Chapter 38, Grande
"This is a nightmare," Tanya thought as she reflected on everything that had been happening since arriving in the World of the Living.
She had expected an easy mission, but why was nothing ever easy?
"Because you're the famed White Silver who ends up in the center of every battlefield, doing your best to defend against impossible odds," Tasha needled her from over her shoulder, her attitude unhelpful.
Since arriving in the World of the Living, Tanya had done nothing but kill hollows. However, there were way too many hollows for this to be a normal situation.
She had killed dozens of dumb hollows, if not more, and one or two smart hollows that had hung around, trying to take the opportunity to get as much food as possible while the getting was good. As a result, she was running low on energy, her cloak slowly dwindling to almost nothing.
She could break her sword sheath for a bit more power, but that would only last so long, and it wasn't going to do her any good in this situation.
When it comes to dealing with all those who are sent against bigger monsters, there are two kinds of fighting styles: those who have to have a bigger attack and those who are good at fighting multiple monsters. She personally was a middle ground on that, but even she had to admit that her skill was better at fighting one big monster at a time. Lots of little monsters would wear her down if enough fighting took place, and that's what was happening.
That's why she had detected the nearest concentration of spiritual power and assumed it was the orange-haired hooligan. She made her way over there, figuring that safety and numbers would be enough to fill in the hole that was her issue with dealing with numbers.
So far, it had paid off as they managed to kill every hollow within the park, at least every hollow that was charging them. However, with success comes problems, and that success had apparently drawn in a big problem. The sky was cracking as a large entity forced its way into this reality.
It was literally creating an opening between the World of the Living and Hueco Mundo, and not a garganta to jump from one to the other like most hollows. No, this thing was making a breach, literally weakening the bonds between reality. She imagined that if anyone were to charge through the hole at this very moment, they would actually go through directly to Hueco Mundo. It was not a great place to end up considering living human beings could not exist in that world.
The place was too full of hollows and negative energy. Even soul reapers would have trouble living there, but a human would slowly die there. All the positive energy of living would be drained out, leaving a shambling husk of a person before the body collapses, leaving nothing but a soul and a broken chain. And from there, well, it was a front-row seat to be turned into a hollow for those unfortunate souls.
But those were thoughts for another time. One thing was for sure, there was a Menos Grande slowly strolling into the World of the Living as if it owned the place.
"This is getting out of hand," was all she could say out loud as she watched the thing slowly move forward towards them before stopping and looking around, curious about the world.
"What the hell is that?" came the call from Ichigo and Uryū as they both seemed to be in shock at what they were seeing.
"Menos Grande," came the familiar voice of Rukia as she jogged up to them, stopping to take a breath as she appeared to have been running quite a bit.
"It's a Gillian-class Menos to be exact. They're bigger hollows. I've only ever seen them in books, and they are well outside our skill range. Does anyone have a way to contact the Soul Society?" Tanya asked, turning towards them. She noted that while she was looking at them, another individual with a hat and clogs was standing next to Ichigo, whistling as he held onto his hat.
"That's a big one," he said matter-of-factly before adding, "I wouldn't worry about having to contact the Soul Society. Knowing them, they probably already know that this thing has entered the World of the Living and are in a debate right now to figure out what to do about it. It'll take a bit, maybe 6 hours."
"Six hours?" said the humans of the group at the same time. "That thing is going to be in this town for 6 hours?" Ichigo continued on his own. "We need to go or else it's going to destroy everything."
"Not just that," chimed in Tanya, "the very presence of that being's spiritual pressure is going to start forcing people unconscious. And if they're not given medical aid or it's removed soon enough, it'll go beyond simply being unconscious and lead straight to death."
"Well, we've got to stop it then," Ichigo said, brandishing his sword and looking towards the monster, about ready to charge off and try to fight it head-on, causing Tanya to shake her own.
"As much as that's a wonderful thing to consider, the problem is that one of those is considered a threat to a lieutenant, and primarily they're supposed to be dealt with by a captain of a division. And none of us here are captains, so that's not very possible in my opinion."
Kisuke chuckled before saying, "Now, now, don't jump to your inability to fight just yet. After all, you are a third seat and Ichigo here is a spry fighter from what I've seen. You could probably give it a run for its money."
Tanya turned on him and pointed. "It doesn't matter if we can give it a run for its money. It's still a massive beast made up of who knows how many fallen hollow souls, capable of destroying large swaths of land by stepping forward. We have an untrained kid, me, and a couple of archers. That is not enough to stop that thing. Its healing and regeneration are too quick for our damage to do anything near permanent. So there's no way to kill it and there's no way to win."
Urahara turned on her with a smile before saying, "Are you sure about that? After all, you don't need to kill the Gillian. If they're severely injured enough, they will fall back."
"They will?" Rukia asked, sounding a bit surprised to learn this knowledge.
Tanya, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes before saying, "Huh, that's something that wasn't listed in any of the books I've read on the matter. One of those private things that only a captain would know, I would assume."
Kisuke Urahara chuckled again before saying, "Perhaps I just happened to have a large swath of knowledge from living a long life."
"He's totally lying," Tasha said, narrating what Tanya was already thinking. Rolling her eyes to the side, she turned to face the monster and said, "Alright, so if the beast can be injured enough, it might fall back. That's good, but how are we going to get high enough spiritual pressure to break through?"
She thought on the matter as she noticed that Kisuke Urahara's staff had apparently also joined the party and was currently trying to move people away from the park. 'That's good,' she thought, 'less people in the park means it's less likely anyone would be killed or exposed to what was about to happen.'
