Chapter 29
There are few things more terrifying than the realization that the last 24 hours have completely upset your understanding of the world and the situation you are in.
Rukia, the substitute soul reaper, and Grand Fisher were all terrifying events on their own but completely within a controllable situation. Tanya needed to work a little bit of political magic to come up with a defense case for Rukia, the substitute Soul Reaper needed to prove his mettle enough to actually beg the Soul Society not to come down hard on him, and most importantly Grand Fisher was dead. Nothing much else to say other than he deserved that from what she knew and it was good to have him gone though the implications that he may have been working with other hollows on something was a bit concerning.
But the fact that the former captain of the 10th division was not dead and apparently living his life in the World of the Living with kids was not good. At the time Tanya thought she was mentally tired and just filed this under "well I mean he's got no powers or abilities so maybe it's just a random reincarnation", but the times don't match up perfectly for being the father of Ichigo nor does it match up perfectly for actually being born in time to have a kid.
This whole situation gave her a headache that probably would not go away until either this situation ended with everyone okay or it exploded in some terrible noble attempt to punish the shinigami.
That being said, she had to focus on getting herself somewhere to sleep tonight. She'd signed up for a week in the World of the Living which means she needed to rely on herself. Thankfully being a spirit meant you were basically dead and no one can see where you went. So she found a phone book and looked through it, looking for a hotel, preferably one that looked on the upper end of places. Once she established one that was in the area that would most likely have rooms she simply walked in the direction of Naruki City and found the hotel.
From there it was simply navigating her way up the building til she found the rooms and then finding a room that appeared to be empty. Well if she was a living person she would feel completely guilty about robbing the hotel of a room for a night and causing the staff to have to deal with cleaning a room that according to their own records should have been cleaned and not slept in. But she was aware that this was actually a common practice and reapers did this often because it was mainly considered a form of payment for their services; they clean up the hollows and then get to sleep in the hotels that the living maintained. Sure they didn't know they were doing that but the reapers couldn't exactly tell them either. It was a method of pay that worked.
Of course the moment she laid down in bed to relax and get herself ready for a night's sleep she felt the presence of a hollow outside as well as the screaming of someone being hunted. Grumpily she rose out of the bed, pulled on her boots, and stepped out onto the porch. Peering her head over the balcony she looked down into the street.
Down below there appeared to be a spirit running from what appeared to be a grizzly bear. Standard degeneration into an animal form by the looks of it. Jumping over the banister she landed a small distance behind the creature, drawing her sword in a swift motion. Carefully she flash stepped behind the creature and slashed up its spine causing it to spasm as it reacted to the pain.
The creature started to turn and she just drove her sword through its neck ending its life as quickly as possible. The beast tumbled forward, its head barely holding on, and there she finished the job of decapitating it. She was happy this had not been a tough beast and this was over as quickly as possible. Now she could get back upstairs and go to sleep.
"Oh thank you, thank you that thing was going to-" the unlucky spirit that was being chased by the thing was attempting to thank me. He was a 70 something in a business suit that probably had died in his sleep and, Tanya guessed, from overwork.
Well she didn't have time for this so she simply turned to them and said, "On your knees."
"What?" he said looking confused.
Smiling, she said, "I need to check you over to make sure there's no injuries and I'm shorter than you."
"Oh, okay." He definitely was confused at this point but she didn't need him to know exactly what was going on. As soon as he was on his knees she tapped his forehead with the bottom of her sword and sent him on his way.
Shaking her head she started to head back into the hotel but felt another hollow a couple blocks away.
"The hell?" Tasha whispered over her shoulder, seeming just as confused as Tanya was.
"That's not normal," she responded. Two hollows this close to each other was not something you usually saw in the World of the Living, not unless there was something drawing them there. The only thing that drove hollows to an area was something of high spiritual pressure or something mimicking high spiritual pressure.
Technically the kid might be responsible, but it was unlikely. Even if he was a lightning rod for hollows he tended to only draw stronger ones who knew what kind of threat they would be dealing with. Creatures like what she had just slain were on the lower end of hollows.
There was something up with this town, something she was unaware of that was giving her a bad feeling. Being denied need-to-know information did that. Whatever this information was probably was not related to her issues with Rukia and the kid but it would probably cause some sort of problem if left to fester. Shaking her head, she let out a sigh and started running towards this next hollow hoping to make that kill as quick as possible. She needed sleep and if she was going to have some sort of understanding of what's going on she was going to have to talk to Rukia and the kid to try and figure out what they know.
.
Sighing, Ichigo cracked open the can of soft drink as he stepped onto the roof of the school trying to get a moment to himself away from the others for a second.
First period classes had ended so they had a bit of a break and he wanted to try and think about what had happened the night before. The idea that he had put Rukia's life at risk was screwing with him a bit as it was something he had not wanted to ever do.
