Disclaimer: It's amazin', I'm the reason, everybody reviewin' this evening.
Author note: Chapter 2 and we hit a lot of exposition as we explain both what the hell is going on as well as set things in motion for the rest of the story. Don't worry though, the storm will pretty much thin out after this. And for anyone who may be offended by the dark humor that will be prevalent: Too bad!
Natural Blues
Chapter 2 You Know That I Could Use Somebody
by Marik Kurakashi
"So this captain tower of yours," Ichigo decided to break the ice as they ran over the rooftops of Karakura. "Pretty swank place to chill out?"
"You could say that." Rukia said, before sighing. "Unfortunately, we got a higher ratio of idiots than any of the other squads, save maybe 11."
"That bad huh?" Ichigo only really had to deal with Keigo and the occasional punk, he couldn't imagine working intimately with them.
"It's not entirely bad, but they get on my nerves more than I'd like." She replied, tone relaxing. "Fortunately, the other captains are kind of cool, so at least I can hide out and talk to them."
"Sounds like you've found a few perks." He said, smirking just a little.
"A little," she said with a laugh before she turned serious again. "Let me do the talking when we get there, I'm not turning you over to the academy."
"The academy?" He just sort of figured it was all like what happened with him: violent recruitment and trial by fire. Sink or swim, that kind of thing.
"Yeah, I know we don't seem like it," she said, either ignoring his surprise or expecting him to be questioning of her anyways. "But we established an academy to train new Soul Reapers like we had back in Soul Society."
"Makes sense, but why the animosity?" They were all fighting the good fight and all that.
"It's good for making people have the Shinigami mindset - aloof, detached, able to do the job without personal hangups getting in the way." Rukia said with a sigh, coming to stop on a rooftop and indicating they should stop for this. "If you said that you hated Soul Reapers because we have a tendency to act like morons who flaunt our power like it makes us special, I'd agree. Most of the academy's graduates are unfit for Soul Reaper duty specifically because we're not soldiers fighting a constant war on an ever-changing front. We don't need people who go out and die for the cause, we need people to be able to understand and guide the humans. Most of us feel this way, outside of the captain of Squad 11 but he's a self-admitted psychopath with a lust for battle."
"Sounds like it's a complex political situation you're in." Ichigo was mildly sympathetic, if only because he needed to keep her purported insanity pointed at someone else.
"You have no idea kid." She made a grand gesture indicating all the buildings around them. "Fact is, if many of the idiots who made up the academy back home had their way, they'd have vaporized this entire city in an effort to expand the rift so they could just kill the hollows coming out."
"You're kidding." Shinigami just leapt to top of his shit list.
"I wish, but luckily, the Captain Commander fried all of their asses for it." Rukia smiled a bit, the memory of watching those idiots dance about in flames flickering through her mind. "I think what helped us gain the system we have now is Urahara making that proposition of his: make a new Gotei on Earth, with all the lower ranks filling out the positions and such. The way he saw it, we didn't need powerful forces, just enough eyes watching it to kill what comes out. I was chosen, mainly because of family connections, though I had no idea I'd be made captain of a squad, I had barely completed training myself."
"So you got thrown into this thing to," Ichigo said, nodding along. "Kind of like me." Minus the threat of sexual violence naturally.
"Mm, well, to a degree, yeah. We don't have time for the whole story, but I was likely to have my partner here for the last nine years." She affectionately patted the sword, drawing a curious look from Ichigo.
"You say that like it's alive." They were just reishi shaped into a sword, right?
"Well, it is." She didn't react to his shocked expression, only waited for his fit to pass before continuing. "Every zanpakuto usually has a name, unless you got a blank one, but even then, they were made to be blank. If you keep with the programming, I'll let you know her name." She smirked for a brief second. "I can even find out yours later if you want."
"Maybe later," he waved it off, looking away. "If there is a spirit in here, it will tell me its name when its ready."
"That's why I want to train you myself." Rukia laughed at his perplexed looked, taking a moment to gather herself. "Even if you have everything wrong, you at least have the proper mindset for being a Soul Reaper."
"I don't know how I should feel." He did, but he felt like tweaking her a bit. "But thanks anyways."
"Don't mention it." Rukia stepped to the edge of the roof, before stopping to look back at him with a wolfish gleam in her eye. "There will be plenty of other ways I can train you if this job is a bust though."