"I have an idea," came the voice of Uryū, drawing all eyes to him. Holding up his bow, he touched Ichigo's sword, showing a bit of a flare of energy as his arrow seemed to empower more.
"Ichigo has an unnatural amount of spiritual energy. A large amount, and he's always pumping it out. We can harness it as a weapon. I think Akita and I could possibly create some large arrows out of this and really puncture that thing. Hollows shouldn't be able to heal from our attacks very easily, and if all we need to do is damage it enough so it decides that it would rather not be hurt anymore that might do the job."
Raising an eyebrow, Tanya thought for a moment before finally shaking her head and saying, "Alright, that's the best option we have. Then let's do this."
"Hey, do I get a say in being turned into a literal battery for their use?" Ichigo complained a bit.
Only for Tanya to say, "No. I know you've come probably a bit farther along in your training, but we're going to need a lot of energy drawn from you to even cause some sort of damage to that thing. And with your attacks being more direct, AKA getting in stomping distance of that thing, the only option to use your abilities is to rely on range."
"Okay, that's a fair point," he just said before adding, "so how are we going to channel the energy into a shot onto that thing?"
"Well, I think all we need to do is have you hold that sword against my shoulder, and hopefully, that should work. I mean, all you need to do on your side is channel all your energy into your sword."
"Hmm, okay. I guess we could try that. I'm not very good with channeling, though I've been trying to learn, but it's still a bit of a hit or miss with how long my shields hold out. So, I don't really know if I can do that."
"Well, it's better to try and fail than to never try it all," Akita said. She came to stand next to him before adding, "though, I don't think there's enough room for both of us to just stand next to each other and the sword. So, you give it a shot first, Uryū."
Vaguely watching from the sidelines, Tanya took a few steps closer to Urahara, then said in a low voice, "What's your deal?"
"My deal? What are you talking about? I'm just here to help," he said with an amused smile.
"Yeah, sure. You can say that as many times as you want. The fact of the matter is, as far as I can tell, you probably have the ability to push that thing back all by yourself. So why, oh why, are you letting Ichigo put himself at risk fighting this thing?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just a humble provisioner of products."
Tanya raised an eyebrow before saying, "So you're saying your cover is more important than Ichigo's life?"
"No, what I'm saying is Ichigo can handle this a lot better than some would think from what I've seen. And I'm quite interested to see how this goes. If his life is in danger, I'll step in. His old man would kill me if I didn't, so trust me on that, will you, deary?"
"I don't trust people I don't know, and I don't trust people I do know sometimes either. The fact of the matter is, this operation has gone completely sideways. And at this very moment, it's very likely that the Soul Society has been tipped to this chaos going on. Someone's going to be coming through to investigate at this point, so what are you going to do then?"
"Well, I'm going to keep my head down like I usually do and pick up the pieces after it's over. I imagine you'll do the same, though I do wonder what game you are playing sometimes after all."
"Oh, I'm not playing a game. I'm just being very careful. Well, the dangerous place seems to be getting more dangerous as the days go on," Tanya said, brushing her hair back before adding, "I will admit some of those dangers are probably the same ones that drove you to this location, if my research is correct."
"Been looking into little old me, Miss third seat? I'm quite pleased to hear it. Oh, don't trust the records if I were you."
Tanya raised an eyebrow before saying, "Already didn't. Nobility has a way of making things more justified after an event. I don't know what happened, and I doubt the record of the events which I have been allowed to see in my research is true. All I need to know is that you're not going to betray me or Ichigo and Rukia."
"Would never do such a thing. I'm a good guy. You have my promise."
"I don't need or require your promise on that matter," Tanya said, looking at him dead in the eye before saying, "I already know that you're wanted. So all I need to do is track you down if you try it."
"Oof, scary. I'll keep that in mind, young Miss third seat. I won't betray you as long as our goals align."
"And what exactly are our goals, I wonder sometimes," Tanya said, one last fishing expedition as it were, to see what she could get out of him.
Smiling, Urahara shook his head before saying, "Can't tell you that. Afraid it's top secret."
Raising an eyebrow quite high, Tanya nodded before starting to walk away as Tasha spoke. "Does he mean top secret is the random term of phrase, or is he implying that he's still in the employ of the 13 Court Guard Squads here?"
'I don't know,' Tanya said mentally as they moved over a few feet towards where Ichigo and Uryū were working on how to handle the situation of channeling energy.
'If he is still working for the 13 Court Guard Squads, does that mean Captain Isshin is working for the 13 Court Guard Squads as well? Is this some sort of deep cover-up that we've stumbled into?'
'If it's a deep cover-up, who are they covering up for? What faction would have them hiding out in the middle of nowhere? The Central 46 is in the Soul Society, so it's not likely there's something going on in the World of the Living that would relate to the Central 46, right?'
Tasha thought for a moment before saying something that was already starting to form in the back of Tanya's mind, "We have an odd event going on right now where a Menos has found its way into the World of the Living, something that does not happen normally. We have an abnormal amount of spiritual energy in this area resulting in many people gaining abilities, including Ichigo over there, who apparently may be half reaper if Isshin Kurosaki is really Captain Shiba."
'And Grand Fisher did imply that he was working for someone several times,' Tanya said, remembering those brief moments of conversation she had with the monster.