All he had been doing since he'd gotten these powers was fighting hollows and trying to keep the world safe for his friends and family. He hadn't really thought much about the Soul Society or how they might look at this whole situation. He kind of just assumed substitute soul reapers were normal.
Finding out they weren't was a shock. Hell finding out Rukia was a noble was a bit of a shock as well. He just assumed she was some regular soul reaper and there was nothing special about her except maybe being bad at her job.
But he guessed there are things he didn't know, and probably should do more to find out what was going on.
Letting out the deep sigh of annoyance he stepped closer to the fence and looked down onto the courtyard below. Taking a sip he tried to think about what this all meant.
Somehow he needed to increase his skills so that the Soul Society didn't decide to just do something drastic to Rukia or himself. How was he going to do that, he wasn't sure. Normally he just usually just threw his head at a problem until it resolved itself so that would work given enough time. According to Rukia's friend he only had 2 months though which was a bit concerning. Even if he threw his head at every hollow that appeared from now until then, he doubted that it would improve his skills too greatly. All of those were monsters, they weren't sword-wielding soul reapers and he would need someone to train against. If only Rukia's powers had come back. Then she could help him… Maybe, maybe Hat and Clogs could help in some way? Rukia somehow knew him and as the situation stood he knew he was related to a lot of the gear she was using and had given him over the last month or so. Ever since he turned up during the whole mod soul issue with Kon there wasn't really any way for him to say he was not somehow involved.
Maybe when school was out he would walk by there to see if he could point him in the right direction on how to deal with this issue…
Shaking his head he looked over and watched as a few students came out onto the roof through one of the door entrances. He had a lot to think about and a lot of questions for Rukia so that's mainly who he was waiting for at this point. And how was he supposed to get any school work done when the entire world seems to be flipped upside down every week or two.
His thoughts were interrupted as he felt a presence pop up behind him which was odd considering his back was facing a sheer drop. Stepping forward away from the fence he turned to look back in confusion before his eyes settled on the soul reaper from the day before standing on top of the fence looking down at him with a glare that almost seemed to be judging him.
He swore the girl had a resting face that made her look like she was judging if you were worthy of living or not. Blinking, he began to speak but she cut him off.
"Last night I attempted to get some sleep in the town next to this one. Instead I spent 3 hours hunting hollows that kept popping up on my radar. Now granted I know I have a bit of a higher standard than the soul reapers that usually patrol the city. After all, if you don't have a high standard what is the point of hunting these creatures, but that's abnormal. Unusually so in my opinion."
"Sorry," he said with a shrug and she shook her head before dropping to the ground in front of him. "I mean last night I was pretty beat up and Rukia's phone didn't pick up any hollows."
"It's possible that something else is hunting them in this area," she said matter of factly shaking her head, "while it's also possible that whatever is drawing the hollows is in the city next door which could explain why you're not getting any of these massive attacks though," she said, holding her chin in thought before shaking her head. "Any way you look at it the creatures seem unusually active in this area, even for having someone of strong spiritual pressure in the region."
"A huh and what does that mean for me?" he said, trying to understand what her point was.
"Possibly nothing, possibly everything. Something is definitely upsetting the balance of spiritual pressure in the region and I just want to know when this issue started. Going by the reports I was given there was a massive influx of hollows at about the same time you gained your abilities. That shouldn't be leading to an influx of hollows though. Even if you became a reaper it should only have sparked the interest of some of the more noteworthy creatures. Instead it's like something is funneling the creatures here."
Before he could ask what she meant, Rukia came out on the roof and looked in our general direction, her eyes going a little bit wide as she saw Tanya there. Clearing her throat she stepped into there direction before saying, "Third seat, what do we owe the pleasure?"
Tanya looked at her before shaking her head saying, "The inevitable realities of monster hunting, if you have to deal with a ton of monsters you're going to come around asking the people nearby why that is. That being said, Rukia, do you mind telling me if you've been inflating the numbers of hollows that have been attacking you in the region?"
Rukia shook her head, "No, that's what we've been fighting. It's been a rather tumultuous time recently, and we've just been managing with every hollow that has popped up so far."
Tanya shook her head before continuing, "Wonderful. That means that there's a large number of hollows gathering in this area and no one seems to know why. Perfect, the universe is just as it should be."
"There's been an uptick in hollows right? I mean I wouldn't know as I only just started hunting them recently, but if this is an uptick doesn't that usually mean something is causing it?" he asked, trying to get an understanding of the situation.
Tanya looked to me and smiled. For some reason I felt more threatened than reassured by it. "You're asking the right questions, substitute. Yes, if something is drawing them here it would be in our favor to find out what it is as if we can solve this issue it can benefit us in many ways. A good night's sleep too would look good when you have to go before the Soul Society to explain why Rukia should not be charged for crimes against the Spirit World."
"Tanya I still think you're being a little too harsh on this whole thing. I think they'll be more enraged by the fact that I spent too long in the Human World and that's just going to-"
"Rukia you're a noble and a soul reaper. You're on the top block of people other nobles want to screw with just to have their position firmed up,"she said.