Ichigo kept his head down even as she hopped to the next roof and let out a full sigh. He was going to be stuck in one of those conflicting feelings kind of situations, he just knew it. He had read enough manga and watched enough anime to know the warning signs in front of him.
/-\ /-\ /-\
The Headquarters for Squad 13 were, as Ichigo said, a pretty swank place to chill out at when you weren't fighting to save everyone. Sure, it looked like something you'd see as a tourist spot in some foreign city, but that didn't detract from the aesthetics of the building. The only really problem was that it was way too big and cast an ominous shadow over the surrounding area and just seemed unfriendly.
"Is there any reason for it to look that creepy?" Ichigo asked, fighting back a shudder at his close proximity.
"It's supposed to be like a scarecrow," Rukia said, shaking her head at the building. "But the problem is, what we're trying to scare doesn't give a fuck and what we're trying to protect just doesn't trust us."
"That pesky Shinigami don't understand humans thing coming up again." He wanted to feel sympathy, but those guys in Soul Society sounded like a bag of dicks.
"Mostly, yeah. I'm waiting to hear back on the budget for renovating the place so it doesn't look so intimidating. In fact, outside of squad 11, we all are." She said even as she opened the doors to the place.
"I heard the squad 11 captain broke his tower a couple years ago." He had chalked it up to more Soul Reaper idiocy, but it sounded like the guy was the only one who felt like saying fuck the rules and do what he wanted.
"Yeah, part of it is because the political wrangling necessary to do it in the first place," Rukia said as she waved away some guards who were understandable perturbed by this unknown vagrant talking to their captain. "The other is because he was bored and decided to see how much of a pounding the building could take."
"It obviously gave out before he did." Ichigo just eyed the people eying him and silently dared them to make a move.
"Make it through your first couple of weeks and I'll introduce you to him." She said as she led him past the onlookers into the building proper. "Just don't run your mouth, as he lives for battles and will cut anyone down if he thinks they'll give him a good fight."
"Sounds like a real head case." Still, he sounded pretty cool, for a Soul Reaper that is.
"Head case or not, he's the strongest captain we got, so we have to indulge his eccentricities if we're to take advantage of that battle mania." She grabbed a form from her receptionist and motioned him to follow her. "My office is back here, I don't like going to the top of the tower just to relax."
"Best place to have it." He peered at the clipboard in her hands and tried to read the paper on it. "So that's basically my membership application?"
"Yes." She said, keeping it close to her body. "With this, you'll be a member of my squad and I can train you all I want without having to battle the other captains for you."
"Am I really that special?" He felt she was trying to flatter him.
"You're a high-grade plus, which means that your reiryoku is greater than your average human or even Soul Reaper. Fact is, your sword materialization shouldn't have happened at all without a lot of outside him." She stopped before her door and turned to look him right in his eyes. "You're incredibly special, to the point that any of the other captains would have gladly taken you if you lived in their districts and they found you."
"My parents always said I was special, but I didn't really believe them." He muttered, before going back to something she said earlier. "You said, 'high-grade plus'. What does that even mean?"
"It's a basic separator for human souls: ones that will only attract a hollow if extremely close. These are normal pluses or if you would, low grade. High grade on the other hand are ones that can attract them for miles and are basically living hollow bait." She turned back around and opened the door, leading him inside and motioned to a chair. "In short, people like you are a nuisance for us when we try and keep things nice and combat zone free. Normally, there are three methods for dealing with such a human, which is recruitment, as you know."
"Obviously, though you said I didn't want to know the alternatives." The chair was comfy, he found. He watched as she seated herself behind her desk and laid the clipboard down.
"At the time, too much explaining could easily backfire into the hollow jumping into your house and tearing shit up." She began filling out parts of the form for him. "But it isn't too much. One is a downgrade process, which is incredibly painful and time consuming. We'd sterilize your scent off the house so your family wouldn't be attacked, but it'd be years before you'd see the light of day again. That's likely the nice option, recruitment being okay."
"You guys don't mess around do you?" He wasn't too shocked, not after other things she had already imparted to him.
"We can't afford to." She made sure she was finished with her part of it before handing it over. "Just sign where indicated. Anyways, the third option is imprisonment, which is pretty extreme but downgrading is in exact and there are those who don't want to join. So we sequester you away where the light of day will never reach you and wait for you to inevitably expire. You pass on to Soul Society and everyone else is safe."