"There's something in Hueco Mundo that is building up power, and it's affecting this region, not just in the ability of gaining power, but political capital as well. Could something be trying to form a kingdom in Hueco Mundo?" Tasha suggested.
'There's no evidence of that ever happening before, but then again, most records of hollows are just of the wild type. I don't think there have been any expeditions to Hueco Mundo, or if there have, their records are sealed to a level that a third seat wouldn't be able to read.'
"Unless...the captain of the 5th division had brought up some of the later forms of hollows in his conversation. Could he be in charge of expeditions to Hueco Mundo? Was he a partner in this operation with Urahara?"
'Oh, that just brought a pain to my head trying to figure that out,' Tanya thought, rubbing her forehead, she resolved to let this stand for now. After all, there's nothing she could do on this matter. Her obligation to the situation was simply to get Rukia through this criminal case without being entombed in some terrible fate that the royals wanted to throw at her. That's where it began, and that's where it ended. There was no reason for her to get involved in any secret operation to deal with some sort of rising power in Hueco Mundo. If she was ordered to go there, she'd go there, but she had no orders to deal with it, so she was not going to deal with it.
Instead, she was going to deal with the idiots in front of her who were still failing to gather enough energy to possibly pierce the monster's high spiritual pressure. If they attempted to try and attack that monster without a strong enough blow to it, it would just dissipate on the field as if it was a force field and this was Star Trek.
Looking back at the monster, she knew it was still rather just taking in the sights and not doing anything. However, that could change in an instant as the moment they attacked or raised their spiritual pressure, it would probably draw its notice, causing the massive creature to attack.
If they didn't take it out in one strike, it would be very quick to unleash one of its massive cero attacks back at its attacker, AKA everyone in a short distance around Ichigo.
She didn't know how much power a cero of that size had, but she didn't think her shield could hold out against it. Maybe if she broke her sword, she could hold out, but it was very unlikely. The terrible and bad choice was simply to use her own firepower and attempt to blast the thing as heavily as possible.
It was all or nothing. If they didn't all fight, they would all die. If the Soul Society was already observing this situation and saw her running away, that would be even worse. If they demoted her from her record, then the whole situation would be a mess.
No, her only option was to go all-in, and if it failed, she hoped that someone would step in to save them. She sighed and wished she had more energy to fight this thing, but as it stood right now, she had to work with what she had since she doubted that she would get permission to remove her seal in time.
Looking at the two mortal idiots, Ichigo and Uryū, she saw that they were still having an argument about his control over his spiritual energy.
Primarily, Ichigo was implying that he had no control whatsoever, while the other one said he needed to store up energy to release it all in one blast.
As she was a bit of a teacher on this sort of thing, she stepped forward and said, "All right, let's start from the beginning here."
As she stepped up to Ichigo, she said, "All right, you understand the sword is an extension of your being, correct?"
"What?" he simply said, sounding a bit confused about that. She understood how far she needed to push this. It was a lot easier to explain it using her own sword as an example, since she knew how that one worked, but who knew if it would work for him.
Shaking her head, she simply said, "The sword is a reflection or connection to your soul. We're not going to get into the extreme details of it, but you can use the sword as an impromptu energy channeling device. Normally, for soul reapers, this just happens naturally, but normally, soul reapers have years of experience and training, and they're officially dead, so they can actually feel their energy just by existing. You're not normal, so we can understand this being a problem. Of course, your problem is not as noticeable since you're just channeling energy 24/7, producing a large amount of spiritual energy."
"So, let's simplify this in terms that you should probably understand. Right now, you probably feel a steady stream of energy flowing through you, even if you don't really realize it. It's there. There are two ways to increase your power. The way that would probably give us the most devastating of outflows is trying to open the spiritual energy up and let more out as quickly as possible."
"So that's what I should be doing, trying to widen the channel as it were, to let more energy flow out," Ichigo asked, seeing me to get the idea. Using water was a good way to imply the stream, so I continued with that analogy.
"Yes, but there are going to be long-term effects if you go that way. The more energy you use, the larger the output of energy you may have in the future. It's a weird thing, but the more energy you use, the more tired you get doing something, the more energy you will have. It's like a muscle - using it more, the stronger it gets. The other method is to try and hold as much energy as possible, except using the flow that you have, and only try to create a reservoir of energy that we can use to shoot off this arrow. I believe that's safer because we're not trying to blow the dam gates on your spiritual reserves; we're just creating another reserve downstream and trying to use that reserve."
There was a slight risk, she admitted. There's a reason you don't build dams close to each other in real life. The collection of water at the foot of one dam could cause a weakness to the mountain around it, creating a collapse situation. The same could be true for this situation here. Trying to store spiritual energy in his sword before Uryū could channel it into his arrow could have the same effect, causing a dam break that would see him writhing on the ground as all the energy of his soul is literally forced through every orifice, all at once.
Well, that was a risk she was willing to take. After all, her spear could gather up a lot of energy from an opponent when she shoves a blade in their side. Worst comes to worst, she'd just bleed him for his energy, hopefully saving his life and maybe topping off her own for a bit. And if that worked, she would turn that energy onto the hollow and send off the biggest damn offensive spell she was capable of unleashing.
"All right, all right, let me give it a shot," Ichigo said, trying to do as she had said - channel the energy into his sword and hold it there. It actually began to glow a bit as he did that. Perhaps it was working. Perhaps she had unintentionally taught him how to use mage blade. Either was a possibility since that was a very similar operation. However, it was working, or at least appeared to be working, and that was the point.