Rukia just shook her head. "Tanya, I think you're a little bit paranoid."
"I've been told that before, and to be fair it might be a little bit true, but I have reasons to be paranoid. I've seen what happens when you're not. There's nothing wrong with sharing a little paranoia amongst friends since it just makes you prepared for the worst."
Rukia let out a sigh while Ichigo just shrugged and leaned against the fence.
"Okay, let's say you're right that Rukia should be worried about trying to negotiate the situation. Then what do you recommend I do to become skilled enough to prove my worth to the leadership of the Soul Society?" he finished, sipping on the soft drink.
"Well you have my book, that's a good start and you've already figured out your initial release form so that's a plus. Though you should learn to better control it and figure out why you haven't unleashed any of the special abilities of the initial release form."
"My what?" he asked, looking at the blonde girl who seemed to stop in thought at his comment.
"Your Dragon Slayer, the big sword." She looked at him confused and he looked at her confused but he had a feeling they were looking at each other confused for different reasons.
"Did you just reference Berserk?'' he asked, tilting his head a bit. He was 98% sure that the girl who had denied being a military otaku somehow knew an unusually pinpointed detail from anime and manga culture.
"No, you're imagining things," Tanya said, waving it off before focusing on his statements. "Your sword. That's your initial release right?" She looked to Rukia who was trying to puzzle out what Ichigo's comment was about by the looks of it.
"No, that's just how his sword appeared when he first got his powers. That's his sealed form."
The blonde girl's eyebrows raised rather noticeably at that before she said, "His sealed form is a massive sword? I fear to see what his initial release will be like. Okay, well if you haven't figured out your initial release I probably shouldn't help you with that."
"Why not? If this initial release is supposed to make me more skilled or stronger, shouldn't I be striving for that for the best chance of reaching that point?"
Tanya shook her head before stopping and nodding her head defeatedly. "If you were a normal soul reaper, yes. What I would say is to focus, though that takes a couple years of practice unless your sword is waiting with baited breath for you to try and reach for it. So if your sword is that big I would expect you to have quite a lot of spiritual pressure at your disposal. Why have you not been training him in kido spells?"
"Well it's the same reason I don't think we should be teaching him his initial release. He was only ever supposed to be a substitute reaper. If he knows more than just whacking them with a sword it could be an issue with the Soul Society."
Tanya nodded. "Point taken, but in this instance you should look into getting him some basic training with magecraft. With the amount of spiritual pressure he's got at his access he could do a lot of damage before even making contact with the enemy which could save a lot more lives. Heck even if you take a moment to just try and get him trained up on how to heal himself with spiritual pressure that would do him a lot better in a combat situation."
Rukia shook her head before saying, "I don't know about that. I mean I guess we could try and teach him a few kidos but he's more of a hands-on kind of guy."
Tanya sighed before saying, "Fine. After school, whenever you do your training, I'll stop by if there's no hollows in Naruki City and give you a few pointers in the right direction. With that amount of spiritual pressure it's wasted just to funnel it into the blade."
"Woah, woah, I thought you were going home and you wanted nothing to do with this. That's the impression you were giving last night." Ichigo asked.
"Correct," Tanya said. "I want nothing to do with this but I've already inserted myself to some degree. So long as you are willing to keep quiet I'll give you some general pointers in the right direction, nothing that would get me in trouble."
"Okay," He said, not understanding this girl at all before she turned to Rukia.
"By the way, your contact, the one who's been giving you equipment, who is it? I need to have a meeting with them at some point to see if they can tell me any information on the goings-on of this hollow growth situation."
"Well that's Kisuke Urahara, he runs a candy shop down the way. I can give you his address," Rukia said, reaching into her bag and quickly pulling out a piece of paper, writing down a number and street before handing it to Tanya who looked it over.
"Strange. Why does this contact not only have equipment but is keeping all this mayhem to themselves?"
Rukia shrugged before saying, "I don't know. All I know about him is he's tried to help me ever since this whole mess started out."
"A Good Samaritan that's playing some long game? I'll be the judge I guess," she said, stuffing the paper into her pocket before nodding to us. "Later you two." And with that she kicked off the roof and seemed to fly back a few feet before falling to the ground below out of sight, as if flight was the most normal thing in the world for her.
Looking to Rukia he asked, "Is… is she always this intense and focused?"
She sighed and said, "Third seat Tanya is a battle monster trapped in the form of a short woman. She's always this intense and focused on her goals. As much as I want to try and wave off the idea that we might be in trouble, if she's in our corner I kind of feel better about the whole situation."
"Well at least that's good I guess," was his only reply.
Summer was a fine time of year, very relaxing. Kisuke Urahara just wished he was able to relax as well as he had been for the last 100 years. But the current situation was interrupting his daily routine.