"How many people have actually been imprisoned since you guys started this whole shindig?" He had to know, if only because he didn't want any illusions about this job. He finished signing shortly after he finished his question and pushed the clipboard back at her.
"None, most jump at the chance to fight the hollow, others are protected by Urahara." She checked his signatures and nodded, before opening a drawer and tossing it in there. "Automatic filing drawer, designed by Urahara." She patted the desk in a manor that seemed affectionate.
"He really have that much pull on Earth?" And here he had just thought that guy was just nuts.
"The protection tunnels, the towers, even the chair your sitting in were designed by him." She leaned back in her chair and gestured around the room. "Even Soul Reapers themselves were largely a creation of his, to the point that they're completely different to Shinigami, hence the separate words for them."
"No wonder mom always had a good word for him then." The paycheck she got probably helped a little.
"Enough about him for now," Rukia said, slamming her palm on her desk and a manilla folder ejecting from a hidden slot. "These are you official papers denoting you a part of my squad. Make sure to turn in the form on top for your armband so we can keep you in this squad."
"The sordid perils of a uniform dress code." Ichigo said as he took the folder from the desk. He looked at it for a second as he realized a question he had forgotten to ask. "You seem to be familiar with my dad, beyond the whole ex-Shinigami thing that is."
"Oh that's because I met your father a number of years back due to an incident involving your family." Rukia said, smirking a little at his shocked expression. "You remember how your mom nearly got eaten by a hollow?"
Ichigo only nodded, even as he mentally put it all together.
"That was me who drove it off, I didn't have time to get dressed properly for it, nor did I bring my actual zanpakuto with me." Rukia laughed a bit. "But this is my district and I'm not calling in back-up from other captains even for a hollow like Grand Fisher."
"No wonder Mom didn't want to hear me badmouth you guys." The memory was hazy, on the edge of his memories. Only the feeling of rain on his skin remained clear in his mind, and how much he hated it. "Man, it's already been that long since that day, I hadn't realized."
"You've grown up nicely, Ichigo Kurosaki." Rukia said with a slight smile on her face. "Just make sure you get your armband from the front desk and then she'll send you home. I'll meet you at school in the morning, I got paper work and a little bit of ass kissing to do."
"The big wigs back in Soul Society?" Ichigo said as he stood up and stretched.
"No, just the Captain Commander. Even though he didn't have to, he still accepted my nomination for Captaincy of this squad. I suspect he'll be disappointed I resorted to recruiting you first instead of killing the hollow myself." She laughed again as she imagined the Captain Commander's face for that conversation to come. "But it's okay, I can make him understand."
"I'd hate to think you couldn't." Ichigo said, voice trembling with sarcasm. "I better get going and turn this in, we can resume this conversation tomorrow."
"Goodnight boy." Rukia said as a way to dismiss him.
Ichigo didn't hear the door click shut behind him, only stared at the envelope in his hand as if it held his hopes and dreams inside it.
/-\ /-\ /-\
"So you're the new recruit huh?" The receptionist asked, a nicely put together woman with pink hair. She smiled as she took the form from Ichigo.
"That's me, Ichigo Kurosaki." He maintained a brisk tone and a steeling of his neck. Luckily, she wasn't dressed in a manner that invited staring.
"Here's your armband," she replied, handing the sandal brown object over to him. It even read squad 13 on it, neat. "Just affix it to your arm and it'll always be there whenever in your spirit form."
"Handy little thing isn't it?" He put it on without too much difficulty. "How's it look?"
"You look fine." She said, her tone taking on a certain dreamy quality as she started to color a little. She fully colored when Ichigo's stern look revealed her gaffe. "It's fine! Really!"
"Okay, okay, don't blow a gasket." He sighed, before remembering the next part of his order. "So how do I get home?"
"Luckily for you, since you're a human, you don't have to stay in your spirit form all the time. Isn't that great?" She smiled, biting back a nervous hiccup as he decided to look at the door as if he was going to go back home the long way. "Anyways, it's a lot like waking up from a dream, just focus on your body and will yourself back home. It's something the Captains all came up with for the human members of the Squads."