Already, Tanya could see that there might be something to this plan as she could feel the pool of energy growing more and more as he kept focusing on trying to store it up. Granted, there was one small problem that she had miscalculated on, mainly that as he tried to store energy, he grew his spiritual pressure, which drew the notice of the creature we were trying to kill. Our time was now severely limited.
It turned its face and looked directly at them, which, considering it stood a good three to four stories tall, was not exactly a comforting sight.
Without much fanfare, she felt energy starting to pull in front of it and saw a red and black stream of power starting to grow in a vortex around its mouth.
"Crap," Tanya said, grabbing her sword sheath and shattering it, getting as much energy as possible before trying to grow as big a defensive shield as possible, in hopes of stopping what was about to happen.
With a thunderous blast, a cero was shot from the mouth directly at us, and only through her raised shield was she able to stop it from turning them into black shadows on the cement.
She did, however, end up causing the trees on either side of where they were standing to get flattened or uprooted, as the cero hit them instead. It didn't last long enough for there to be many of them to end up like that and only a dozen or so ended up damaged.
Tanya had been worried that her magical ability would not be able to hold a shield against an incoming attack from one of those creatures. And at that very moment, Tanya was very happy she had been wrong on that. The strain still made her fall to her knees, holding up herself only by her halberd with her cloak pretty much gone. The evidence was kind of apparent that she just managed to do that.
"Shoot the monster already," she called, already feeling like death warmed over and hoping that they could kill this thing or wound it enough before that became just death.
"Here we go," Ichigo said, touching his overpowered sword to the back of Uryū, and a moment later, a large arrow the size of a damn artillery shell flew over her head, smashing into the mask of the creature, causing it to back up a few feet.
Tanya heard both Rukia and Akita cheering at that as smoke came off the head. However, she wasn't celebrating, mainly because as far as she could see, it was still standing, which meant we hadn't destroyed its head, and it was still covered in smoke, which just felt like a dramatic reveal waiting to happen.
Turns out, she was right. As the wind blew away, it revealed a slightly damaged mess but not much else, but more importantly it was already in the process of summoning another cero, aiming directly for Ichigo.
"Well, this isn't good," she muttered, wondering what plan they could come up with in the few seconds they had before they were turned into blackened skeletons by the unleashed power.
Thankfully, that did not come to pass. While the powerful attack was unleashed, the destructive red energy coming directly for the group, Ichigo apparently still had some tricks up his sleeve. He stepped forward and hit the damn beam directly with his sword, which Tanya noticed had been encased in a mage shield.
The cero was splitting again around our party, though she could feel the energy rising at an extremely unnatural rate, not negative energy, but a positive one. Tanya could feel what was happening from where she was kneeling, as the dam he created to store the energy was overflowed by negative power, causing the natural dam he had, which allowed him to continuously put out a large bit of energy constantly, to collapse. It caused an influx of energy that was definitely on lieutenant level.
That would have been amazing enough, considering he was deflecting the attack. But no, no, he pushed right through it with a weapon that was meant for melee combat. Tanya was immediately sent back by a shockwave as the energy from the cero was sent back into the face of the hollow that had been attacking them, causing it to stumble back and its mask to crack down the side completely this time. It raised a hand to its face as if in shock before simply stepping back through the open hole in reality it had created, closing it on the way out and leaving the survivors all a bit confused.
"Huh, that worked," Ichigo said in amazement before collapsing in pain.
"What's wrong with him?" Uryū asked, stunned, as he stumbled over to Ichigo to check his pulse.
Pulling herself back up, Tanya used the halberd to get over to Ichigo before saying, "I had to make it simple. He's currently experiencing all the energy that is in his system wanting to leave his body at once. We need to do something to help him get rid of all that energy, or else he's going to die."
"Did you know that was going to happen?" Akita asked, coming up next to Tanya and trying to help.
"Of course, I knew. It was a calculated risk. I hoped it wouldn't happen, but hey, it worked."
"Well, how are we going to save him?" Uryū asked as Tanya's halberd penetrated Ichigo's side, causing him to scream in pain.
Tanya looked at the two before saying, "My halberd can draw out some of the energy, and I can then use that energy to heal him afterwards." As she spoke, the cloak that was basically just a necklace around her started to reform at an extremely slow pace. She was not taking as much energy off of him as he was giving.
"You know, don't you? Quincy's have the ability to suck up energy from the area," Uryū said, catching on quickly. He stepped up and put his foot on Ichigo's shoulder, starting to fire off shots into the air. Akita nodded and did the same, putting her foot on his leg. By the work of the three of them, they were able to drain him of all his energy, causing Tanya to have a mini meltdown from going critical.
Once she was sure he wasn't going to explode, Tanya stepped back and withdrew her weapon before casting a healing spell on his side and collapsing onto the ground as well.
The others did the same, the pair of archers chuckling as they realized that they pulled it off.
Ichigo muttered something about not beating Uryū up before he passed out, which was probably an interesting story Tanya would try to get later. For now, she leaned back and said, "So now we can celebrate victory, I think, right?" she asked as she turned to Urahara, who was fanning himself while he thought.
He looked at Tanya before nodding in agreement, saying, "I believe that's correct. The situation is now in hand." This raised Tanya's suspicions even more with the way he spoke.
"Well, today was a rather nice and sunny day," Renji thought as he followed behind Captain Byakuya Kuchiki as they made their way through the streets towards the Central Building.
