Chapter 35
For Ichigo, days tended to blend together. It had been a week and a half since Tanya had left for the Soul Society, and in that time, he had been busy studying for school, fighting hollows, or training for the inevitable showdown he was going to have to have to help Rukia avoid trouble with the Central 46 organization that Tanya was always worried about.
Perhaps he should take a little bit more time for himself, but he knew he only had a little time before things proverbially hit the fan. Maybe a month, maybe two. Either way, every day was a bit precious. Hopefully, he could figure out enough of his sword in time so that once things went south, he would be able to do the job.
He felt a little bit under pressure, but he thought he could pull this off. At least he hoped he could pull this off, and only time would tell on that matter. But of course, he couldn't dedicate himself solely to training and killing monsters. He had to keep up with his school work, which was a bit harder. His time was a little bit more stretched now, that Tanya was away and she wasn't killing hollows.
Well, hopefully whatever was drawing all those to the area in the world of the hollows would soon be dealt with. He assumed Tanya was going to try and see about that, and when that happened, he would have a little more time to work on himself and classes without issue.
Stretching out his legs he was preparing to get up, before he was stopped by Keigo taking a seat across from him. Leaning forward conspiratorially ,he asked: "So, any information on the new girl?".
Ichigo raised an eyebrow and looked past him towards Tanya Yuki, who was now attending the school. She had said she would come, but it had taken her a whole week to apparently get the records transferred completely, or false records created at that, and now she was in the school attending classes, acting like a teenage girl.
At least he thought she was acting, not really sure if that was true, and he was pretty sure about soul candies and how their personalities work. Currently, she was across the classroom talking to some of the girls, Tatsuki and Chizuru. What they were talking about, he did not have a care in the world about, so he wasn't really paying attention to them. Oh, he was concerned about her possibly getting involved in things in the World of the Living because she shouldn't be, but he also knew that he had enough responsibilities, and adding one more soul candy to look after was not part of his current plans. If anything, he'll try and push that job off onto Rukia. She should be able to follow that girl around.
"Oh, come on, you have to know something," he said, giving Ichigo a look before saying, "she was eyeing you the moment she stepped into this classroom. She even gave you a wave. How do you know her?".
Letting out a sigh, he said, "I don't know her. I don't know what you're talking about. She must have been waving to Rukia."
"Right, I'm sure that's true," the way Keigo said that and then confirmed to Ichigo that he didn't believe that one bit, the next statement pretty much confirmed that. "So if I was to try and date her, you wouldn't be annoyed or anything about that?"
Ichigo stifled a chuckle, shaking his head before saying, "Knock yourself out, Keigo. I don't think you're going to be that successful in any case."
"Oh, don't think your old friend Keigo can pull it off?"
"Well, yeah. I don't think you could pull it off."
Keigo just said, "You don't even know her. How would you know that I couldn't pull it off if you don't know her?"
"'Cause I know you," Ichigo said with a smile.
"Oof, low blow," Mizuiro said as he was walking by, shaking his head as he did. "He's not wrong though. Your track record is not exactly stellar with the girls."
"Well, since everyone's doubting me, that means I will definitely pull this off!" he exclaimed, standing up resolutely before saying, "I'm going to show all of you!" and walking over to the girls.
Ichigo watched for a bit, seeing him introduce himself to the new girl and maybe even start getting poked by comments from the other girls there, before Ichigo turned back to look out the window. He'd rather not watch him get humiliated if he could help it. Instead, he mentally wandered off, thinking about other things such as the test they had tomorrow or how he was going to come up with an ability that was able to win the fights he was going to need to win in the coming days.
However, when Keigo sat down in front of him again, he was somewhat surprised by the shit-eating grin on his face.
Blinking, Ichigo said, "What happened to you?"
"She gave me her number."
"What did you say?" Ichigo said with a raised eyebrow.
"She gave me her number and said I was her kind of goofball."
"Someone better call Hell and see if it's frozen over because that sounds impossible," Mizuiro said.
"Hey, I'm not that bad. Just 'cause I get a date doesn't mean it's the end of the world."
"Also doesn't mean it's not the end of the world," Mizuiro pointed out, getting a chuckle from Ichigo.
Ichigo said, "Well, this was unexpected, but I wish you luck, Keigo. Hope this works out for you."
He didn't want to think about what could go wrong with this, but hey, maybe this whole situation would be good for him. A lot of the issues he had with dating did come down to not having a lot of experience, so someone giving him experience could be good, right? Ichigo just shook his head, not sure if that was good or not, but well, it was happening. There's not much else he could do on the matter.
Arranging a meeting with the Captain of the Fifth Division, Sōsuke Aizen, was not the hardest problem in the world. After all, Tanya had a fairly good bond with the captain. At least, as far as she was concerned, having a similar love for knowledge came in handy on that front. Having similar opinions on being open-minded about things in the world had gone a long way.
However, how to best approach the subject at hand was a problem she was still trying to figure out. After all, how would one deal with the subject of a Soul Reaper gaining powers outside the natural order. You are supposed to become a Soul, and then become a Soul Reaper. Telling him exactly what was going on would probably not be the wisest action since he seemed to have a notion of being loyal to the Central 46.
Knowing that, she was going to be careful, she was not letting this situation spin out of control anymore than it already was. So, it was best to step carefully in this situation.
Her thoughts were interrupted as Lieutenant Momo Hinamori said, "The captain will see you now." Nodding to the female Soul Reaper, Tanya got up and brushed herself off before walking over to the door and opening it, finding his office as crowded and somewhat unkempt as the last time she had been there.