"Is that right?" He hadn't meant to say that out loud and didn't even flinch at her cheerful nod. "Oh well, I suppose I have a lot of sleep to look forward too."
"Just remember the Captain will be meeting you at your school so you don't want to be late or make her wait."
Ichigo waved his hand in acknowledgment before closing his eyes and rapidly fading from view.
Once he was out of sight, the perky receptionist sighed, realizing that she had blown it with another new recruit.
"And he was just my type too." She lamented, sighing even as she thought of Ichigo and his brilliant hair.
"Who isn't your type?" A random Soul Reaper asked from across the room.
Yeah, she was going to be red the rest of the night.
/-\ /-\ /-\
Morning arrived with little fanfare, and Ichigo found his ascension into being a Soul Reaper didn't really change much of anything. He did note that someone had fixed his window, for which he was grateful since it got cold during the night. Deciding to skip the shop this morning, he decided to sit down for a quick breakfast with his sisters before departing on the straight path to school.
There were perks to no longer being human, such as not having to run around the roundabout tunnels just to go to school. No two ways about it, tacking on an extra couple of minutes to his commute to and from classes was always a bitch and half. But it wasn't like he was supposed to be worrying about his school work anymore.
Just have you gotten yourself into this time, Ichigo Kurosaki?
"Hey Ichigo," Tatsuki said just as Ichigo darted past her and into the schoolyard.
"Oh hey, what's up?" Ichigo asked, even as he hopped over her opening kick aimed at his stomach.
"Nothing," she said, growling in concentration as she pulled back and threw another kick, this one much faster than before.
"So you're attacking me because?" He asked, slipping past the kick and pushing off her shoulder to hasten his escape from her immediate area.
"Because Honsho isn't here." She took a wide stance and raised her left arm defensively. "And you were a part of my shame yesterday. I will clean my honor!"
"You need to watch less anime girl, seriously." Ichigo just put his hands on his hips and shook his head. He ruffled his hair for a second before he too took a fighting stance. "What the hell, I got time to kill."
"Don't think just because you beat up a bunch of shitty gangsters that you can stand on the same battlefield as me." She said, smirking viciously.
"Tatsuki?"
"Yeah?"
"Be less of a nerd please."
"I don't want to hear that from you!"
They had a attracted a small crowd, even a few teachers, by this point. The best female, and overall, fighter and the best male fighter were about to throw down. In a second of stillness, Ichigo and Tatsuki held their poses, before they both shot forward with what could be called peak human speed, exchanging seven punches each in the span of a breath. None of the blows landed, though neither cared about that.
"Not bad, Kurosaki!" Tatsuki said, hopping back and dancing on the balls of her feet. "You've been training!"
"I've been on a couple training arcs since we last fought." Ichigo replied, slipping forward as he kept his eye on her. Tatsuki Arisawa wasn't just a ferocious fighter, she was highly skilled and strong as an ox.
"Let's see the fruits of your labor then!" She said with a roar, ripping forward with a sweeping kick that snapped forward like a whip.
Ichigo jumped over the kick, before lashing out with a kick of his own to prevent her from following up. Pushing off her ensuing, Ichigo threw himself back and landed lightly on his feet, dancing a little to ensure he had his balance again. He came forward swiftly, countering her punch with one of his own, even as slipped and caught her fist.
"Seems we're on the same wavelength." Tatsuki said with a wild grin on her face, revealing that she too had done much the same as Ichigo.
"Just a bit." He said, even as the released their captured hand and stepped into another punch that was summarily blocked in much the same manner.
"My compliments to your teacher then." She said with a laugh even as they traded punches, slipping out of the way if need be.
"Careful, you might get a little too into this and lose." He said, even as he felt the slight pressure coming from Tatsuki. 'So she's tapping into her reiryoku unconsciously, eh? No wonder I always lost.'
"That's hardly a worry when you can't even hit me." Not like she could hit him right now either, but that didn't matter.
"I wouldn't hit you, Inoue would blow a gasket." That was mostly a lie, she was far too nice for that. Still, he kicked out at her legs, forcing her back a few steps.
"Orihime doesn't care, just as long as we don't break any of our bones or die." She retook her stance, rotating her left arm to keep the muscles loose so it didn't seize up mid-fight.
"Speaking of Inoue, isn't that Honsho over by her?" He said, putting his hand to his forehead as if to shield his eyes from the early morning sunlight confirm what he was seeing.