Fanning himself as he leaned on his side watching the TV he wondered if he perhaps made a mistake with the operation to destroy the Hogyoku. The plan was working for all intents and purposes, but it just seemed like ever since he'd snuck away the Hogyoku inside Rukia's gigai the hollow activity has been growing.
Of course it could be that some other forces were on the move, but that would be a little bit paranoid. It wasn't like… yeah someone's forces were probably on the move, but it would be soon too late. Give it two more months and Rukia would be human and untraceable by the Soul Society and once that happens the Hogyoku would be good as gone as far as the world was concerned, unable to be traced as well.
What Rukia would do with that newfound life was all up to her though he probably would be forced to help make sure she gets an actual home instead of wherever she's been staying this last month and a half or so.
If he didn't at least do that he would have to answer to a rather angry cat.
Reaching for a chip he munched down on it as some Sentai series came on the TV. While there were many things that really needed to be implemented in the Soul Society he doubted this was done. Everyone over there was a little bit stuffy on new technology unless it came from the science division itself. Something told him the science division was more preoccupied with experiments instead of making people's lives better in the Soul Society. After all, if their lives were improved in the Soul Society why would they let themselves get killed to go back to Earth?
His dark thoughts about the cycle of reincarnation were interrupted as a soul reaper dropped down from the sky in front of his store. Looked like she had jumped in from the street which was on the other side of the building. Well considering she had managed to land facing the entrance showed a good control over her directional landing parameters.
The blonde haired blue-eyed teenage girl walked into his shop looking around with an evaluating eye, seeming to take in everything and determine it's worth with a moment's glance. When dealing with soul reapers it's always important to take notice of the differences in their style. It gives you a sense of who they are. What he was getting was an authoritarian. She wore a pair of heavy boots instead of the traditional sandals. They can leave rather loud clacking noises on the wooden floor. On her left breast was a silver medallion of some kind of a pair of wings. And sitting on top of her head, securing parts of her blonde hair was a hat that looked more at home with a soldier than a reaper. Most important thing though he noticed was her sword. Zanpakutos take many shapes and the silver European style handguard and metal sheath indicated a European descent in the weaponry. If he had to take a guess he'd say second division which was concerning on all fronts. Having a soul reaper from the second division poke around right now is not what he needed.
Folding the fan and sitting up he said with good cheer, "Good morning! Welcome to my humble candy shop. What can I do for you Miss?"
The girl looked over at him and said, "Tanya Degurechaff, Third Seat of the 10th division. As for what I'm doing here that's quite simple, you being a local agent I figure you'll have more information on the goings-on of hollow activity in this area. Frankly, last night I killed two or three of the things just wandering through Naruki City and that seems abnormally large in my opinion."
"Curious," he said, folding his arms and clicking the fan open and closed a couple times. "Well I don't know why there would be a larger increase of hollows right now, the area is rather quiet most times of the year. Maybe we're just getting a little bit of a flood from some other zone," he said, trying to come up with some theory that might be acceptable for this girl. Something was off and he could feel it now. Why was the third seat in the World of the Living? Seated officers don't usually make trips like that. Was Aizen on the move? Had he gotten his grip into the 10th division? He needed some kind of contact over in the Soul Society to find out what was going on, but he didn't have any contact there anymore. That was the problem. They had all either been rooted out or gone into hiding thanks to Aizen.
The girl shook her head and said, "Even if they were flooding in from some other zone there would be some sort of reason why they would be targeting this set of towns."
'Probably because they sense the Hogyoku,' he thought, not that he could tell her that. Outwardly he shook his head and said, "It's probably just some sort of event going on in Hueco Mundo that we can't determine drawing things to this region. Give it a month or two and it'll go away."
"That's too lax of a stance," the girl stated as she fixed me with a look that might have put the fear of God into him if he didn't happen to be unafraid of Soul King.
Shrugging again he simply said, "Well you have two choices, worry about this while you kill all those hollows until your eventual time's up in, let me guess 6 days, or don't as it's really up to you."
The girl nodded. "Yes I'm here for six days so I might schedule another run through this city. I keep running into crazy things like I have in the last 24 hours. If this was just some sort of random event I would be fine with it but the fact that so-called intelligent hollows like Grand Fisher are also entering the area makes me believe there's something more to this whole situation not to mention his comments."
"Grand Fisher," he said, raising an eyebrow. Rukia had come by this morning claiming that they had killed Grand Fisher last night and that would imply that either this girl had run into Grand Fisher before that event or, his suspicions that this girl possibly was an agent of Sosuke Aizen grew. Might need to make her disappear before she inserted herself into his attempts to remove the Hogyoku. At the very least he would need to keep an eye on her for the next 6 days to make sure she doesn't get too close to it and to Rukia.
"Well Grand Fisher is not exactly known for not taking advantage of opportunities. He could have seen the abnormally large amount of hollows in the area and decided to join in. After all, what better way to disappear than to disappear in the crowd."
