over to make sure he was still fighting the monster.
It would appear the creature had decided to throw the kid off his game and it summoned what at the time she could best guess was a vision of his mother. Context clues of the hair, the fact that the kid was so pissed, and just how cruel this hollow seemed to be would point to that at least.
The orange haired moron was already charging him, screaming about using his mother's face. So much drama over nothing. The kid was going to get himself killed, though hopefully before he accomplished getting himself killed she could complete the necessary steps to make sure that hollow didn't leave. Quickly she rushed on moving to the next tree. She had two more to go after that.
Ichigo smiled through the pain. Grand Fisher was too fast for him and he'd been unable to get a good slice into the bastard who had killed his mother. And the constant mocking mixed with using the image of his mother as a shield had not improved his temperament one bit. If he had he probably would have thought better about charging so recklessly at the hollow. Probably would have saved himself a lot of pain and not been impaled through the chest again this time face to face with that damn lure of the hollow mockingly using his mother's face.
However, with grand Fisher's arm firmly planted in his chest. He wasn't exactly going to be getting away now was he.
Ignoring Fisher's platitudes of being superior and how this was Ichigo's end, he firmly grabbed onto the bastard's arm. "Finally got you."
"Anger dulls the blade, huh? Well that might be true," he said, holding tighter with his left hand onto the hollow's arm, "but I told you no matter what happens to me I'll defeat you!" he yelled, rearing his blade back in his right hand before shoving it deep into the hollow's shoulder. With some satisfaction he saw the hollow's masked face seem to contort in pain and fear as the blade bit deeply. The lure that had been in between them was pulled out of the way, why he could not say but it was good not to have to see his mother's face being used by this beast anymore.
"It's the end, Fisher. You're the oldest, filthiest, and most offensive Hollow that I've ever met!" With that he pulled his blade off to the side cutting the damn thing nearly in half, it's blood spraying everywhere in the rain. The body tumbled a few feet away before coming to a stop.
Finally getting a moment to breathe he took a step back trying to get some control and calmness in his system.
Only to see Fisher apparently had a few more tricks up his sleeve. As he watched the main body of the hollow be sucked through the tube that connected it to the lure, it had taken on his mother's face again. It was disturbing and unsettling of a sight, not to mention he swore he heard bones crunching as it happened.
The hollow hole appearing on the lure, the new form of the Fisher, looked at him intently, "I appear to have underestimated you soul reaper, but at least I learned you could not strike this pretty face with your blade. Very stupid weakness shinigami. But the time has come for me to leave. We shall meet again."
The lure reached its hand out and waved it then waved it again then looked very confused.
"Trying to run away are we?" Ichigo and the Hollow both turned to their left as the blond soul reaper walked across the grass of the field towards them, her sword firmly sheathed at her side. "And here I thought you said you were such a soul reaper killer. Seems to me you failed to even kill a substitute soul reaper with no training. That either speaks poorly of you or well of him, I am still deciding."
"What's going on? I thought you weren't going to interfere!" the Hollow said, looking annoyed.
"I said I wouldn't interfere in the fight. My objective is to protect humans and kill hollows. I never said that I wouldn't go around and erect a barrier around your fight preventing you from escaping to Hueco Mundo, so that in case the kid died I would be here to deal with you and prevent you from continuing your campaign of terror, now did I?"
Ichigo blinked then he processed this, not liking that she had planned for him to die but she also now prevented the thing from leaving.
"That sure seems like interfering to me, seems to me you have no honor-"
"Honor is a tool, useful when it's necessary but easily discarded when dealing with hollows. I would think someone who abuses the fact that he can use his opponent's mother's face in combat would get that but then again maybe you're just being a bit of a pragmatist on that as well, abusing the system to get what you want."
"You little bitch! I'll rip you open from neck to spleen!"
God how he hated hearing that creature say things using his mother's face.
The blonde girl shrugged and drew her sword, waving her silver blade in such a way that attention was drawn to her. "I mean you can try. You did a pretty good job putting a hole through that substitute over there. Now I have a question. Before you attempted that, you said you expected to find Ichigo, Rukia, and the two girls. That would imply that you had intelligence. If it was just you stalking them you wouldn't say that the way you did so that means there's another hollow working for you who's stalking them isn't there, or are you working for someone else?"
Fisher scoffed at that, its clawed hands flexing out from underneath the robes of the lure. "Like I'd tell a soul reaper anything."
"Is that your final answer? Well, then I guess it's straight to death for you."
"Bring it on midget."