She was not a fan of that, and an uncontrolled space implied that one did not impose good enough order on their life and had no control. That was why her own room was immaculate, but she kept that to herself as she did not want to insult the person she was coming here to talk to. That would be rather foolish.
"Third seat Tanya, long time no see," Captain Sōsuke Aizen said as she entered, giving her a nod as he put the paperwork he was currently working on down.
"It has been a long time since we've had a conversation, hasn't it?" Tanya said with a smile, pulling out a chair and sitting down in front of him. "I think the last time we talked was about Quincys."
"Oh yes, Quincys. A subject that does not come up that often. It feels like I fear that they may have gone extinct because I have not heard any reports about them in a long time."
"Perhaps they've simply moved out of the way and learned not to use their powers openly enough to draw our notice," Tanya proposed.
"Hmm, possible. If that is the case, it will be best for both of us. They can just keep out of our way, and we keep out of theirs. I think we could come to some sort of understanding down the line once the old guard have fully moved on, and the memories of the war have fully faded here in the Soul Society."
Tanya nodded her agreement to that. That was probably what would happen eventually. But for now, she said, "Oh, that is an interesting conversation. However, today, I wanted to talk to you about another situation that I've been wondering about for a while ever since you mentioned it all those years ago."
"Hmm, that should be an interesting conversation then. Don't keep me waiting. What do you want to talk to me about, Tanya?"
"Substitute Soul Reapers that accidentally become permanent. How exactly does the Soul Society handle that situation beyond just declaring it an illegal technique? I'm more interested in what someone could do to undo these permanent Soul Reaper abilities."
Aizen gave her a look that had a rather sharp eye to it before saying, "That's a very interesting question. I've always wondered about it myself. From what I've been able to dig up on the matter, back when we did allow it to happen once in a while, we had a device that allowed us to keep track of these Soul Reapers, monitor their abilities, and to some extent, control their powers so that they didn't become too powerful for their world. However, removing their powers was never really a major thing, though it is possible."
"Hmm, how?" Tanya asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, Soul Reapers have a part of their body that channels energy through it. If you cut this part correctly, you can cut the energy flowing through it and strip them of their Soul Reaper powers, at least temporarily, but possibly permanently, depending on the damage and if they're willing to put in the work to undo the damage. Of course, this can only be done with a temporary Soul Reaper near his body. If you put a temporary Soul Reaper who's had their spiritual energy damaged in such a way right back in their body, they have a chance to survive. If they're left out, well, it's like leaving the milk on the counter for 24 hours. It might still be edible, though it's supposed to be drinkable."
Tanya scrunched her face up at that comment, trying not to think of a soul literally souring. It was probably an implication of a person beginning to turn into a Hollow, which would be a rather unfortunate thing. Though if there was a way to do it, that would work wonders in the court case, as it could be implied that this crime could be made null and void by simply stripping away his powers and leaving him to have a normal life. There might be some major fines, but that would be a minor situation for nobility to pay. Of course, a minor situation for nobility would leave a Soul Reaper of Tanya's standing destitute and living on the streets, but thankfully, she was not involved in any Soul Reaper creations.
"Hmm, intriguing. I imagine that you don't need to actually strike down a willing participant in such a situation. You could probably set up a medical stage to do it and have the members of the Fourth Division oversee the operation to make sure it catches."
"Yes, I assume that would be theoretically a safer way of doing it, preventing someone from gaining power as a Soul Reaper. Why we need to do this, I don't know. There's not been a Soul Reaper created in a good long time with that method, as far as I'm aware."
"Yes, but accidents happen," Tanya said with a nod, "and you need to be prepared for an accident or it'll take you by surprise."
For a moment, Aizen's glasses flared, hiding his eyes, before he said, "Yes, accidents. They are quite intriguing things. If a Soul Reaper was created by accident, that would be a very interesting thing to have happened. Since it's a forbidden technique, it doesn't happen very often, so there's not very many chances to study such accidents."
Something about the way he had said it intrigued Tanya, as if he was indicating that if there was such an accident, he would like to know. She knew there was the possibility that, though he was loyal to Central 46, he did seem to have made statements in the past that indicated that he didn't like their methods. Could he be of help in this situation beyond just giving her a way to get out of the current problem? Possibly, but telling him about Ichigo might be a step too far.
Nodding her head, she said, "If I have an accident like that ever happen around me, I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I'm sure the situation is under control. After all, if such an accident were to happen, we would need to know what kind of individual gained those powers, and if they were safe to have them."
"Yes, of course," he said, nodding in agreement. "After all, the last person to have become a substitute Soul Reaper was involved in a bit of a scuffle and had ended the lives of several Soul Reapers."
"It is a curious thing, though. There are people in the World of the Living with souls that can mesh with the powers of the Soul Reaper and can be of use in our efforts to make the world a better place. And I would imagine some of them would be willing to help us out. It makes you wonder why some of these rules were put in place."
Okay, Aizen was definitely playing some sort of game here, and she was interested in seeing where this might go. She had no interest in doing anything too major, but perhaps this could be of use as an ally when this went to court. "I would imagine for the most part, there was a good reason. But with some of the cases I've seen in the books of Central 46, I have to wonder if it wasn't just fear about losing power."
"Oh, it was definitely due to fear. I think the possibility of their will being overruled by those who can gather power through allies would make anyone in power fearful. But it handicapped the Soul Society's efforts to deal with the hollows. All they're doing is weakening us, I would say, and sooner or later, the Soul Society will pay for having been weakened this way. Possibly even by that revolution you suspect may come about sooner or later."