"Point taken," the girl said, nodding her head. Finally she let out a deep breath and said, "Well anyways if you don't think there's anything abnormal going on here I guess I won't rush to any conclusions just yet. I have too many things on my plate, you are the local asset after all." She started to turn away before stopping and turning back. "Rukia has some sort of cellular phone that has the ability to tell her when a hollow is in the area. Any chance I could get one of those devices? It would make my job easier if I could hunt down as many as possible during the day so I could get a good night's sleep."
"Oh sure." He reached into a drawer and pulled out one of the phones, then tossed it to her. She caught it in the air like a pro. "On the house. People with good work ethic are what we need during a hollow flood like this."
"Nonsense," she said, slipping the phone into her pocket. "I will not take something for free, how much is it worth?"
"Oh about 1000 Kan. If you're that concerned about it you don't have to worry about paying me right away. The phone keeps track of all your kills and I can subtract the money from there if you want."
"Perfect," she said before trying to step away and heading for the door out of his shop.
"You know if you don't mind giving up a little bit more of your prize money for your kills I can arrange for a gigai to be made for you. Would be easier getting around town I'm sure."
The girl stopped thinking for a moment before saying, "I will take that into consideration but for now I'm fine. Goodbye Mr. Urahara."
"Later missy," he said, putting his fan down as he watched her leave. He'd probably start the creation of a gigai for her designed very similar to Rukia. Dropping her reiryoku enough in her human form he could at least get a lot of information out of her if she was a spy of Aizen and if not he'd say that was just a mistake or some other bullshit.
Of course he would only take that step if he determined she was a direct threat. At the moment now she was just a possible threat and he would make his decision after a few more days. Too bad his cat wasn't here. He could use her help keeping an eye on this Tanya.
Standing in the middle of a field, Tanya looked out at the buildings of Karakura Town wondering how much she could push this before she got herself in trouble.
Not that she wanted to get herself in trouble or that she wanted to push this too far but establishing those kinds of limits could help her maintain her status as a free soul. Which is very important to her and, she believed, Visha. So far she'd come to the conclusion that helping directly in his training would be a terrible option and helping him gain the ability to call upon his initial release even worse, but that was only if she did it directly.
Indirect help was still quite on the board, after all if there was no direct evidence that she was formally training him then she was still in the clear. And after all, if he could prove himself worthy of the admiration of several captains he might be able to save Rukia a lot of trouble so getting him up to speed was necessary.
Giving him her book hopefully would help a lot in that matter though that would depend on if he was a bit more than just the punk he appeared to be and actually read the text he was given. If not, well he could be in for a bit of a show when he finally showed up.
The show had to do with her other method of training him. Well officially she was not training him but engaging in combat against the unknown targets until they quote unquote ran away. At least that's what her report would say to the captain of the 10th. She had to come up with some sort of cover story and that would work well enough. Simply say they had moved themself on the boundaries of her search area and had simply followed orders and stayed within Naruki City.
As for the captain of the 13th she would probably tell them enough details on the whole situation to let them figure out what had happened on their own. Judging by their worry about Rukia she would think they would at least be interested in helping Rukia by helping with the cover up and improvement of this kid's abilities.
Finally the only other person she could think of who she should probably get some information to is the captain of the 6th. However, she had no real connections to the 6th that could talk to Renji easily enough though. She'll see if she cannot get him to probe on the situation on how the captain of the 6th would handle this situation, or at least arrange a meeting between her and him so she can have a conversation on it. She wasn't very familiar with the 6th. The most she knew was that the former lieutenant of the 6th had been in that position for a long time and that was only because Grantz had gotten her to go to the sunglasses shop he owned. That reminded her that today was a sunny day. Fishing into her inner shirt pocket she pulled out a pair of aviators and put them on. Ah how she had missed summer in Japan though she thought she spent too much time in the office even before her death as she had never been a fan of the sun in the potential damage you could do to your eyes.
Taking in a breath she cracked her neck and wondered where the hollows were. Last night shg'd been hunting hollows all over the place in Naruki City and here in Karakura Town the hollows were higher but not as high outside the city. Could it actually be something in Naruki City drawing them in? She needed to get on a bus and go to maybe some of the towns around here and see what the results were but she couldn't exactly leave her post. Karakura Town was just across the way so she could sneak across, back and forth easily enough without issue trying to find out if it was the city or town that was drawing them in. It would be a little bit harder, she would guess, to sneak across the border in the other direction for the city.
That would be something to look into tomorrow. Right now she needed to get herself focused to deal with the substitute punk.
And as if her thoughts of them summoned them into existence she looked over towards the street and saw him and Rukia already making their way in her direction. Rukia was fitted with some sort of glove on her hand as she and Ichigo came in her direction. Shaking her head with whatever the comments they were sharing.
"Good afternoon Kurosaki," she calmly called as they got within hearing range.
"Same to you Degurechaff," Ichigo said as Rukia smacked the back of his head with the glove causing him to stumble out of his body. Said body toppled to the ground in front of us rather unceremoniously.