"Oh it won't be me. Have you ever heard the concept of breaking the illusion? It's when a bad actor posing as someone else acts so out of character that the intended target no longer sees the person and only notices the bad actor," Ichigo's eyes widened as he realized the girl had been playing a game with Fisher the entire conversation, drawing his attention and keeping him focused on her. Carefully he moved closer towards Fisher.
"And your point is?"
"The point is I don't see my mother in you!" Ichigo yelled as he took the last few steps forward and drove his sword through the hollow's back and out of its chest.
He felt some satisfaction watching the hollow crumpled to the ground finally dead. It brought a little bit of a grin to his face and he tumbled to the ground as well, the blood loss and the pain from several stab wounds to his chest finally catching up with him. Ichigo heard Rukia call out as she ran up to his side before leaning down and tending to his wounds.
To aid her efforts he rolled over onto his back so that he was looking up at the sky. "Thank you Rukia," he muttered, leaving her to work as he watched the rainfall.
He didn't get much time to do that because soon he was staring up at a blonde mop of hair that had walked into his vision. She was looking down at him with cold calculating eyes, her hands clasped behind her back. "It's a good thing you killed him when you did, any longer and he probably would have figured out all he had to do was run out of this little circle of trees. Get far enough away outside the square four points and that little spell loses its effect."
"How-" he coughed before continuing, "How'd you know Fisher was going to try and escape?"
"Fisher is a known entity. I've studied a few reports on his activities. It seemed like one of the hollows I would be unlucky enough to run into. The Hollow's annoying ability to just jump between worlds as well as there being precedent for him trying to escape if a situation was not going his way."
"How did you create a kido spell that would prevent him from jumping though? I've never heard of such a thing," Rukia asked.
"Just a little German mathematics, mixed with a liberal use of spiritual pressure. To be fair that spell is not as effective as I would like it to be. It only holds for three, maybe four minutes and as I said if you escape the overlapping fields of the placement points the hollow can still escape. It's really only useful in teamwork situations. As much as all those hollows act like animals they are not stupid. If they see that a member of your party is fiddling around with runes in the background they'll know something is up and usually try to escape. That's why you need a good distraction for such a spell to work."
Coughing, Ichigo muttered, "well it was a pleasure being a distraction for you. Now I think I'm going to pass out for- Ahh!" he didn't get to finish his sentence as the blonde had drawn her sword and stabbed him in the shoulder, or at least he thought she did. Looking over to where he had felt the stab he saw no wound and he was actually feeling a lot better like a wave of energy had just been shot through him.
"As much as carrying you back to your body sounds entertaining I'd rather not sprain my back, so enjoy a little kido pick me up, because we need to have a talk."
"Aren't we already talking now?" Ichigo said with a smile.
"Yes," the blonde said and knelt down on one knee next to his side, "but this conversation is a continuation of our earlier one about the situation you two have found yourself in."
"Right, right, the 'Soul Society possibly wants me dead' situation. Sure I can't convince you to give me some training?"
"An hour ago, yes. Now not so much, at least conventional training I can't give you, however considering you were willing to put your body on the line to kill that hollow that shows me that you're probably enough of a battle maniac and just need to be given the right materials so you can train yourself, so I'll ask you this once. Give me the right answer and I will see what I can do. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to dig you and Rukia out of the hole you two have dug for each other?"
Tanya's icy blue gaze we're staring directly into his own eyes waiting for his answer. And he wasn't the type to disappoint someone when they asked him a question. "Damn straight I am, I ow-"
The girl waved him off and said, "yes, yes, you owe Rukia your and your family's lives, I've heard it before. That honoring of that is going to be very useful." She grabbed his shoulder and said, "Rukia, help me get him up," and with a little teamwork the two of them managed to pull him back up to his feet, and they started the long walk back towards the cemetery.
Well this had not been part of her plan but there was a theoretical way for this option to work.
It had taken them about 20 minutes to make it back to the kid's body and once there they'd give him a moment to get a handle of himself. He was still fairly out of it but by the looks of it though that was to be not surprising since he had just fought a hollow almost to the death. He was lucky to be standing really, 'Must have been all that extra spiritual power he was carrying around,' she assumed.
Once they had him settled though she pulled out a book from inside a small travel pack and tossed it to Rukia.
"What's this?'' she asked, holding up the book.
"As I said I cannot be involved in his training, too much responsibility for this situation would get me an accessory charge, so enjoy a little Christmas present that I delivered last year but you just didn't find till now, a copy of the training manual I created when I started training reapers for the 10th."
"You created a training manual?" Rukia asked, looking confused.
