Hello, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome back to the Black Dragon Slayer.

It has been more than a year since I updated, and I understand many of my readers have been anticipating. Unfortunately, my head was stuck in the "gamer" related department, so please do excuse me. On the other hand, it has somewhat cooled down, and I am ready to take up this story once more.

So without further ado, enjoy this new chapter.

Interlude
Trouble Back Home

I laid on my back, watching a bird fly across my town's suburban skies. I sometimes envied the birds. They were so carefree of the troubles that humans had to face. Or perhaps, it is the other way around; birds don't care enough when they should.

I sat back up. Yes, unfortunately for me, I am not a bird, but a human. I needed to do follow the norm of society if I wanted to survive. I don't hate this, per say, but it was boring. Boring as hell. So no, I hate the boredom, not my life.

But a bird's life was still what I wanted.

...

No.

To be fair and honest with myself, my conscious would not be able to leave everything I have behind for a life of a vagrant. Perhaps what I truly want is not the way of the bird but the freedom from heavy burden.

Like the one that my house and its family had been under for the last four years.

I felt my fists tighten at the mere thought.

Four years ago, my older brother left home on a job given by the family's "friend." He went through a 'portal' and never came back.

Thankfully, Urahara Kisuke, the one responsible for my brother's disappearance managed to save the "coordinates" to the world where my brother was stranded.

Unfortunately, the energy requirement to mount a rescue operation was ... astronomical without a natural wormhole-gate opening up on its own. When asked about the amount and how much work would be needed, Kisuke fidgeted as he answered that the total energy requirement for opening an artificial wormhole from Karakura Town to their destination would be in the sum of 600 Petajoule, which is equivalent to 143 megatons worth of TNT.

Megaton.

Of TNT.

Sustaining that shit? For every second it was kept open, 1 petajoule was required. That's more than the goddamn electricity used at any given point in our world!

Rukia and I almost strangled the man on the spot.

Now, Yuzu was confused. How much was 143 megatons of TNT worth?

I calmly explained to her that it was worth three of the largest nuclear warheads ever recorded by humanity.

Before his death was imminent, Kisuke quickly explained that he had a machine running to gather the necessary energy requirement, but it was going to take a decade. He then assured that "someone with Ichigo's level of power simply cannot hide or be lost. We'll be able to find his location immediately after we go through."

He was ... reluctantly released from being hanged.

But at the same time, they had a situation much worse than simply waiting to go search my older brother.

The "Dimension Collapse" was occurring everywhere throughout the world, and such events caused many spiritually aware organizations to either reveal themselves or form up. Governments were also panicking as small amounts of hollows began to leak through tears in the fabrics of reality.

It was horrible. Well, in my opinion, it is still horrible. Hollows were now a more dangerous threat because instead of going for spiritually aware individuals, they have begun to indiscriminately attack everyone they can. Not only that, there are even some Menos that took up residence in the Human World, as it was being called now (as opposed to the Material World, which was the most used term before).

European Union changed their economic-only role to a true confederate government after this attack, and they set up European Union Supernatural Containment Division, or EUSCD. Composed of more than ten thousand spiritually aware and able-bodied fighters, they took over all matters of supernatural handling in Europe.

Then there was also the Vatican. Apparently, they were the Shinigami counterpart. Their influence was so strong in many counties that shinigamis were forced to leave the Americas, Europe, and the rest of Eastern Asia outside of Japan.

India had the Svargīya Sēnā.

But the closest and the most interesting development happened in Korea.

Calling themselves the Jeongryung Sunggysa, or the Shamanic Paladins, they, for the lack of a better term, conquered both North and South Korea using a platoon of spiritually powered supersoldiers, half of whom were reported to at least match the lieutenants of Gotei 13. They went and named the country the Josun Democratic Theocracy. After their conquest, they went and forcefully restructured the entire technological backtowards a new field of technology called the arcanotechnology. They explained the new field as a mixture of "magic" and technology.

Secretly, many governments around the world, spiritual and mortal alike, sent spies for the secrets of this new technology.

All of them returned insane and screaming about the eye.

Publicly, most of us mocked them for their "magic" until they launched a space station capable of sustaining a thousand people into the moon's orbit that should not have been possible physically. The year after that, which was early this year, they launched another campaign to enlarge the existing station to support ten thousand people. They completed two months ago.