He would say more, but Captain Kuchiki was not one for small talk. It was very professional, and right now he was in a very professional mood.
Central 46 had called him in for a meeting, and as a lieutenant of the Sixth division, he was here as that was his duty.
What this meeting was about, he didn't know, but whatever it was, it had put the captain on edge. So he was being very professional himself, not wanting to cause any problems for the captain.
They had been walking for some time now in silence. However, that silence changed as they turned the corner to Central 46's main headquarters, and a few guards met them.
Nodding at them, Captain Kuchiki said, "Captain Kuchiki of the Sixth division. I'm here to speak with the representatives of Central 46."
The guard nodded and waved them through, allowing them to enter the main plaza, though they were not allowed to go further. Two guards held the entrance while a third individual, whose face was hidden by a white veil hanging from his guard uniform, nodded to the captain. He said, "Good afternoon, Captain. Sorry to call you in at this time, but I'm afraid we need your help with a situation."
The captain nodded his head before saying, "I'm always at the service of Central 46 and the law. To what may I be of service today?"
Being an unknown individual, most likely a guard captain of Central 46, nodded before saying, "Well, to be clear, a situation has been developing in the World of the Living, one that must be answered for quickly."
The captain of the sixth nodded before saying, "If this is a situation that must be answered forth, I will gladly step forward and deal with it. What is the issue, though?"
The guard captain paused for a moment before finally saying whatever was on their mind, seeming to be unsure of what reaction their words would get and afraid of what would happen.
'A wise move,' Renji thought, considering what he had heard had him ready to kill someone.
"It is believed that Rukia, your sister, has been involved in an illegal effort to create a substitute Shinigami and train them up to our standards."
"What?" was the statement that came out of Renji's lips, which got him a glare from Captain Kuchiki.
For Captain Kuchiki's part, he looked back at the captain of the guard and said, "Those are some terrible things to say to a man about his sister. Do you have evidence of this? I would not like to make an assumption without seeing the evidence."
"We do," he said as another guard came forward with a file folder. Taking it from the guard, he handed it to Captain Kuchiki before saying, "We have evidence that this unknown Soul Reaper has been active in the city that your sister was working in. They do not match any of our records, nor do any of our contacts have any idea who or where they came from."
"And they were involved in an incident earlier today that has drawn our notice quite a bit," said the other man.
Trying to not be noticed, he looked at the file folder as Kuchiki opened it, seeing that there was some orange-haired kid in a Soul Reaper uniform in one picture, and Rukia walking around in what appeared to be a Gigai of all things.
"I will admit, this doesn't look good," Captain Kuchiki said with a nod.
"Many of the Central 46 are worried that she is trying to break the rule about not interfering in the World of the Living by living a normal teenage life. Her records indicate that she died as a child, so that's when most of us come to the conclusion of why she has given away her powers like this. This has drawn a lot of attention and the question of who is responsible for the creation of this gigai has started a bit of an uproar as well. All of these questions about what is going on can be answered simply by bringing her in. If she refuses to come quietly, you do have permission to eliminate her if need be."
"Of course, they are criminals, and they will not come in quietly. I will do what is necessary," Captain Kuchiki said, as if the idea of killing his sister meant nothing. The look on his face may really have meant nothing. That was not a good sign. Shaking his head, Renji knew that he would need to get her to come in quietly and try to make it clear the danger she was in.
The Guard Captain nodded before saying, "Do this job perfectly, and I assume the Central 46 will be light on her charges. Just try to get information on who gave her this gigai, and kill this unknown Soul Reaper if he will not give up his powers quietly. A human should not have Soul Reaper powers. This has already been decreed. Handle it as you see fit."
Byakuya nodded his head. He flipped the page, showing what appeared to be a Menos Grande now with severe damage to its face.
"Is this the event that happened earlier today that drew your notice?" he asked with an interested eyebrow.
"Yes, that would be it. We believe those two worked together to defeat this Menos Grande, with another reaper that we are currently calling back for questioning."
"Another reaper?" Renji asked, drawing eyes to him from both the Guard Captain and Captain Kuchiki.
"Yes, a member of the Tenth Division has territorial hunting nearby where this incident happened. They appeared to have traveled to the scene of the combat to join in the defense of the World of the Living. They have yet to report back exactly what was going on and what their part in this story is, but at the moment the council is more interested in Rukia since that territory is hers. Central 46 will be investigating this other reaper through her own division."
"Hmm, strange. Why not send Rukia's Division after her? After all, if you're giving this member of the Tenth the benefit of her own division, why are you sending the Sixth after her?"
The Guard Captain thought for a moment before saying, "Well, it's simple. The Thirteenth Division's captain is currently extremely ill, and we don't want to worry him or cause an exaggerated effort to his problems. Central 46 was interested in just sending the Second Division after her, but the whole situation with that Menos Grande has them on edge and wanting answers. They decided that sending her brother would be better. A friendly face. Someone close to her. Someone she could trust."
Captain Kuchiki nodded briefly before saying, "All right, then. I will be on my way and deal with this situation as soon as possible. Is there any other intel you can give me on the goings-on?"
The guard captain shook his head before saying, "Afraid not. We know very little about what's going on. We are just simply worried about the outcome if these unknowns are allowed to continue as unknowns. The goals are simple, though. Remove this substitute Soul Reaper from the picture, bring back Rukia dead or alive, and bring us that body as well, as we want to know how it was created and who is behind its creation. Gigai should only be constructed through the Twelfth division and should not be out there in the World of the Living."