She nodded, thinking back to her own theories on it. Though it seemed less likely nowadays, it did not mean it was not possible. Sooner or later, something had to give in, in a society that was this top-down. People would want more than just medieval scraps soon enough. It would be the society that would have to decide whether it wants to keep the people down, or whether it wants to keep control of politics the way it has been.
"Well, as I said in my papers, the Soul Society is going to need to learn how to adapt to the changing conditions of the World of the Living. Otherwise, the order they seek is going to fall apart faster than Caesar decided to cross the river into Rome proper."
Aizen seemed to nod, though she was not sure if he got the reference. Instead, he said, "And if they don't learn to adapt, things will get worse. I suspect we will soon start seeing the effects of their laziness in the World of the Living. With how many hollows have gotten through our hands over the years, I would not be surprised to hear that some major attack will take place within the next few years. Something that can even be noticed by the inhabitants of the World Living World and not easily erased, not without a full team of people on the ground to take care of it".it."
That raised an eyebrow, remembering the warning the so-called Wolf Hollow had given Ichigo. The captain of the 5th may be well and truly the only Soul Reaper in the entire society that was paying attention to what was going on and not just reacting to things as they came. And that was good in one sense. Someone was thinking about the overarching future of the Soul Society. She wished there was more.
Standing up, Tanya nodded her head before saying, "Well, hopefully, what you fear will not come to pass, and if something like that does come to pass, perhaps we'll get lucky, and the situation will be resolved before we even need to step in,It would be unfortunate if such a disaster became a problem for the Soul Society."
"I hope you're right, young third lieutenant. I hope you're right," he said as he got up, offering his hand. "It was good talking to you, Tanya. I hope you come by more often. The world seems like we could have more conversations."
"I think so too," Tanya said, taking his hand before saying, "I'll try and come by more often. Maybe you can help me with something I've been working on once I have more information under my belt."
"Gladly, gladly. See you around, Tanya."
"Goodbye, Captain Aizen," she said, giving a nod before she left the office, off to the next meeting and her thoughts.
Rukia blinked several times as she sat with Tatsuki and Orihime, spying on the couple a few booths down. How this had come to be was still a bit mysterious to her, but it was quite unbelievable thing to happen in the World of the Living. At the moment, she wasn't sure if losing her powers in a desperate need to survive was more impossible than Keigo Asano getting a date with Tanya's soul candy in the body of Tanya.
"I can't believe this is happening, Tatsuki," she said as she peeked over her menu towards the couple. There was no other way to say it: they were basically having a date. From where they were sitting in this old classic diner setup, they could just make out that they were sharing a milkshake while waiting for their food to arrive.
"Does Tanya know that her soul candy's out on a date with him of all people?" Tatsuki asked.
Rukia could only shake her head at first before blinking several times and saying, "Wait, what was that bit about soul candy?"
"Oh, we know," Orihime said with a wave. "Maybe not everything, but enough of what's been going on the last few weeks. We kind of sort of caught Tanya, and yeah, we're aware of hollows now."
Rukia's eyes widened before she took a deep breath and said, "You can't tell anyone about this, okay? For your own safety."
"We're not going to tell anyone, Rukia," Tatsuki said, shaking her head. "We've already been given a spiel about being on the safe side by both Tanya and Akira, who was just as worried."
Rukia let out a sigh before saying, "Well, that makes life a bit easier. I would like to say, though, that you're not supposed to know this sort of stuff, so don't mention it so publicly."
"Alright, alright," Tatsuki said with a shake of her head. "So do you think Tanya knows about this, or is the soul candy going to get in super trouble when Tanya returns?"
Rukia shrugged her shoulders before saying, "I don't know on both fronts. I don't think Tanya know about this, but apparently, she okayed her coming here to study. It makes sense if you want to build a backup plan, I guess, but her okaying this unholy union? I don't think so."
"Sooo, that soul candy is going to get broken the moment Tanya returns then". Tatsuki said with a shake of her head.
"Hmm, I doubt that. Tanya probably won't care as long as the soul candy has been doing everything to the order that Tanya gave it. If, though, it did things that she did not expect, she might just let it pass."
"Yeah, but what if Tanya comes back and Keigo doesn't know about it, and, well, he gets handsy?"
Looking over there, Rukia could see what she meant as Keigo's hand was firmly on Yuki Tanya's shoulder, and they were basically staring into each other's eyes. It made her wonder where they would go from there, that's for sure.
"He'll probably have a broken hand and be convinced that Yuki Tanya has multiple personality syndrome or something, or have it explained to him, especially considering Tanya doesn't really swing that way."
"Oh, okay," Orihime said with a nod, still nodding her head slowed down before she said, "doesn't lean what way?"
"Oh, right. You don't really know. Tanya, ah, I guess she has a girlfriend/life partner back home who co-owns a series of coffee shops. As far as I know, no one really knows how far their relationship goes, but it's speculated it's pretty far. Tanya Lehrgen, ah, Tanya's ward, said they sort of complete each other in a lot of ways."
"… I'm sorry, who's Tanya Lehrgen?" Orihime asked, raising her hand.
Rukia sighed. "She's a daughter of a friend of Tanya's who named his child after her. I'm not really aware of all the details. Well, you'd have to ask Tanya or one of her friend's group about that."
"Are you not part of a friend group?" Tatsuki asked.
"Yes, no, kind of. I helped save her life a long time ago, and we've worked together since then. But she has a group of friends who she actually knew in the World of the Living before death. A rare thing but she's apparently going to beat the odds when it comes to rare things, and they know each other a lot better."