"Why that sneaky bitch!" She whirled around to see Orihime standing off to herself, watching intently with a bright look on her face. She quickly hopped back, ducking under Ichigo's scything kick, that left a big whoosh of displaced air as it flew by.
"You fell for it!" He crowed, hopping forward and spinning forward, using the rotation of his body to propel himself forward into a flying left knee that collided with Tatsuki's guard and sent her flying back.
"That was dirty!" She said with an indignant cry, back-flipping once she was certain that she wouldn't collide with anything.
"Not like we agreed to fight honorably." He said with a shrug, relaxing a little. Internally, he was focusing on his reiryoku, feeling the power deep within his soul begin to stir as probed it slightly. 'Seems like I can use it even as a human. This will be fun.' He smirked and laughed a little to himself.
"It should be understood, you fool." She started to charge forward when an intense wave of pressure stopped her short. 'Bloodlust? No, this is too benign for that, then what is it?' Her head ducked for a second from the intense pressure, taking her eyes from her opponent for that miniscule amount of time.
She looked up to see Ichigo's fist an inch from her face. He was wearing that damn smirk like he had just won and it pissed her off. However, that mysterious feeling that hit her was shaking her composure just a little.
"N-no way." She shook her head as he turned and walked away. "This isn't over!"
"Of course it is, because your next opponent showed up and I couldn't dream of making her wait any longer." He didn't turn around, but he raised his left arm, pointing with his thumb that there was something behind Tatsuki that she needed to pay attention to at this very moment.
Tatsuki dove to the side, dodging the sudden pounce from Chizuru, who stood up promptly and giggled darkly.
"So, I hear today is the day of our anticipated match-up." Chizuru managed to catch the light just right with her glasses, adding an unnerving effect to her appearance.
"If that is how it's to be, then fine. I'll get Ichigo later." Tatsuki stood up and took a fighting stance.
"Remember to dress nicely, he likes his girls to look classy as fuck." Head games were in full bloom, as Chizuru tried to distract Tatsuki for just a moment.
"That wasn't what I meant!" Dealing with her mom's open campaigning for the Kurosaki lad had only weakened Tatsuki's defense to this line of needling. She at least didn't color, which showed a decent amount of self discipline.
"So you say~" Chizuru laughed, taking a wide stance and making a gesture towards Tatsuki.
Well, whatever was to happen would be something Ichigo would have to learn later, he had classes to attend until Rukia came to pull him out anyways.
/-\ /-\ /-\
"Kurosaki." Rukia said as she yanked open the door to his classroom with a swift jerk. "Grab your crap and come along."
"Right away, Captain." Ichigo didn't care about explaining to his teacher what was going on; when you were being bossed around by a woman whose head height was only slightly past your belly button, you do as they say.
"Excuse me what's going on?" The teacher, who had been distracted with writing a complex formula on the blackboard, asked with a very peeved tone of voice. The kind of voice that will get you in trouble when you use in the wrong situation.
"Hi, Captain Rukia Kuchiki, the Soul Reaper in charge of this pissant little shithole you call a town. Ichigo here has been discovered to hold great power in his soul, and is thus being called upon to protect all of you. As such, he has no more time to waste on these classes, except what time I will allow him to indulge such a childish venture." Rukia said, with only a slight amount of vexation in her voice. She also free-form cracked the knuckles in both of her hands.
"Do you honestly expect me to be-" The teacher could not finish that as a red bolt of reiryoku sizzled past the side of her face. Face dripping with sweat, she turned to see the smoking hole in the wall.
"School's out kids, everyone go home now." Rukia said, glancing at the stunned class and waving them out of the room.
"Didn't even singe her with it, impressive." Ichigo said, turning his head to look down at her. She was dressed pretty casually for a captain, hell, she almost looked like a student here. "Decided to leave the funeral close back at base?"
"This is just a gigai," she explained, turning from the terrified woman and deciding to begin the lecture early. "It's a false body for people who don't have one for real. This way, I don't have to pop in through walls and spook everything in the immediate area."
"Sounds pretty nifty." He said, contemplating the appearance of the gigai. "Mom always said Urahara got up to some wacky shit, but I didn't think it was stuff like this."