Captain Kuchiki nodded, then said, "These things will be done. Let Central 46 know that I've said this," before turning and walking right out, leaving Renji standing there for a second, wondering what was going through his head before running after him, not really sure what to say on this matter.
Renji didn't get to say anything as Captain Kuchiki spoke up this time as they walked back towards the Sixth Division.
"As soon as we get back to headquarters, schedule a trip to the World of the Living to that town," he opened the document for a moment before saying, "Karakura Town. We must find Rukia and this reaper as quickly as possible. I don't want to waste a moment of time on this situation."
"Of course, my captain, but what are we going to do when we get there?" Renji said, unsure about how they were going to handle this situation of Rukia appearing to have gone rogue.
"We are going to bring her in as quickly as possible. The faster she's in, the faster justice can be served, the faster this can be over with."
Renji nodded his head, understanding what he was getting at. Captain Kuchiki was most likely going to use his position as a captain to try and swing things so Rukia got a very light sentence. After all, why else would he make sure it was over as fast as possible?
"I do wonder who that Tenth Division reaper is, though," Captain Kuchiki said, bringing Renji back to the here and now as they moved through the back streets. "One of the Shinigami should have reported this situation immediately. Something about that doesn't feel right."
'Tenth Division reaper, was that a reference to Tanya?' Renji thought as he remembered something she had said to him before. She had made it seem like she was trying to help Rukia with something. That's probably what it was. Hopefully, whatever she had been cooking up worked because, at the moment, it was probably better to have a backup plan in case the lighter sentencing didn't work out. But why was Tanya involved with an attempt to make a substitute Soul Reaper?
For that matter, why was Rukia involved with a Gigai? She should not have one of those, and did Tanya know about this?
Hopefully, whatever she knew about would be able to help in this situation. She was a good fighter, and hopefully she put her claim to legal skills to good use. Renji had never seen her take on a case before, of course, but she always had said that she preferred the library to actual combat, even if he doubted that very greatly.
As they came to a corner on the long street that would take them the rest of the way to the Sixth, the captain of the Fifth Division passed them heading towards Central 46, giving them a nod. "Good afternoon Captain Kuchiki," he said with a smile.
"Good afternoon Captain Aizen." Captain Kuchiki nodded back, but that was about as much as the two said. Neither stopped on their course, heading directly towards their objectives.
What Sosuke Aizen's objectives were was unknown to Renji, though he would assume it had something to do with paperwork. What else would he be going to Central 46 for?
Shaking his head, Renji stopped focusing on that and focused on heading towards the Sixth Division headquarters. Whatever was going on with Rukia had to be the top priority. Everything else could wait until after that was settled.
After the disastrous afternoon, Urahara took over efforts to clean up the mess that had been created by, well, Uryū, who was still claiming it was not his fault and it was Tanya's soul candies' fault. But until she and Ichigo had a conversation with that soul candy, Rukia would just assume it was Uryū's fault. After all, he had been walking around with a tiny, fragile item that, when shattered, summoned hollows, in his breast pocket. Yes, he hadn't expected falling, getting slammed in the face, or whatever it was. Still, it did not absolve him of the fact that he had done something that stupid.
That being said, the situation was in hand, and the Quincies were sent off on their own. She helped Ichigo get back home, and everything seemed to be normal now. His kid sisters were having fun watching and talking about what happened on TV today. His dad was acting like a goof, and with the family happy Ichigo seemed to be at ease now, severely weakened but able to walk thanks to his ability to recover rather quickly.
With that all handled, there's only really one thing to do: get some sleep. Though that would have to wait, as Rukia announced by the side of the house under Ichigo's open window. She saw Tanya, looking a bit weathered but walking now.
"Hello, Rukia," she said with a nod as Tanya came up and leaned against the wall across from Rukia.
"Hello, Tanya. Good to see you again," Rukia said with a nod before saying, "Is there a reason you wanted to talk tonight after what we just went through?"
"Just wanted to make sure you were prepared for what's coming."
"You mean am I prepared for the fact that this has probably been picked up by the Soul Society, and they're going to send someone here to bring me back officially. I guess I'm going to have to be prepared. That's the simple fact of the matter. I knew sooner or later it would happen, but I was kind of hoping we'd get this situation all solved before it did."
"We had at least another month, maybe two." Tanya and I didn't agree. "In two months, we might have been able to figure out how to handle the situation or get your powers back. Now, we're at the mercy of whoever they're sending to pick you back up and bring you back."
"Hopefully, it'll be someone who's not after Ichigo," Rukia said with a shake of her head. "I didn't want him to be involved in this to begin with, and now this is getting even more out of hand."
"Afraid it's probably too late for that," Tanya said with a shake of her head before adding, "your little show on TV a few days ago, the ghost hunting adventure live performance, yeah, that caught Ichigo. I don't know about anyone on the higher-ups' side, but it's probably a good thing that the moment this incident was recorded because obviously a spiritual boom like that is going to be recorded. They're going to go through any records they have, and if they find footage of Ichigo, they're going to have questions. Hell, they're going to have questions when they see you in a gigai."
"And there's no good answers," Rukia nodded in agreement as she leaned back against the wall of Ichigo's house. Shaking her head, she thought about what to do. Should she stay and face whoever came or admit that there was no way the situation would end well and run?
As Tanya had said many times, even though she tried to disprove her, Central 46 didn't like things they didn't understand. Having a Menos Grande forced back by a Soul Reaper not on their records would probably be very unlikely to be understandable for them.