"There's also the friend group she has with the Eleventh Division, but we don't really like to talk about that friend group since the Eleventh Division are, well, swords with brains. They just keep fighting."
"Huh, sounds fun," Tatsuki said with a shrug.
"It's really not," Rukia said, shaking her head. "I mean, some of the festivals they put on since Tanya's friend group joined them are kind of fun, but otherwise it's a lot of expenses and repairs that people have to deal with."
"Huh, well anyways, should we try and do anything about the problem over there?" Tatsuki said, indicating the way Tanya was currently rubbing her hand up and down Keigo's arm and whispering something across the table.
"I guess I should try and tell her not to get too comfy. I mean, there's a reason that we don't spend time in the World of the Living. Soul Society members are not supposed to exist in this world, like how Yuki Tanya is doing it over there."
"But she's a soul candy, right? Is that still under the rules of this Soul Society? I mean, how do they even work?" Orihime asked, causing Rukia to shake her head.
"Well, yes, they are a little bit different. However, they are still under the rules of the Soul Society, and if this fake Tanya gets too comfortable, that could be a problem." Rukia started to get up, saying, "I guess I should go over there and talk to her now or at least try and get her attention before she does anything too drastic."
"Good luck," Tatsuki said.
"Break a leg," Orihime added, which raised an eyebrow on Rukia's face, but she shrugged it off and walked over to the couple, saying, "Oh, Tanya, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, hello Rukia," Yuki Tanya said with a smile as her hand still held onto Keigo's wrist. "I'm just enjoying a nice conversation with Keigo here. He's a very interesting guy. Did you know he wanted to open a ramen shop when he got out of school?"
Rukia blinked and internally admitted that she didn't actually know that fact before saying openly, "Wow, no, I did not."
"It's quite a good move when you think about it. There are very few commodities that are always in need, and if you can create a good enough food economy, people will want to come eat at your restaurant, and you will be taken care of."
Rukia blinked as she swore that the girl had just basically done the same as Tanya for a moment. Perhaps Tanya had left behind some books or more information for the girl to read, and as a result, she had acquired an understanding of economics similar to hers. It was hard to say.
"Well, that is quite fortunate," she said, trying to figure out the best way to approach telling the girl not to go too far. Unfortunately, a waitress came up with a card and handed it to the fake Tanya.
"Here you go, miss. Everything's paid for."
"Oh, wonderful," she said with a smile as she took the card and slipped it into the purse by her side before turning back to Rukia and saying, "Well, we were just leaving. Would love to continue this conversation another time, Rukia. I'm sure we have a lot of things we need to talk about, don't we?"
"Yes, yes, we do," Rukia said as the fake Tanya got up, basically pushing Rukia out of the way with her chest.
"Well, we'll have a conversation about that another time, for sure. It'll be quite interesting and important. Afraid that's going to have to wait, though. Keigo here is going to walk me home."
"Are you sure that's wise?" Rukia said, raising an eyebrow, which only got a smile from Yuki Tanya as she said, "Oh, I'm sure it's very wise. Don't worry, everything's under my control." With that, she intertwined her arm with Keigo's, who was looking at the pair very confused, and started to lead him out of the restaurant.
Shaking her head, Rukia went back to the other girls and sat down before saying, "Well, this is going to be a problem."
"I mean, it's not too big of a problem, right? You guys can talk to the soul candy and get it to stop doing whatever it's doing, right?" Tasuki said.
"Technically, yes, I could even knock the soul candy out of the body. The problem then is what do we do with the body and the soul candy? And what if the body was doing something important for Tanya that we don't know about? We're just going to have to try and give her more warnings and hope she doesn't take whatever this is too far."
"Well, worse comes to worst, maybe we just warn Tanya about what her doppelganger has been up to while she's gone. I mean, can't you contact her or something?"
Rukia shook her head before saying, "No, not really, but maybe I can at least talk to her before something terrible happens when she does return and warn her about what her silicon self has been up to while looking like her."
Rukia sighed before saying, "At least this one seems to be reasonable and not going off and doing crazy things like Kon was."
There was a pause before Tatsuki asked, "Who's Kon?"
"Ichigo's soul candy," Rukia replied with a shrug. "You might remember when he went a little bit crazy a few weeks back and messed up the classroom."
"I don't remember that, actually..." Tatsuki said before turning to Orihime. "Do you remember this?"
"No, not really. I don't remember Ichigo going crazy."
"Oh, right. I had someone clean that up. Kind of forgot about that."
"Clean that up? Are you saying that there's a way for... I don't know, to have our memories erased?"
"... Nooo," Rukia said, realizing she might have messed up. The look Tatsuki was giving her, though, implied that her attempt at saying no was not going to work. However, she didn't feel like going into this subject, so she simply said, "Anyways, now that the couple has left, what are we going to do?"
"Well, I haven't actually eaten today. If we don't mind sharing a plate of food, that'd be good with me. I've got to get my energy up to walk home," Orihime said.
"Hmm, well, I wouldn't mind eating some food as well if someone's willing to pay," Tatsuki said, looking directly at Rukia.
She let out a sigh before saying, "I think I could pay for a meal, yeah," knowing that paying for food instead of answering questions was probably a better situation to be in at the moment.
Well, Tanya Degurechaff seemed rather active today. Frankly, she seemed to be really active ever since she had come back from the World of the the past two weeks, she has given Lehrgen more assignments than shehad received since she first started working under her. This was saying something, considering that she was pretty sure Tanya was trying to pressure her out of the corps then, or make sure Lehrgen was up to the task.