"Soul Society usually has these for such an occasion, but it's a pain in the ass to go back there for this, especially with such a convenient place ready to dispense such a thing on the cheap." She did a little curtsy for effect. "You wouldn't believe this isn't a human body if I didn't tell you it wasn't first."
"Sounds like I got a lot to learn about," he said, as they made their way out of the classroom. "By the way, how'd you do that bitching fireball?"
"That was kido." She snickered a little at his blank expression. "Basically, magic you can do. Since I'm pretty good at it, I can even do it without saying the name. Though, between you and me, if I said the name I would have killed your teacher."
"Soul Reapers got a lot of tricks don't they." They had exited the school and it was time to figure out where they were headed. "So, uh, we're we going?"
"I have an empty field cleared out for us to train, it's only a couple blocks from here." She held up a finger. "I'm going to teach you a couple methods for quickly shedding your body in a safe location, and then I'm going to help you brush up on your sword work. Against small fry, you're fine as you are, but I want you ready for anything. We should be on kido by the end of the week, and that's even sprinkling in patrols and what not."
"A lot of work ahead of me," he said, falling into a purposeful silence.
"Look on the bright side, at least you're starting on the job instead of wasting months being lectured on crap that doesn't matter." She tried to be nice about it, but her own experience with the Shinigami Academy was less than stellar. "This way, you can measure your growth against real live hollows instead of waiting forever to even fight one."
"Yeah, I suppose that is better." Though the suppose was only because he had just witnessed what happens when you question his new tutor's authority.
/-\ /-\ /-\
"Okay , now that we're here, let's talk about you turning into a Soul Reaper from your body." Rukia said, with Ichigo seated cross legged on the ground. "It's pretty much impossible without some kind of medium, of which we have several. First, there's the soul transfer glove, a snazzy little number available in a wide variety of colors, but only good if you have someone helping out to use it on you. If I hit you while wearing it, out would pop your soul body dressed in that nifty black outfit. If you tried it on yourself, well, your hand is liable to get stuck in your head and we don't know how to fix that."
"Okay, so that's likely out, what else you got?" Ichigo asked, grimacing just a fraction of an inch at the idea of his hand stuck in his heads.
"Next up is soul candy, vaguely sweet and leaves your soul feeling refreshed upon exiting the body. Now, these little guys used to pack an artificial soul called a Mod, which would move the body and have its own will and such. Mostly to be used with all the excess gigai laying around to bolster our ranks, they were mostly discontinued and destroyed due to ethical ramifications and they were too wild to control. Some of the original still exist, Urahara keeps a small collection of these for entertainment purposes and the fact that the newer soul candy's personalities can be abrasive for some." She paused and rolled the pill she had in her hand, before bending over and picking up a small lion doll that looked pretty beat up. "This little dude's name is Kon, and he's going to be a demonstration for how it works. This is pretty much a gigai or your body after your soul leaves." With that, she tossed the pill into the doll's mouth and pinched it closed, before tilting it back to simulate swallowing.
"So what, that doll is going to come to life?" Ichigo really shouldn't sound so doubtful, but he couldn't help it. It was just so ridiculous.
"That's right!" A male voice answered back, as the doll leaped down from Rukia's hands and stood in front of Ichigo and pointing a very pitiful looking claw at the surprised human. "Kon-sama is here to teach you how to- wait, what the hell am I in?"
"I'm not carrying a gigai around for you," Rukia said arms crossed with a stern look on her face.
"So cold big sis!" Had the body he was in had functioning tear ducts, Kon would have burst into tears.
"Stop whining and get back to the lecture." Rukia's tone promised violence if the order wasn't followed.
"Right." Kon turned to look at Ichigo again, pointing what would be a thumb at himself. "Listen up rookie! The name's Kon and I specially is leg combat and speed! I can also keep you in contact with other Soul Reapers if need be! And I have a great personality all the ladies just love, so if you need a better social life, pop me into your mouth and leave it all to Kon-sama!"
"What." He wasn't going to pop that thing into his mouth to transform was he? Ichigo looked kind of strained at the prospect.
"The only real downside to modern soul candy is that it's one use, hence why it has very basic personalities since it is not only faster and easier to make, but less of a hang-up morally because it just poofs off to the ether instead of being stuck as a candy." Rukia tossed him a container, which Ichigo caught reflexively. It was adorned with a certain white rabbit that Ichigo knew too well from Yuzu's love of the animal in question.