"Tanya, what do you think I should do?" Rukia finally asked, unsure of herself and looking for a friend.
"I've been doing as much work as I can to try and build a case for this being a justified incident. I think I have enough to maybe pull it off, but we'll need a fair trial. The only way we can guarantee a fair trial, I think, is by turning yourself in," Tanya said with a shrug before adding, "It's really the only option for making sure that when it comes to you, you appear to be as much a victim of circumstance than anything else. If you refuse to follow orders or try to fight back, that'll just make it harder to fight the case under the idea that what has happened here was all necessary under a stressful situation that you had no control over."
"What about Ichigo?" Rukia said, raising an eyebrow. "Do we have him turn himself in right away or try to keep him out of this situation?"
Tanya thought for a moment before saying, "You've not had any of your powers return?"
Rukia shook her head in confirmation, causing Tanya to nod. "I would prefer him to turn himself in as well. As I said when we first started this, he needs to appear to be willing to work for the Soul Society and be completely on your side. Otherwise, they'll put a death order on him or something of that nature."
Rukia nodded. "How long do you think we have?"
"Well, that depends on who they're sending. If it's someone who wants the job done fast, 24 to 48 hours. If it's someone who's just doing a job, maybe a week. Either way, on the off chance that you will not be let back to the World of the Living for a few years at minimum, you might want to say goodbye to anyone you've made any friendships with here, just for good measure."
Rukia shrugged, understanding what Tanya was saying before saying herself, "What are you going to do about all this, Tanya? I mean, you were probably detected or something when you used your abilities here today."
Tanya sighed before saying, "I'm supposed to be in the next town over. I have an excuse. I simply felt the appearance of a hollow and came to the aid of an unknown Soul Reaper and Rukia, a friend of mine."
"Do you think they'll believe that?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's hard to say," Tanya said. "My documentation is pretty much clean, as far as I can tell. Even if they don't believe me, I have your captain as a person who can clarify that I was helping to try and alleviate the situation before it went to the courts. At work, that just means I was trying to help a friend, which should denote friend loyalty to Central 46; something they should try and push for, not attack."
Tanya shook her head, saying, "It's a weak one, but its got decades of some defense to it, and bringing that up eventually would be bad for any case they try to bring against you. That's too harsh. After all, you were complying with my efforts to try and solve the situation, which will denote compliance to Central 46. It was just an unfortunate series of events preventing you from being able to comply. Accidents happen; punishments for accidents hopefully will be seen as a bad thing."
"Hopefully?" Rukia asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, hopefully," Tonya said, shaking her head. "You don't usually try for hopefully. You try to be a lot more certain than that."
Tanya nodded her head before saying, "I'd like to be a lot more certain than this. The situation is thoroughly out of my control; I'm simply a cog in the machine. So are you. We just have to make sure the machine doesn't decide that we're not needed. I've collected as much research on legal cases as I could, and with any luck, it should be enough to prevent them from going to extremes and, at most, just getting you reprimanded and prevented from coming to the World of the Living for a while."
"At worst?" Rukia asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Honestly, at worst, if my case works, you could be facing being stripped of your powers completely and expelled from the Soul Reapers. Left outside Central districts with the people who live out there."
"Ahh... so I would return to the streets. Well, I guess that's not the worst outcome."
"There is a worse outcome," Tanya said, shaking her head. "There are quite a lot of worse outcomes. They all require for my case to fail or for my case not to be heard. But let's not dwell too deeply on that matter, as that will just make it harder to pull off what we're going to try and pull off."
Rukia nodded her head and leaned against the wall for a bit, thinking for a few moments, wondering what she could do to try and improve the odds, realizing that there was really nothing she could do. She had done everything she could as best she could, and the cards she had been dealt just weren't working out.
Finally, she shook her head and pushed herself off the wall, offering her hand. "Thanks for the help, Tanya. Whatever happens, you're a good friend."
Tanya seemed a bit thrown off by that, but not upset, and got up herself, taking Rukia's hand and shaking it. "I don't know about the good friend part, but I'm going to do my best for you. I owe you for helping me get through the Soul Society. I'll do my best and make sure that you stay in the Soul Society, at the very least."
Smiling, Rukia stretched her shoulders before saying, "Well, guess we'll have to make arrangements with Urahara to have everyone's memories wiped. I'll give my goodbyes tomorrow, or at least as close to goodbyes as I can get." She turned to look at the window back to Ichigo's room before stopping and saying, "By the way, did you give permission for that not-Tanya soul candy to go to school?"
Tanya nodded before saying, "It was the least I could do on that matter. I figured it would be good to have a long-term cover. If something were to go wrong, back-up resources could be acquired through having an illegal living identity in the World of the Living."
Rukia nodded before then asking, "How about dating? Did you say she could date?"
Tanya raised an eyebrow with that before saying, "No, that was never specified. I never said no to it, but I didn't really think about that. Why?"
Smiling, Rukia said, "Well, you're probably going to need to have a good long conversation with that soul candy then because she has been dating one of Ichigo's friends for the last few weeks. I don't know if it's serious or not, but those two are always with each other."
"Hmm, I'm going to have to deal with that," Tanya said, looking a bit annoyed before saying, "Though I guess I didn't say she couldn't do that, so I can't be too hard on her." Before laying on the side of annoyance, she added, "I'll just have to convince her to break it off or find out how serious she is on the matter because right now we don't need that coming out and causing an incident either. It would undermine my credibility if someone is trying to make sure that everything is done as lawfully as possible," she said with a smile before nodding to Rukia and saying, "Good night and have pleasant dreams."