Either way, Tanya Lehrgen spent every day hunting through stacks of legal books for any and all cases related to Central 46 and their sentences for those who had broken rules in one way or another. Some cases were rather minor, while others were more severe, with people being thrown into literal hell and two people being put in metaphorical hell.
Crimes could vary depending on how much intention there was behind it, or how much desire there was to do it, and why Tanya was interested in this subject was odd as well. Make no mistake, Tanya had always been one more on the legal-minded side of things. However, it usually was more of a general interest, not this focused stuff.
But if she wanted to learn more about this particular case, Tanya Lehrgen assumed there was a good reason for it. After all, she trusted Degurechaff to know what she was doing, and if she wanted more information on how Central 46 handled a crime, there must be a good reason behind it.
What exactly the crime was, was still up in the air. Lehrgen could make a few guesses at it. Mainly, it had something to do with Rukia and her trip to the World of the Living. What had happened there, Tanya had not shared, but it would have to be something serious enough that Tanya D would devote time and research to this field. And considering how those two were friends, it was probably very important that they found as much information as they could in the legal libraries of the Tenth Division and a few other divisions that she was able to get her hands into.
There was a Central library at the school, but nothing top secret was really kept there. Each of divisions tended to keep their own records. The only exception to this was the First Division, who kept a copy of everyone's records. No doubt whatever Tanya was looking for would be in their records. The problem was, trying to get into the First Division's copies was like trying to break into a sealed vault with nothing but a dining room knife. It's possible, given another 200 years, but it's unlikely to happen. Lehrgen was putting out feelers on her behalf, and after all, she had a friend in the First Division, though he was in the cooking part of the division. If it was possible to get in, it would be through him, though security clearance could be a thing and probably was.
Shaking her head, Lehrgen began to get up from her desk stationed right in front of Tanya's office as Captain Tōshirō Hitsugaya entered the room, looking around somewhat annoyed.
"Good morning, Captain Hitsugaya," she said, giving a salute as he entered.
He nodded. "Good morning, Ms. Lehrgen. I was wondering if Tanya was in, perhaps?"
Shaking her head, Lehrgen said, "I'm afraid not. She's supposed to come in any moment from now," taking a look down to her schedule, which was relatively unchanged from the start of the week. How Tanya found the time to change her schedule every week depending on what she expected to do was amazing, considering the number of hats she wore.
She had several duties coming up related to the Tenth Division's training unit, the one she would take out into the field whenever they gained more than about a dozen new recruits. Currently, that was scheduled for handling next week. Today, it seemed like she was mainly focusing on her contributions to the Soul Society Magazine and storytelling again about the Great War and the economics of why it happened and what could have prevented it.
Lehrgen was a bit of a fan of those stories. She couldn't wait for the next edition. She tended to be about three chapters ahead of what most people were reading. But as someone who helped transport the documents to the Ninth Division, Lehrgen took a peek at a few of the next chapters, and they looked rather fun.
"Hmm, well, do you mind if I take a seat and wait for her?" he asked, indicating one of the waiting seats that Tanya had installed. Though most of the Soul Society had based their culture off of Asia, it was quite clear that Tanya's way of thinking came from Europe, and she had installed an office that looked more at home in the descriptions of Europe as her own father had indicated.
"Sure, feel free to read some of the magazines while you wait," Lehrgen said with a smile. Tōshirō gave her a nod as he walked over and sat down. Taking her own seat, she began to look over today's main task, which was to mark down reasons people had gotten punished by Central 46, extent of the crime, and most importantly, what the crime had gotten the person. Being punished by removal of powers, thrown in a pit of maggots (that particular one she still didn't understand and probably didn't want to), or straight up death.
Actually, it was remarkably frightening the amount of times that Central 46 just came down hard on anything even close to breaking the law. The luckiest people just got demotions and locked up, and as far as she could see, getting out of lockup was not an easy task, often requiring someone of a noble house to help you. Whatever thing she's got herself wrapped up in she hoped she would be able to figure a way out that would not require Rukia's help because the law was not on her side.
Tanya's thoughts were interrupted as the woman of the hour stepped in, looking around at the office before spotting Captain Hitsugaya and giving a bow. "Captain Hitsugaya, what may I do for you?" she said with a smile as the captain got up from his seat.
"Well, you can talk about what's been going on recently. You've been seeming rather distracted at some of our meetings ever since you came back from the World of the Living."
"Really? Have I? I thought…" she said, seeming to feign confusion before adding, "It's just my natural thing, getting back into the swing of things after spending time in the World of the Living. Nothing too serious, I think."
"Hmm," Hitsugaya said. "You were working in the city the last captain was in before he died. Is there any special reason that you chose that particular city, or is that just a coincidence?"
Tanya seemed to think for a moment before saying, "Not coincidence per se. I was interested in looking into the situation. After all, he was the captain when I first joined this division, and I wonder whatever happened to him. All I ever heard was that he died."
Captain Hitsugaya nodded before saying, "Well, you are a third seat, so I could give you access to some of our more secure documents to look at the case yourself, but it really just comes down to a powerful hollow getting the edge on him."
"Was the powerful hollow ever killed?" Tanya asked.
Hitsugaya shook his head, saying, "Not much was left of the scene when we went in to find out what had happened. We think they killed each other, but it's always possible that it got away. I would rather think that he died killing it and then it got away, still out there somewhere. Creatures that can kill a captain are not creatures we want to reappear."