United States of America and Canada ended up in a civil war as more than a hundred spiritually capable organizations and groups rose up in bid for power when none of them were loyal to the local government.

Africa ... remained the same.

I sighed as I remembered something else too.

Gotei 13 had been involved in minor skirmishes with the hollows all over Japan as well as the Shamanic Paladins. Apparently, the Paladins were pissed about Japan's government going after islands that are not theirs but laying claim nonetheless. The Paladins tried the UN, but when the UN came up with inconclusive decisions, the Paladins said "Fuck it" and left the UN. After that, whenever illegal fishing ships came by, they would be sunk and the fishers left on the Japanese shores. The Japanese government protested against the violence, only to have the Paladins expose multiple Japanese classified files which involved inhumane experiments, war projects, and so on.

A civil war almost broke out that day.

Gotei 13 stepped in on the government's behalf, but the moment they did, the Shamanic Paladins declared the Gotei 13 a unrecognized rogue organization and any of its members stepping near Korean territory would be an act of terrorism.

War almost broke out once more when one of the more hotheads of the Gotei 13 landed on Korean Peninsula. They were caught in minutes of their landing, and summarily executed on public TV. War didn't break out because, unlike many parts of the world, Japan was still having issues with passing legislation to merge the Gotei 13 and the rest of Japanese Soul Society, which was aggressively adamant about staying independent.

On top of such actions, the Quincies got themselves legally recognized as a ethnic group and filed a lawsuit against Japanese Soul Society as a whole. They had made strong ties with the Paladins and the EUSCD, and cornered Soul Society to either take part in the lawsuit or be labelled as 'genocidal terrorist organization,' which would have the consequence of UN signing off the latter as 'free-for-all' on military operations. Faced with unprecedented usruption of their rule over spiritual side, Soul Society's Central 46 instead insulted the two organization as "infants incapable of understanding the actions of the old world."

The Paladins took this as a declaration of war from the Gotei 13 and sent seven of their "Lieutenants."

Gotei 13 was still recovering from their loss of 130 shinigamis, three lieutenants, and one captain before an envoy was sent. It was not without casulaties on the other side with four of their "lieutenants" dead, but it was almost negligible.

As of the moment, as far as I know, Soul Society and Gotei 13 got themselves a sovereign nation status in court before UN, but lost the lawsuit regarding Quincy Genocide. The reparations for the Quincies were still being determined, but Central 46 was stubborn about not giving up too much.

It was the dark days for Soul Society.

In the Human world, though, Japan had left the slum of island claims, and begun to develop their own spiritual forces. Perhaps being considered the weakest military in the world in the wake of its new revolution spurred them on to shift their focus from outside to inside.

Unfortunately, the ample time that Japan had needed to turn its focus inward had been a boon for the local crime as well as international gangs. Many of the "worthy" individuals were recruited into many organizations. Sometimes, though, when people refused, they were kidnapped and taken away from Japan unwillingly. Such things were the popular events as far as the media was concerned. I didn't know more than that.

Perhaps it had to do with the fact that unlike many areas of Japan, Karakura Town had its own spiritual force at back and call consisting of not only shinigamis but also hollows, Fullbringers, Quincies, and et cetera. Numbering at 40 strong with extremely capable fighters, no organization dared to set foot in Karakura Town.

I yawned as I saw Yuzu walk up. "Karin, dad's calling you. Something about a meeting between the Visords, Exiles, and us." I nodded to her and followed her back home.

This was one of the better things that changed since the Dimension Collapse. Instead of having to depend on the shinigami exclusively for protection against spiritual beings, we had to provide our protection... Which was okay, considering that we had a lot of good fighters.

I just hope Crazy Shopkeeper hurries and finishes that damn portal generator. I - We - need to go and find him. Fortunately, the Crazy Shopkeeper said that thanks to Ichi-nii's strong spiritual residue "existing in the trails its host made across the multitude of realities and dimensions," there was no need to search for the dimension coordinates again... which would have taken a decade even after the Crazy Shopkeeper finished his goddamn machine.

I just hope he fixes it so we can bring Ichi-nii back.

I flipped myself upright, and jogged my way back to the candy shop.