"Ch-Chappy?" His little sister would flip out over it.
"Yeah, I like rabbits." Rukia shrugged before slipping back into the lecture. "The bad news for you is that soul candy is the quickest method for soul removal from your body and it will ensure your body is in a safe place instead laying in a gutter somewhere. Pop out one and give it back, I paid good money for that container and no way I'm letting a bozo like you take off with it."
"I wouldn't have been able to keep Yuzu away from it." He muttered darkly to himself even as he complied with her instructions. He chucked the container back, which was caught easily and stored away.
"Don't pop it just yet now. The final method for you to become a Soul Reaper is a badge for your human body to wear. It's basically like the one you got last night and it's mainly for when you're at home and need to transform quickly." Rukia pulled it out and threw it to Ichigo. "Just affix it to your arm, then run your thumb along it and shout release. Boom, you're a Soul Reaper and your body will carry out a short order to make it look like you're asleep. This is also to extend the amount of soul candy you'll have so you don't run out."
"That makes sense." He quickly affixed it to his arm and then thought of something. "Why don't I just stay a Soul Reaper all the time then?"
"Your body is still alive, if you don't return to it periodically, you'd use up all your reiryoku for one. For two, you're simulating the death of your body to allow your soul to come out and play. You screw around with this and you'll die for real and I don't know what happens when that occurs and I don't want to find out." She said, laying it out for him. "Plus, returning to your body makes it stronger, so we're going to train you threefold: you use up a lot of reiryoku, go back to your body to recoup it, come back with more. Your body gets stronger, which will also naturally increase your reserves. And thus comes to the best part of our little exercise: we'll train your body too, thus increasing your power even more. And even better, when you're a Soul Reaper, your body is resting so you won't even be tired from it!"
"That's demented. Awesome, but demented." He looked at the soul candy and rolled it in his fingers. What would it taste like? He hoped it wasn't mint, he didn't like mint at all.
"I know, but it's the best way to prepare you for the future." She sighed, even as she popped out her own soul candy. "I want you prepared for anything, there's too much coincidence for our meeting to be just because your dad forgot to tell you how to suppress your reiatsu. Shit's going to go down and you're going to be there, kicking what have comes out of the woodwork's ass. Pop that pill and let's begin." She popped it into her mouth, her gigai scrambling off in short order.
Ichigo complied, popping the candy with easy and swallowing it in one go. There was a surge of energy and suddenly, he was back in his Soul Reaper body. As his real body scampered off, he did a bit of flexing, mostly out of habit.
"Yeah, don't stop doing that. You should feel like this is your real body, which will help you grasp the concepts faster than if you try to retrain yourself. In fact, this is probably the worst problem I and many of my fellow captains run into with humans turned Soul Reapers: they're being trained by people who haven't had to live with a body in possibly centuries if not more. Thus, they require so much more time to get simple things because it goes against how they know their body to move." Rukia held out her right hand, a swarm of reishi condensing into a zanpakuto, a plain ordinary looking blade. Its edge only had the lightest of bites, but only an idiot would think that was a good thing. She flipped around and caught it by the blade, fingers pressing on the side to keep it from gnawing into her palm. "Take it, this is what we're practicing with."
"Ok, I mean, I've got my own, but you're the captain." He took it anyways and inspected it, finding it to be perfectly average. "And nifty trick too."
"Thanks, I'll teach you it some time." She smirked a little, before forming another for herself. "I figure it is best for you to train with this, because we don't really know what's going to happen if your zanpakuto changes size to something smaller upon release. Secondly, I don't want your soul form to do the training for abusing the size and length of your sword, because the carry over might as well be nil compared to your body learning it. Let's say it's mostly muscle memory and leave it at that for now, the real answer is a bit more complex than that. Thirdly, this will make the fight that much more dangerous for you, and thus your growth will increase more as you discover new abilities in the heat of battle. Lastly, this will prepare you for any battles to come, no point in getting killed by a hollow because you don't know how to sword fight."
"Sounds good," Ichigo said, taking a few practice swings. "Let's get this party going then."
"Just go with the flow, I won't hurt you... too much." She laughed a little, face contorting a little into one hell of a nasty smirk.
The two vanished from sight, taking the coming battle into the realm of high speed.