Tanya nodded her head before saying, "Of course, of course. Thank you, though. I might actually look through the records one of these days, see what I can make of them."
Captain Hitsugaya nodded and patted her shoulder, which required him to hold his hand up a little bit higher, before saying, "Feel free to come by the office to look at it anytime, Tanya. We all need to heal from his loss once in a while. He was a good captain."
"That he was," Tanya said with a nod as Tōshirō turned and left. It was a quiet moment; she seemed to be thinking about something before she rounded on me and said, "So, how's the report coming? What information have you gathered on this situation I required you to look into?"
"It's coming," Tanya Lehrgen said with a nod before adding, "though what I'm finding seems to just tend to be a repeat of 'a person breaks the law, a person relies on political context to not get absolutely ruined, or they could be absolutely ruined'."
"Yes, that's what I'm afraid we will find. We need to find some more precedents or something else that can be used in our favor."
"Our favor?" Lehrgen asked, trying to decipher exactly what Tanya was working towards. She would like to know at least something.
"Nothing you should worry about, Miss Lehrgen," she said with a shrug before adding, "A friend got herself in trouble. I'm doing my best to help her. That's all."
Lehrgen shrugged before saying, "Well, she got herself in trouble with Central 46. She might as well kiss her career goodbye. She'll be lucky to be locked up, and I mean it. There are some terrible fates that this Central 46 has dished out to anyone who broke the rules."
"Yes, yes. This is what I was expecting when I started this research," Tanya said as she shook her head, walking towards our office after picking up the paperwork that Lehrgen had on her desk with the information she dug up so far.
"Central 46 has all the power in this world. They don't want anyone screwing with those powers. They're justice will be swift and brutal, and they think that'll work for always."
"Won't it always?" Tanya Lehrgen raised an eyebrow as Tanya's hand rested on the door.
"They would like to think it will, but knowing what I know about human psychology, I think it won't. Sooner or later, being overly aggressive will just not work. It'll backfire, and badly, for Central 46."
Shaking her head, Tanya said again, "But hopefully that will be a long way off. Hopefully, we can just maintain what we have now and prevent the situation from becoming a big fuss. Or, someone will need to step up and stop them." Turning back towards Lehrgen, she asked, "By the way, I saw on your schedule that you're going to be busy later next month. What's going on?"
"Oh, Wilibald Koenig from the Eleventh Division is going out on one of his scouting missions to the area around central, clearing out any holes and such, and he put up a flier asking if anyone wanted to come with him. I cleared it with Captain Hitsugaya, and so I'm going out there to do a little bit of hollow killing."
"Hmm, good man Koenig. Stay close to him, and he'll protect you," Tanya said with a nod before turning back to the door. "By the way, I forgot to bring this up, but the editor over at the Ninth Division said that the last two envelopes with my contribution to the magazine have been unsealed. Can you look into that next time and make sure that it's sealed? They don't want anyone getting a look beforehand, after all."
Lehrgen's face went red as she realized that was a probable warning not to continue the look or at least to make sure to do a good job so the editor would not notice. "Of course, Tanya," she said with a nod, which seemed to do enough as Tanya nodded back and entered her office, leaving her alone.
Tatsuki was fuming, she admitted it. She was punching the punching bag harder than she should, kicking a lot harder than she should, and she was just generally being very abusive to the equipment. And it was because she had a lot on her mind, a lot of things that she was finally starting to think about.
Such as the ever-present knowledge that the afterlife was real; ghosts were real. You could see them, they could interact with you. All of that was, you know, new to her and she was having to come to an understanding on this that was hard to come to.
Over the last few weeks, she had been hearing things, things that she didn't see at the time. She had just thrown it off as random noise being picked up. Then it became clear and she saw Tanya for the first time, fighting a monster.
That had been interesting, to say the least. Mainly because, well, monsters are real and there's a class of warriors out there that are meant to fight them. Now that was a lot to take in, and so it had been a bit hard for her to come to an understanding with that. Humanity was not the only creatures in the world, ghosts exist, and there are also demonic-looking creatures that eat people, possibly, at least. She thought they ate people. Definitely looked like that spider monster wanted to eat her.
But it seemed like things had gone on and only got crazier and crazier, and basically, at a point, she just shut down on taking in new knowledge and just started to roll with it. For a bit, anyway. It had been 2 weeks since then, and she was starting to come to an understanding on the rest of that. Such as the ability of these ghosts to take human forms; Rukia was a ghost, Ichigo was apparently half-ghost through magic, and they were all fighting monsters to protect everyone at the school from being eaten.
Also, there is a distinct possibility that she had been ripped out of her body once and left as a soul. Yes, she was starting to remember an incident with Orihime and a ghost that she believed and claimed to be her brother, which was a bag of worms that she really did not want to touch.
But it seems like these creatures were getting more common; she had seen them a bunch now, and it was getting on her nerves that she really couldn't do anything about them. They could terrorize her and her friends, and she would have to depend on either Ichigo to step up or Akira to be around, which was a whole another mess, that one. Magical Archer people that apparently were at war with the ghosts, trying to protect humanity.
On one hand, she kind of wanted them to mind-wipe her of all this information because it was kind of hard to understand. On the other, she was also not pleased with the concept that she probably had been mind-wiped to try and forget the Orihime's brother thing. And considering she was now remembering that, it's very likely that even if she was mind-wiped because she could see ghosts now, it wouldn't hold.
She had to live in the world she had in front of her, and there was no going back. Ghosts were real, demon hollow things were real, magic archers were real. What's next, freaking vampires?