"Thought you had one of those artificial souls to prevent that."
The punk let out a deep and frustrated sigh before saying, "I do but it's at home and I can't really wander around carrying a stuffed animal all day."
"A fair point," she said not to him before drawing her sword. "Give me a bit of a flourish. Draw your sword young Kurosaki."
Ichigo reached behind his back, grabbed his blade, and pulled it free, swinging it freely to the side as if the blade weighed nothing in his hand. "Real excited to not train me, I see."
"Exactly. I'm not training you, I've just stumbled across some unknown soul reaper on my territory killing hollows and I decided to test their mettle with a little spar," she responded matter of factly. "Rukia will back me up on that, correct?" she said, giving her a bit of glare that she hoped penetrated the sunglasses that still sat on her nose.
Rukia nodded her head in understanding before saying, "That's exactly what I saw. There was no conversation between you two ever before."
Tanya smiled at that. "Hopefully this cover story won't be needed but the more we get an understanding of what the cover story is the better it'll be for my efforts to get you two off the fish hooks coming for you."
"Got it," he said, flexing his wrist with his sword before bringing the sword into a two-handed position with the blade in front of him showing he had some sort of kendo practice in his past.
Holding the saber before her she waited watching his form carefully trying to evaluate how he would react as she took a side step. He mostly kept his main position standing exactly where he was just moving his blade to track her a bit. Not great, but not terrible. Being rooted to the ground could be useful, but could also get you murdered quite easily. But that was just a starting test. The real fight begins now.
She took a step then flashed up right in front of him, her blade reaching just passed his in order to get a response. Said response was to back up and bounce his swords upwards knocking her blade up.
This left them open for a counter attack. Her free hand quickly unleashed a Shō spell, a punch directly into his guts.
She heard the familiar sound of air leaving a person's lungs as she took a step back or two.
"Not terrible," she said. "If a person were to do exactly that you'd probably survive the first hit though you left yourself open to a ranged spell."
"Yeah I saw that," he said, coughing a bit to get his breath back. "All right, first one goes to you. How about I give that a try?"
"Go ahead," she said, taking a few more steps back while covertly activating her sensor spells. She wasn't just wearing the sunglasses because it was a sunny day. It gave her a good way to hide the eye glow which would allow her quite a bit of flexibility in her defense.
Holding the sword in her right hand she stood with her left behind her back. "I'll make it easier on you. One hand behind my back. You won't hit me."
"Sure," he said, bringing his sword to bear before charging. The first swing came from up left which she simply deflected and took a step back followed by another swipe from an underhand position. This one was a little harder to deflect so she simply just stepped further back since giving ground was not a problem in this situation. He seemed rather annoyed by her ability to avoid his hits so he came at her again and again swiping with his blade though fruitlessly as it was rather slow because when you had sensor spells activated you could tell whether it was going to come from.
After a couple minutes he finally stopped, looking at her face rather intently. "Why are your eyes glowing?" She had to admit she smiled at that. Even though he'd been coming at her pretty hard he'd been observing her close enough to watch for any oddities. Taking her left hand she reached up and pulled off her sunglasses sliding them into her pocket.
"A sensor kido allows me to detect spiritual pressure and at a higher rate than normal, giving me almost a warning of where you're going to strike before you strike."
"You're using your sense of spiritual pressure to find out where the blade is going to hit before it hits? Huh. Didn't know you could do that."
"Well now you know something you should keep in mind. Every seated officer is going to have some kind of trick like this, some little way that they've distinguished themselves in one way or another in order to get their position. I have done it through spiritual pressure manipulation prowess; others have chosen other methods but they all fall back to the blade in some way or another," she said as she pulled up her sword. "Understanding your opponents intentions with their blade will do more for your survival than anything else."
"Right…" hmm, he seemed to take a moment to think, putting the blade over his shoulder as he took a step back before saying, "give me a moment here." She raised an eyebrow at that but gave him that moment. Closing his eyes, it looked like he was concentrating. Why she wasn't really sure before he finally opened them and said, "All right come at me."
Her eyebrow was still pretty highly raised but she shrugged taking a step and then flashed after behind him ready to stab him in the back for being a bit too assured of his abilities only for her blade to meet the flat of his as if it had been a shield waiting.
His blade had been over his shoulder a moment ago but it seemed that he raised the blade at the last moment bringing it into the exact position to defend his back where she was aiming. Had he sensed the spiritual pressure of her sword's movement? But that would mean he'd already figured out something close to a sensor spell. Someone couldn't figure that out in the time he had between learning how to use it and right now… Her eyes flashed up to his side of his head which was turned in such a way that half of it faced her. His lip was upturned in a half smile showing that at the very least this was part of his plan.
That left only one possible answer and it was that he'd somehow learned to sense the spiritual pressure of the attack even though he couldn't see where it was coming from til nearly the last moment. There was impressive and then there was bullshit and that was impressive bullshit.