/-\ /-\ /-\
Ichigo faceplanted into the dirt, bringing this latest spar to an end. Without any dramatics, he rolled over onto his back and looked up at Rukia staring down at him. He sighed, softening her gaze just a little.
"How long was that last one?" He needed to have some feeling of accomplishment.
"45 seconds, but you beat yourself this time. I didn't expect you to be able to overload the reishi like that." She reached down and picked him up without a further word, and inspected him for damage. "Good, seems only the blast wave hit you."
"Didn't feel good." He muttered, only for her grab the front of his uniform and pull him down to face her.
"Look kid, decaying reishi are no joke. If you get enough of that on you, you'd die an incredibly agonizing death on par with shit the gods would usually toss out on the people who really fuck up." She let go of him and regained her composure. "You're not invincible, okay? So don't go thinking you have nothing to lose."
"...Sorry." And he was, if only because the outburst had been sparked by him nearly blowing himself straight to hell. He hoped it wasn't the Christian one, he heard that sucked a lot.
"It's fine, it's not like you knew." She shook her head. "That's another thing they never tell them, not until they're ready to kick them out the door. So much of the retraining is simply getting them to stop being stupid and diving headlong into death. Trust in me Ichigo, I will keep you safe until you do not need me to watch over you. When that time comes, you will have a partner who will never betray, because your spirit and theirs will share much the same desire." She patted the zanpakuto on her hip. "You'll learn this girl's name too once you're ready. The bond you'll form with your zanpakuto is a wonderful thing, don't try to exploit it and you'll be stronger than anyone."
"Mm." He nodded his head along, before stretching a bit. "If you want to have one more go before we switch training, I'm up for it."
"Heh, sure thing." She laughed a little, and despite how down he had felt about not being able to hang with her, the sound of it made him feel just a little bit better.
/-\ /-\ /-\
Beyond the senses of the people of this world, up in a lonely part of the sky, a hole of the deepest black opened for just a moment. And then it was gone as quickly as it had come, but it left its mark there. Something was only testing to see if the connection could be made, so next time, something would come from it...
End Chapter 2
Teaser for Chapter 3 "As If Your God Has Passed You By":
In this world, lived a blighted people, infected with a sickness innate only to this world. It was a sickness of the mind, that infirmed the moral centers and blocked the rational thought. The religious would claim that it was because God had turned away from them and it was their uniform understanding of this that destroyed their ability to hope.
This was a world that envied the dead, not mourn them. A world that the unthinkable happened with a greater frequency to the despair of those who tried live with hope in their hearts and happiness in their eyes. Tragedies had choked still the relief of comedy, the sound of laughter almost a forgotten, distant sound.
Life was to be suffered until you were granted the nadir kiss of death and released back into the yawning void from whence you came.
Without hyperbola, the real pain of this disease was how quickly one could become infected by it and not even realize it. It was akin to a very specific kind of madness, one where you were aware of what was happening and approved. No one could pinpoint the signs because the onset of the disease was so swift that study was impossible.
Nothing was tolerable and every single offense committed in the vicinity of the afflicted only brought a sudden outburst of violence. The only mercy for the people of this blighted world, was that the spread slowed down in large groups of people and thus large urban areas only found themselves with small patches of the infected, who were corralled and locked away for everyone's safety. But of course, the small areas, the little side towns and suburbs basically took it from behind with no lube.
Many who were attacked did nothing more than exist, they just happened to be there at the time and place of the madness kicking in.
Such an experience was not foreign to Inoue Orihime. Her parents had attempted to throw her into an incinerator for being born when neither wanted anymore kids. Luckily, she had an older brother named Sora who resisted the affliction and ran away to raise the poor girl. Though isolated, she grew up loved and happy, a rarity these days.
It comes as no surprise that her brother was killed due to injuries received when hit by a car, sadly waiting for an ambulance that never came. Alone, but thankfully forgotten, Orihime tried to rebuild her life by going to school. Things progressed without incident until age fourteen, where she was accosted by jealous older girls, whom felt threatened by the young girl's blossoming figure.
As was too often the case, Orihime did nothing to provoke what was to happen to her, she just happened to exist too much for someone's liking.
Author note: That's down. Chapter 3 to come with more characters. Orihime gets screen time in this one! Be there.