"I believe the spiritual arts academy does a fine job building a base, however the foundations are a little bit, what's the term I'm looking for here, wobbly, so I created something that I think builds upon that base and strengthens those foundations. Any soul reaper who studies this book and does at least some effort to improve along the directions I propose in their combat ability will be a fine soul reaper for the whole of Soul Society," Tanya said with some pride.
"Huh, how come I haven't heard about this manual that you've been working on before? You'd think it was such a success everyone in the 10th will be talking about it to everyone else," Rukia said, looking over at Tanya.
Tanya just smiled and shrugged saying, "It's still in the beta stages. I'm working out some of the finer details right now and that copy is a limited run for those finer details to be worked out. Plus a large portion of the 10th seems to think I'm a little too harsh on those details and avoids my unit where I make it compulsory reading."
Rukia opened the book to a random page and asked, "Wait, why do you have a section here about digging trenches?"
"That was a suggestion of Visha which I agree upon, that digging a trench is a worthy exercise and could be useful under certain situations. It's like how the Romans used their armies to build roads when not on campaign. It helps keep the mind and body in shape."
"So what you're saying is if I read that and dig some trenches then I'll be a better soul reaper?" Ichigo asked from where he was sitting on the steps to a temple.
"That and many things such as learning to dodge, so you don't get as many holes in your chest," she mused as she looked over to him.
This seemed to get a chuckle out of the kid before he put his hand out, "Thanks for helping me with Fisher. I don't know a lot about this Soul Society but thank you and good luck figuring out a fix on your end of the situation."
Smiling Tanya took the hand and gave it a shake. "No thanks are necessary, I was simply doing my duty. As for the Soul Society, just make sure you're ready for what's coming and I will see what we can do about clearing this mess up in a favorable outcome." Preferably one that she was not involved in she hoped but she would lay some groundwork, as these two could be used to try to keep herself out of this situation as much as possible.
"Good luck Ichigo. Now Rukia, come with me so we can discuss exactly what I'm going to tell your commanding officer about the situation," she said, gesturing with her hand to indicate their need to step away for privacy's sake. They only got about a dozen feet away when her plans to go over a possible story they could use to sell this as an extreme situation were interrupted as she saw someone coming up the path.
A dark-haired man with a shaggy amount of facial hair wearing a suit. Seeming to be lost in his thoughts he might have passed both of them but as they closed range he spotted Rukia easily enough. His lack of seeing Tanya seemed to indicate he didn't have much spiritual awareness though. "Rukia, what are you doing up here?"
"Oh, I just thought I would check up on Ichigo. He seemed down yesterday Mr Kurosaki."
The now-named, dark-haired gentleman nodded and patted Rukia on her shoulder as he passed her by. "You're a good friend Rukia."
As soon as the man had left their range of hearing Tanya grabbed Rukia by her shoulders and shook her. "Who was that to Ichigo?"
Looking confused by Tanya's reaction, the raven-haired girl said, "His father?"
This caused Tanya to let go of her and step back a few paces. The situation had just spiraled out of control again because she recognized the man herself as the dead captain of the 10th division Isshin Shiba. Looking over at the former Captain having some sort of heart-to-heart with his son, Tanya swallowed hard while trying to figure out if she should tell Rukia or keep it to herself. Ultimately considering that he seemed to have lost his powers and didn't see her she decided the best option was to keep this bit of information to herself. Having a son of a rogue soul reaper mixed in with the propaganda she had been working on would not be helpful and it would be best to pretend she did not see this and keep this to herself.
Taking a deep breath she was glad that the divisions tended to be rather insulated from each other, because if Rukia had known about the former captain there was a good chance this could get out. Shaking her head she just said, "let us discuss what I'm going to be telling your captain about this situation."
Writers Note: and theory we go… an adaptation of grand fisher fight, when i was writing, i had watching both anime adaptation of the fight and read the manga, because i wanted to get right. I didn't want to take away from it, but only add, did i do a good job i don't know… all i know this is the last prepreares chapter. Next time it will be new chapter, writtend this last weekend at 9000 words. Will good i don't know, but it written and will see how it goses.
Edited by: Lord Feunoyr, 1Coltsguy
Community edited by:
Community editable doc (Chapter 28) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
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Reviews
kenshin35: will do!
e10620ac: now is good
Mernom: what she not going to train him... legally speaking...
setokayba2n: doubt... there harum protag hard headed, and there there Ichigo shear fucking determination of har headed.
Chronolocked: yes...
AnimeA55Kicker: that slander...