That thought came with a mighty punch on the punching bag in front of her, sending it spinning on its rope. Not wanting to damage the equipment too much, she reached out and grabbed it, and stopped it. She took a moment to gather her breath.
Her knuckles hurt. She'd been punching too much. Probably ought to focus on kicking for a bit. Shaking her head, she tried to wrap her head around this entire situation again. The world had gotten extremely weird, extremely fast, and she didn't know what to do about it.
Should she just pretend not to be involved in this spiritual stuff, or should she just accept that her friends were at risk, and because she'd seen this stuff, she was at risk? How would she even help in this situation?
Sighing, she took a step away from the bag and gave it a good kick, staying out of the way as it swung back before giving it another. She focused on hitting areas that she wasn't hurting.
The world was topsy-turvy, and she just wished she had some way of getting control of it again, some way of maybe helping her friends. Because this insanity was putting not only them at risk, but also herself, and all she could do was stand by on the sidelines like some damn cheerleader. She wasn't a cheerleader; she was a martial artist, for God's sakes. She should be the one protecting people, not standing around wondering if she was in the way. Annoyed, she grunted and kicked even harder into the punching bag, hearing a bit of a tinkle from the chain indicating that it did not like this type of abuse coming towards its held property.
She backed off of it, so it wasn't able to come back and hit her in its swinging motion, and leaned over to get a few breaths, holding onto her knees as she did.
"Hey, Tatsuki, are you okay?" came a voice behind her, causing her to stand up and look over her shoulder. She saw Orihime and Rukia standing there.
Shaking her head, "Yeah, I think I'm fine. Just…just working off some stress, that's all," she said with a smile, and she started to move over to the girls, grabbing a towel. She was going to have to get cleaned up before she left school today. "What are you two doing here, anyways?"
"Well, we were coming by to see if you were interested in helping us spy on 'you-know-who' again. She's going off on another date with Keigo," Orihime said.
Tatsuki shook her head before saying, "No, no, I'm not interested in doing that again. Every time, it's basically nothing. They go out, they have a lovely evening, we just watch them to see if they do anything stupid, nothing happens, and they walk home. And we can't catch up in time to find out if anything else happens. At this point, I think we can all confirm that whatever is going on there, it's probably just a date night thing."
"That's what I hope," Rukia said, "but I just worry that that soul is going to do something completely utterly random that's going to cause even more problems."
"She could just be having fun, or even, I mean, if you're a candy most of your life isn't it fun to be with other people and have conversations?"
Orihime chuckled at that before saying, "Yes, yes it is. Yes, we're worried she's doing something more than that."
"I think we're worrying too much then. After all, Tanya must have trusted that soul candy in order to let her use that body, right?"
"Yeah, I hope so," Rukia said, looking past her shoulder in the direction of the entranceway, probably trying to spot the couple before they went out on their next date.
"Yeah, we should probably not do that. How about we just go out and have a good after-school meal?" Tatsuki suggested. "Have a conversation that does not revolve around this spiritual stuff. Focus more on this world and such. Like Rukia, where have you been staying? If you're a spirit, do you phase out of reality or something for the night, or what's going on?"
"Oh, I'm staying at Ichigo's place. I sleep in his closet."
The silence was deafening as both Orihime and Tatsuki looked at her, jaws lowered in stunned shock.
"You're sleeping in his closet? Okay, in what world was this a good idea?" Tatsuki asked.
"But I thought it was a great idea when I started doing it. It keeps me close, and we were able to keep on mission. If a hollow shows up, I can alert him, and we can get right out there and defeat it."
"She does have a point," Orihime said, causing Tatsuki to give her a look.
"Yes, she has a point," Tatsuki granted before adding, "however, that point is silly considering the lack of personal privacy those two have. Like, what do you do when two have to get dressed in the morning? Haven't the others spotted you in this house? He has sisters. Would they not have noticed something like this?"
"Oh, I leave through the window most days. And as for getting dressed, usually he gets dressed, goes downstairs, and then I step out to get dressed and leave through the window and pick him up on the way to school."
"You've been picking him up on the way to school?" Tatsuki said, shaking her head. "I'm going to ask you a question, and please do not be offended. How are you this dense? It's 2001, people kind of have their own rooms and houses for a reason. Mainly that it's kind of inappropriate to be doing stuff like this if you're not a couple."
Rukia made a noise that indicated her displeasure with that implication before saying, "I'll have you know, I was born in the 1800s, and the culture of the soul society does not have such problems."
"You don't have modesty. What the hell is wrong with the Soul Society?" Tatsuki said with a shake of her head before Orihime spoke up.
"Wait, you're from the 1800s? Doesn't that make you nearly 200 years old?"
There was silence after that, as it had just occurred to Tatsuki that Rukia was a spirit and thus could theoretically be much older than she appeared, which was no more than 15 to Tatsuki. Looking towards Rukia in confusion, she was about to ask what was up with that when Rukia answered already.
"I am not 200 years old. I died when I was like five, sometime in the late 1800s, as a poor peasant girl. I didn't exactly have an exact date of when this was, these are just low ball estimates that I've come across since starting to study in this world, and I've only been active in the Soul Society for around 50 years, so not 200."
"You look good for 55," Tatsuki said with a nod of her head before thinking out loud, "hey, you died when you were 5 and you look like you're 15 now. How does time flow in the Soul Society?"
"Normally, we age differently," Rukia said with a shrug. "And I thought you said we were going to have a conversation not on spiritual matters."