But she was not going to let a fluke throw her off. Immediately she freed her left hand and cast a blank spell to punch directly at his back as she jumped back away from him. Got a good view of him lifting the sword just enough to block the attack so he was still sent tumbling forward a bit.
Though he got himself turned around real quick, shaking her head she asked, "Quick learner or was that pure luck?"
He smiled and said, "Little bit of both." Tilting her head back Tanya said, "Well I guess we'll begin the next lesson plan." She snapped her fingers and a piece of paper that she inscribed an explosive spell on but happened to be very just under his foot lit off. He was sent into the air as the foot explosive spell was designed for more training purposes than actual killing but it served its job well.
"Battlefield control is an important aspect in every conflict, never let your enemy choose the place of a fight because they're bound to have some nasty tricks or traps waiting around if they have that opportunity," Tanya said as she pointed her sword in his general direction, preparing a blank spell to launch at him.
"Well I did not expect you to do that." Ichigo stopped his grumbling as he looked up at Tanya sensing what was coming before she unleashed it. He barely managed to dodge the other way as the spell hit the ground where he'd been exploding into the shower of dirt.
"What the hell? You trying to kill me?" he asked, pulling himself into a standing position using his sword before swinging around to guard against any other attacks.
"What no, no I'm not trying to kill you, if I was trying to do that you'd be dead. I'm just throwing everything at you that you could probably survive. One of the key ways to develop spiritual power in your combat instincts is nearly dying. If I had access to artillery and you had a shovel I'd have you digging down into the ground to make a foxhole as artillery rained down all around you. Most of them would be duds though a few would be real rounds just to make the point."
"You're nuts," he said looking at her with some sort of ill content.
"I'm prepared for the worst. I understand what you're going to be facing so I'm just sending a smidgen of the power at you that you may face. If you're not willing to fight what might come your way you can always go with plan b; beg for mercy like I suggested or go into hiding which is plan c."
He seemed angry as he drew his blade up to eye level. "Send your worst at me, Miss officer. I'll take it all on."
"All right, but," Tanya said with a shrug before exploding two traps right behind him tumbling them forward, She flashed up to try and getting range to put the blade to his neck make a point but he was able to counter it fine enough, blocking the attack with his hand which had to hurt but then again this wasn't his real body so the damage he took in this state would not be permanent as long as you didn't die. She tried to step back but he held on tight and attempted to bring down his heavy blade with free right hand. This move caused her to bring up her left hand and stop it with a shield spell. Considering he had broken through one of those before she had put a little bit more strength in this one with a second shield underneath. It seemed to have worked as it held off the blade or simply the fact it was a one-handed strike made sure that it didn't work. Either one didn't matter as it was impressive he'd managed to catch her like this.
She was going to start to say something about this being not a bad exchange except then he head butted her in the face. She stumbled back, feeling a little bit of blood falling from her nose. Somewhere along the line he'd let go of her sword either intentionally or unintentionally as headbutting someone doesn't exactly give you control of the situation it simply diffuses it for both parties.
Holding two of her fingers to her nose she applied a healing kido trying to quickly heal it up so she wasn't profusely bleeding. As she looked over at him he was shaking the hell out of himself as well bringing his sword to face me again.
"That," she said, "is a good trick. You would be surprised by how many soul reapers are only ever thinking about how to use their sword."
"Well thank you," he said as he finished shaking his head and pointed the sword at her again. She had to admit she had hoped to scare him off. Option a seemed to be picking up combat rather quickly and she wonder if he was some sort of reincarnated warrior from another generation or something since as far as herresearch was concerned she didn't see any possibility of that not being a thing. Yes memories were lost, but were instincts? She don't know.
But with how quickly he was learning was there a chance that he could actually pull this off. Yesterday I thought maybe, but today as long as you didn't piss off any of the major captains right away he could technically pull this off. Surviving the initial attack would be the main factor. The more bullshit he could survive the faster he could learn to counter and so this might be the way to treat this whole teaching job.
Looks like her plan to just throw everything at him until he either surrendered or left was really the best plan of all considering she could always claim that she was trying to get him to turn himself in and if the wrong people start asking questions this would work well for a cover story.
Smiling, she held her sword on guard and said, "Shall we continue?" She could go for another hour and a half.
"Sounds like fun," Ichigo said, readying his next attack.
That kid is going to get himself killed. He is the perfect mix of clever battlefield instincts and absolute stupidity when it comes to making sure you survive. Also known as stubborn.
At least that's what the hand that dealt with this stupidity was telling Tanya and that she was somewhat amazed by his ability to quickly understand and counter his enemies moves. She was somewhat impressed.
"AKA I'm impressed," Tasha said over her shoulder as she walked through this town back towards the city where she stayed. She was looking for a new hotel tonight. It probably was a little bit too far away from the one she stayed in the night before.