Once I got there, though, I realized how small the shop really was. There was the Goat chin, Yuzu, me, Crazy Shopkeeper, Yoruichi lady, two of the Visords, and three Arrancars.

I growled at one specific person, though. "Why the fuck are you here, Grimmjow? Don't you have kids to bully?"

Grimmjow growled right back. "And don't you have some growing up to do, little girl?"

Don't ask me how it happened, it just did. Ever since Ichi-nii disappeared, Grimmjow had been -under some kind of "threat(?)" from Urahara and few others- have been living in Karakura Town, serving as one of its defenders. Normally, I know that the blue cat would have been too irritated to stay at the town for long had it not been for the constant, challenging spars the rest of the defenders have been offering.

Hell, they even gave him a district to call his own, albeit sparsely populated, so that he could get off that boast of his.

But ... he just rubbed me wrong. Every time we talk, we clash roughly. Hell, we even had a fist fight -one that I started- after he called Ichi-nii "stupid, ball-less brigand" while drunk.

I'm not going to bother pretend that I won that fight.

"Stop." Everyone turned to the Crazy Shopkeeper. "We're not here to lovers' fight. You can do that in your bed."

Grimmjow and I both growled at him. "He/She is not my boyfriend/girlfriend!"

Urahara just shrugged. "But let's get down to business anyway. Today's meeting is not an emergency meeting, but it can depending on how you see it."

"That's stupidly vague, Urahara," Kurosaki Isshin frowned. "Also without any real info."

"I'll explain. I'm here to start explaining to you about the political background that has been settling around the world... with the exception of Afrai and the Americas.

"First off, I don't know whether or not you have heard the news as it is very recent regarding Soul Society. It seems that ... they have refused to join up with Japan. Karakura Town being between these two worlds will cause a lot of issues. I expect to see heightened military activity on both sides.

"Second, because of ... Soul Society's decision to not join Japan -even for security purposes- the Paladins have declared war upon Soul Society. While frowned upon by the world, they have the legitimate right to do so after Soul Society refused to apologize in the latest fiasco."

I cringed. "Are they stupid? They refused to get help even when they know a war is right at their doorstep?"

Isshin shook his head. "Two thousand year old pride is not something to easily bend over for few international concerns."

"A war is not some 'concern,' goat chin! People are going to die!" I barked.

Now, why was I mad? Simple. I have few friends among Soul Society's ranks. They were decent people, like Rukia, Renji, and Ukitake. Of course I'm not happy about the prospect of seeing them dead; no one wants their friends dead!

"I know, Karin." That shut me up. More than me, goat chin had more friends in Soul Society, especially with the captains. He turned to Urahara. "What can we expect from this conflict?"

It was here that Urahara looked unhappy. "Well, considering that we sit right at the border of Soul Society and is currently the only place where we can go through... I expect the Paladins to be in our town in less than a day or so ... but there is another option."

"Is it better than the first option? Because I don't like the idea of Karakura Town turning into a battlezone," one of the Fullbringers said.

"I help the Paladins make a portal on their side of the territory."

Everyone turned to him. "What?" someone voiced the shock felt by the rest.

"I got a proposal from the higher-ups of the Paladins. They stated in not so many or direct words that I can either help them make a portal on their territory that would take them directly to Soul Society, or they will ... associate us with terrorist sympathizers due to how many of our residents are connected to Soul Society. Should the latter come to being, they'll ... remove our city to another location so that the barren landscape left after it would be put to usage."

"That's against international conventions! They can't force bystanders to -!"

"As much as other nations want to help us, most of the powerful forces like the United States and the Vatican are tied up dealing internal or neighboring issues."

"Vatican is having issues? Aren't they like super strong, though? How about China?"

Urahara shrugged. "From what I heard, they are fighting Arrancars in the number of thousands. Even the Paladins would have issues if faced with that. China is facing a civil war as a result of their spiritual counterpart's decision to wage. This leaves us with the support of the 'greater' powers like ... no one around us really. Japan has not been kind of history and its neighbors, and haven't properly apologized for it. So ... I really only have one choice. I just wanted you to know."

There were several accepting grimaces and some gleeful grins.

Just another change in this world.

More reason to bring back Ichi-nii.