"Yeah, yeah, that's what I want to do," Tatsuki said, shaking her head as she started to turn towards the lockers in the shower room. "I'm going to just grab a quick shower and let's go find somewhere to eat and have conversations that don't lead to weird rabbit holes."
"Sounds like a plan," Orihime cheered as Tatsuki walked over to the showers.
Jūshirō Ukitake felt death warmed over, which was better than he had been yesterday. It was a cycle of repeating illness that always seemed to come up this time of year. He gets sick, he gets better for a little bit, does some work, gets sick again, and then sooner or later, he'd feel strong enough to last out the rest of the year without issue.
It always worried his subordinates more than him, and he had a feeling that could be a problem someday. But he would admit it did feel good to have people looking out for him as he went through these bouts of illness.
And thankfully, he was through it, which meant he could finally get to work. And what work he had. Rukia was still missing according to his last knowledge on the subject. Tanya had gone through to find out information about what was going on. Hopefully, it was nothing too serious, though who knows? The world was a mysterious place, and anything could happen in the World of the Living.
That being said, he had yet to get a report on what exactly happened. Coughing into a napkin, all he knew was that Tanya had returned and given a report to the lieutenants, who had left it as a letter at the foot of his bed. They said that it was nothing too serious. How serious was it? Now that was what he was about to discover as he leaned forward and picked up the envelope, ripping it open with his finger instead of finding some blade to cut it.
Sitting up against the back of the bed, he looked over the report slowly, his eyes carefully taking in every aspect of what was going on and then stopping and doing it over again.
Apparently, she had nearly died on her first day in the World of the Living, running across a hollow that was a little stronger than she was expecting. It was a situation that had thrown her off her game. To be fair, that was to be expected. Being thrown off your game was something that happened when you ran across a human who could see you, as had been indicated in the report. What didn't usually happen was a soul reaper using their power to give it to another person. It was not an impossible thing to do. It was rare, and it had happened before, but it was against current policy. Even Tanya marked that as a big problem.
Jūshirō thought Tanya was overestimating exactly how big of a problem it was, but it was one that he would need to spend some time thinking on to exactly get the situation handled. He was just going to have to have a talk with the captain of the 8th division, Shunsui Kyōraku. He would know what to do in this situation, and he could be trusted to handle it. Especially if he happened to go through another bout of sickness in the next week or so.
A substitute soul reaper was a bit of a mess. The last one had nearly killed too many soul reapers to be worth ever making a new one again. It had caused the whole practice to be banned and forbidden. But extraordinary circumstances could be used to imply that it was needed.
It could even be used as a test run, to see if it was feasible with the right people. The last one obviously had not been the right person; someone just wanting power, but perhaps if they found someone who didn't want the power or had the right moral constitution to actually help people, it would be an acceptable practice.
That was something he was going to have to figure out. Thankfully, Tanya mentioned in the report that she was going to start looking into a legal procedure for this situation. So he could stay back here and rest for a bit, trying to get himself up to 100% for when this finally went to the next stage of the situation, which would be found out and taken to court. He had some allies in Central 46 over the years, though not a lot. Perhaps with some convincing, he could get them to come to the realization that this was worth experimenting with, at the very least.
It was interesting though that this individual, Ichigo Kurosaki, seemed to have a rather large pool of spiritual energy. That was not something you found among humans often. It may require some investigation to find out why he had this pool of spiritual energy. Was he possibly another "Fullbringer", like the last temporary soul reaper to gain these powers, or was it something else?
Coughing, he reached for a napkin so he didn't spill any of his blood on the paperwork in front of him. He didn't want to ruin the nice handwriting as he continued to read. An interesting thing, though, was the mention of some sort of event about to happen in Hueco Mundo. He had no direct idea what was going on there, but he may need to send some members of the 13th to the World of the Living to investigate and make sure there was nothing weird or terrible about to be unleashed in that little town.
Well, sitting in this bed wasn't helping Rukia. It was, in fact, not helping anyone right now. The only one who knew about this whole situation was him, and, well, Tanya. Someone had to do something. So he started to try and get up, only for his legs to nearly give out, causing him to start coughing again and grabbing onto a napkin to cover up the blood.
Shaking his head, he pulled himself back into the bed and resigned himself to having to wait until he was actually physically capable of helping Rukia. That's right, at this moment, he was in no state to help anyone. Perhaps he should send some sort of message to Tanya, give her permission and a mission to find evidence of a path to protect Rukia and this Ichigo kid. That would be the least he could do while he was stuck in this bed. Maybe he should also talk to the captain of the 10th and see if he could have Tanya assigned to the town Rukia was in and a couple of others to investigate this situation. He could claim that he needed another pair of eyes on it to figure out what was going on with this possible hollow in Hueco Mundo, drawing them in.
Yeah, that would probably work. Reaching for another napkin, he coughed again, then reached for a piece of paper to start writing letters. Maybe he was stuck in bed, but the pen was more powerful than a sword in this case.
Writers note: Huh… wait it's been two weeks… wait… wow… that means I've got to start watching Bleach again 'cause I'm now 9 chapters ahead instead of 10… NICE. Also things seemed to be moving in the World of the Living and Soul Society. Where they're moving well will see when the next chapter drops!
Edited by: Coltguy, L
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Reviews
setokayba2n: here the next chapter
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PasiveNo: than you for review
AnimeFan13579: ridiculousness is beginging
danj0929: know that feeling you would not bealive how manny short soitres are over on paces battles on my one shot thread
gallicyrica: did I say that? i know i said Keigo would never have chance over on space battles and that appeared to have been lie.
kingsj10: it bleach the whole franchise is about training