"Good night, Tanya," Rukia said before launching herself up to Ichigo's bedroom window and pulling herself inside. Once inside, she poked her head out and gave a wave to Tanya who was on her way down the alley. Where to, she didn't know, probably to deal with false Tanya though.
'Well, now this is interesting,' Rangiku Matsumoto thought as she looked over the order that had just come in from Central 46. Apparently, there was some sort of incident in the World of the Living, some unknown situation that had drawn their notice and had them up in a bit of a tizzy. And so, they were ordering a recall of all the Tenth Division assets currently in the World of the Living, particularly Tanya. She had apparently been near the incident when it happened and was a witness to whatever was going on.
"Tanya's in trouble with the 46th? That's not something you see every day. Oh, that's something you don't ever see." Granted, this was just a recall notice and to begin an investigation on whatever had happened, but it was still out of the norm for something Tanya would get involved in.
The question was, though, how they were going to get a message to Tanya to return as quickly as possible. She could send hell butterflies to do the job, but that seemed rather boring.
No, no. She had a better idea. Getting up from her desk, she walked over to the door leading to Captain Hitsugaya's room and knocked several times.
"Yes?" came the voice of Captain Tōshirō Hitsugaya, sounding a bit annoyed, probably because he was dealing with a little bit more paperwork than normal. Most of Tanya's little cadre of paperwork handlers that she built up over the years were currently out in the field and, without them here, well, someone had to do the job.
Opening the door, she smiled and said, "Hey, Captain, a document from the higher-ups just came in. They want us to bring in Tanya. Apparently, there's some sort of incident she saw, and they need her to give a witness statement on the matter."
The white-haired Captain looked up, raised an eyebrow before shrugging, saying, "Well, okay, just do it then. If she saw something, she saw something. I'm sure it's nothing important."
"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too," Rangiku said with a nod before saying, "I was just wondering if maybe I could go to the World of the Living and get her myself. After all, she could be injured, according to this report, a Menos Grande managed to break its way into the World of the Living for a bit, and she may have been involved in pushing it back out."
"What?" Captain Blank said, standing up a bit shocked. "She took on a captain-level threat?"
Rangiku nodded her head before saying, "With help, according to the document I was given. Either way, she's probably a bit injured and maybe not able to get her messages properly, and I just figured why not go over there and make sure she's okay. Bring her back if she's not. Even if she's not okay, I mean, I have to bring her back. But, you know, that I would possibly go to get her in the World of the Living."
The white-haired Captain made a sound from his throat that indicated that he was onto what she was playing at but said, "You have 48 hours to do it, 48 hours to bring Tanya back. At that point, I'm coming myself to find out what's going wrong. Make sure to get yourself debuffed while you're heading over there, and make sure to file all the paperwork, so this is as legal as possible. That's the first half of the deal. That sounds fine."
Rangiku Matsumoto nodded her head, saying, "Yeah, that sounds perfectly fine for the first half. What's the second half of the deal?"
Leaning back, Captain Hitsugaya folded his arms across his chest before saying, "When you get back, you have to do all the paperwork for the next three weeks."
"Captain?!" Matsumoto began.
But the captain cut her off, saying, "No, don't Captain me. I should only give you 24 hours, but you'll get 48 so you can have a little bit of girl time with Tanya. I know it's your plan anyways. You can also get the statement from her there instead of having to drag her all the way back just to get the statement. She'll be comfortable with you, and you won't have to worry about whatever the Central 46 version of interrogation is."
"Make sure she has her story straight," Matsumoto joked, causing Tōshirō to smile a bit.
He nodded, saying, "Something like that."
Giving a chipper salute, Matsumoto said, "You can count on me, Captain. I'll make sure she's prepped for the interrogation and completely back within 48 hours."
Captain Hitsugaya nodded and went back to looking at his paperwork before adding, "Also, you're not getting out of that paperwork. Do not tell Tanya she has to do the paperwork for you."
"I would never do such a thing," Rangiku lied, seeming more shocked than she was. She put her hand to her chest, and she was actually more annoyed because he figured out one of her ideas to get out of doing the paperwork. 'Oh well,' she thought. She shook her head, her currently blonde hair running down to her mid-back.
"Sure you weren't, Rangiku," Captain Hitsugaya said with a shake of his head before saying, "Alright, well, we've had our conversation." He made a hand motion and said, "You can get on with the job." She nodded, closing the door before doing a little dance as she realized at least something was working out for her.
She hadn't been to the World of the Living in 20 years ever since... well, she'd rather not think about that. Either way, with a smile on her face, she moved over to her desk and collected her sword and started to file the paperwork needed to get this all official.
She couldn't wait to hear what Tanya had been up to and why she was being called in, but more importantly, she couldn't wait to go clothes shopping with her. This is going to be fun!
Writers note: oh boy were just cooking are way thru chapters now, and plot firmingly moving things are going to start taking some interesting roads and i hope i can pull it off in next few chapters.
Please comment, review, and generally enjoy yourselves…
Edited by: Coltsguy
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Reviews
Carlos Andres Araya: thank you
danj0929: yes
AnimeFan13579: correct
evilstatistic19: here the next and i do not know
setokayba2n: ichigo to good for that
Fez8745: oh yeah there proable bunch people dead
kasicair : what...