"Yes, you're impressed with this psycho that is going to get himself killed," Tanya said, "He's a true battle maniac who would do well with division 11 and really should not be learning all the skills that I showed it to him. I'm worried that this is why we're supposed to stay far away from the people of the World of the Living because it's so easy for them to learn the techniques we have."
"Almost," Tasha said, "but of course that's not what's going on."
"Oh and what's going on?" she asked, looking at overhead lights waiting for it to turn to a walking signal.
"Kid takes after his father and is talented if I had to guess. And he does well with your style of training which means that the more you beat him up the more he learns. That's a terrifying combination."
Tanya nodded as that was something she'd already come to understand. If a person can survive getting beaten up long enough they can figure out how to counter your moves. He was very good about figuring that sort of stuff out. You could start dropping explosive rounds from above and he would figure out how to counter them. Granted that countering was to run away but it's not like I was expecting him to learn how to cast a shield spell and it's better than his first attempt which attempted to knock the rounds away with his sword as a baseball bat.
"Man was that hilarious! I wanted to just stare at his face when he tried that! Looney Tunes would be proud about that performance!"
Tanya let out an exhausted sign of agreement before countering. "He'd do well on the 203, just from the amount of explosive spells I threw his way. Still something tells me that his attitude would have had me kick him out."
"Yes, him wanting to learn but also his bit of an asshole attitude. I would say we should probably work on that but something tells me that would be like trying to pound The Great Wall of China to dust with your fingers. You can probably do it but it'll take your descendants to finish the job."
Tanya laughed at that before saying, "Yeah that's a project I think I will not be taking on. Getting him up to speed, maybe he's showing him a few spells through repeated beatings, and reading my book, that's the extent of the training I'm going to give him. Past that he will either sink or swim on his own effort."
"I think he'll swim," Tasha said matter of factly. "I've got a good feeling about him. Rukia and him are going to shake things up."
"I really hope not," Tanya said as the light finally changed and she started to walk across the street. "As much as I don't want them to get killed or my name dragged through the mud I'd like the system to stay somewhat stable with slow conversion, reasonably not shaking."
"Well you better hope he pulls it off then because I have a feeling that our world is going to get crazy when news breaks about the work you did."
She was about to say something like of course I was going to get crazy, after all the nobles would probably end up in a bit of a tizzy if not a civil war about this whole situation, but she was interrupted as a boy in glasses and dark hair bumped into her.
She started to say sorry and then she saw his eyes widen as he said, "You."
"Me," Tanya said, taking in the boy now seeing his uniform was very similar to the one Ichigo wore. How many people with high spiritual pressure were in this town? Is that the reason the hollows were gathering around it or was there something in this town causing both? She had a feeling she'll get a bit of a headache trying to figure that out.
Good old what came first chicken or the egg or were both caused by something else.
"Yes, you. You're that damn soul reaper my cousin is infatuated with." Tanya raised an eyebrow and said, "Infatuated? I've never even met them nor you so why are you accusing me of whatever you're accusing me of?"
He let out an annoyed sigh and said, "Seven years ago. Old man in the woods, two kids."
The dots finally clicked as she said, "Oh you, yes the black haired one. Should have figured you'd be in this town too. Well whatever beef you seem to have with me can it wait till tomorrow? I am tired and need a rest."
"No, I will not wait till tomorrow! I need you to tell my cousin to not get involved in the spiritual world as she's been doing for the last few months!"
Tanya blinked and said, "Excuse me what?"
'I believe I told her not to meddle in spiritual affairs,' she internally said to Tasha.
'Pretty sure you did as well,' she responded.
"She's noticed the uptick of hollows recently and she wants to take grandfather's point of view on our relationship with soul reapers in their own hands and wants to help that idiot orange-haired member of your order because my school is nearby to fight the monsters."
"Okay and how do you expect me to tell her to stop?"
"She idolizes you as a hero. Just go up to her and tell her not to get involved."
Tanya blinked before saying, "Well I had a conversation with her yesterday and I told her something very similar to that, though I guess I will make a note in my schedule to find her again tomorrow and make sure it's made clear. Is that good?"
"Yeah that's good," he said finally, shaking his head and walking away muttering something about damn reapers.
'Well that was unexpected,' Tasha said before Tanya shook her head.
"Yes but really not my concern. I've given as many warnings as I possibly could. Can only help those if they want to help themselves," she responded as she turned to walk away heading further into the city.
Writers Note: first chapter i writtend for this fic since 2021, and i fucked up by writing it in first person… if you got here you can see i did fix that but you find any issues.. Well that the reason it happen. Anyways tanya met the local crew… what could go wrong in the 6 days of her time in the world of the living…?
Edited by: Lord Feunoyr, 1Coltsguy
Community edited by:
Community editable doc (Chapter 29) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
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Reviews
Spica75: well that good !
Templarsith: is it off the rails?
Chronolocked: a big loop
setokayba2n: yeah he pretty dead
MikeX713: some day she will find that out.