Chapter 39, Allies or?
Tanya
Tanya woke up with a start, not because she had a bad dream or anything, but because she sensed a literal change in the air, as if something too powerful had just arrived in the World of the Living.
It wasn't a hollow, but something soul reaper-based, probably a captain. It seemed that just from that sensation that slowly passed, her time to get Rukia prepared for the inevitable court case was up and someone was here to take custody of her, or at least to give answers about the situation.
Pulling herself out of bed, she stumbled into the living room where the fake maid Yuki was currently preparing a cup of coffee. Nodding, she grabbed the glass before saying, "Well, that's one unexpected boon," before sipping it down.
"Good morning, Mistress Tanya," the fake maid said, drawing her notice to her. Tanya should be tearing her a new one for engaging in some sort of relationship with an unknown party, but she was just too busy yesterday. She had walked into a battlefield made of the city and hadn't had the time to do anything but deal with the current crisis in front of her, and here comes another one, preparing to make sure that the day would be absolutely terrible for Tanya.
That being said, she couldn't really do much without the full story, not right now, as things were probably about to get extremely problematic for her operations to prevent Rukia from having any trouble.
The best she could do was shake her head and say, "I heard you're in a relationship with one of the students at the high school." The reaction was exactly what she expected: a slight stiffening before a nod of agreement. Shaking her head, Tanya simply said, "I'm not going to ask you to break it off, but you really should. I believe in freedom of relationships as much as the next person. However, I will remind you that anything you do could affect my life. I'd rather that not be a problem, and keep in mind that causing problems for the Soul Society will bring them down on you and me and having a relationship with a human theoretically causes a problem for the Soul Society."
"And that is really stupid of them," Yuki said with a shake of her head, causing Tanya to sigh before she said, "But I'm really not that deep in a relationship with him. We're having a little fun, but I understand my existence, Mistress."
Tanya raised an eyebrow before saying, "Well, if you understand your situation and you keep the relationship from getting too deep, you can continue it. Just remember, do not get caught."
"Yes, Mistress," Yuki said, nodding.
Tanya sipped her coffee, shaking her head before saying, "That's understood. Is there any information you'd like me to know before running off to deal with the current chaos that's going to be enveloping the city today?"
"Hmm, no, Mistress," Yuki replied.
Something about the way she said that annoyed Tanya, as if she was hiding something, but Tanya let it slide, shaking her head before standing up and brushing herself off.
"Will you need the body, Mistress?" Fake Tanya asked, asking a question Tanya had been pondering since getting up.
Grabbing the sword off the coat hanger and her hat, Tanya shook her head and said, "No, no. I'm going to have to make a stop over at whoever just popped up nearby my area, and showing up in an unregistered body will probably not help me convince them not to go full 'I am the law' on Rukia."
Fake Tanya nodded before saying, "Well then, I'm going to prepare for school. Is there any message you would like me to send to Ichigo and Rukia?"
"Tell Rukia that I'll probably be showing up with this person to have her taken back to the Soul Society soon. Tell Ichigo not to cause a mayhem," Tanya instructed.
"Of course, Miss Tanya," the fake said, turning and walking across the living area to the bedroom as Tanya opened the front door and stepped outside, closing and locking it.
From there, Tanya descended the stairs and walked out front, quickly trying to estimate the area where the sensation of a powerful signature had come from. She figured it was somewhere on the border of the district she was supposed to be watching over and the district that Rukia was supposed to be watching over.
Noticing this, she decided to go all out. Jumping up onto a power line pole, she began to quickly move down the street as fast as possible before jumping on a bus heading in the general direction she needed to go.
Speed was everything. The sooner she could get ahead of whoever had been sent to act as judge, jury, and executioner in this situation, the sooner she could get to work on trying to have this situation dealt with legally.
Continuing to move quickly, she found herself inside Karakura Town, watching the corners of the streets and occasionally seeing a face or two she recognized from being around the area when things went to hell yesterday.
But for the most part, everything was quite clear. Most students were heading to school, and most parents were off to their work, like the quiet town that did not deserve the amount of chaos that had been going on inside of it. Hopefully, with any luck, this chaos would jump off a hill with the end of the saga.
The sooner this part of the world could be brought back to a normal level the better for everyone and even sooner they could get Rukia fixed and Ichigo either depowered or brought in line with the Soul Society.
Hopefully, today would be the first step in getting this half done and not the last step in its attempt.
Surfing the buses for a bit longer, she quickly found what she was looking for as two obvious Shinigami were looking in the general direction of the local high school, where Rukia was most likely at this time of day. She hopped off the bus, jumped onto a nearby pole, and then jumped onto a nearby rooftop, landing just behind the two as they looked in the general direction of the high school.
Brushing myself off, Tanya stood up at her full height, still almost a foot shorter than the shortest of the pair. She was about to introduce herself when the red-haired one turned around to face her and said, "Tanya."
"Renji, well this is unexpected," Tanya said as the dark-haired individual next to him turned, revealing it was the most likely suspect in the situation - the captain of the Sixth Division.
"Captain Kuchiki," she said, giving a respectful bow. After all, not only was she dealing with a noble and a captain, but also Rukia's brother. This was good, mainly because she had a feeling that the best outcome would be able to be achieved with a few short words to explain the situation.
"You're the third seat, Tanya, of the Tenth Division, correct?" Captain Kuchiki said, to which she responded with a nod of approval. "Rukia has spoken of you before, fearfully, and as a friend."
'Fearfully? What was that about?' she thought before tossing it away. It didn't matter and she didn't care. Perhaps she'd given off a bad vibe on her first meeting; hard to say. Instead, all she said was, "I think we're on better terms nowadays."
"Oh, interesting. But why are you here?" he said, giving her a once-over.
"Rukia is a friend of mine. She saved my life once or twice, so I'm helping her deal with a current series of problems that have spun out of control."
"Are you implying you're aware of the situation at hand?" the captain said, giving her a cold look, one that gave Tanya a bit of a chill.
Turning away now would do her no good, as she had already dug her hole. She either had to dig her way out or fall into it at this point. Smiling, Tanya said, "The captain of the Thirteenth has me trying to solve the problem, yes."
The mention of the Thirteenth Division captain didn't seem to lessen the menace he was putting out. Perhaps the implication that this was somewhat of a sanctioned activity put him at ease. 'Well,' Tanya thought, 'better to keep things in the idea that this is a sanctioned activity then.'
"Hmm, then if this is true, would you mind explaining exactly what's going on from your perspective? We only have bits and pieces. The captain of the Thirteenth apparently has not reported his knowledge of the situation."
Smiling, Tanya said, "He must have not filed a report yet. He is a rather sickly man this time of year." There we go again. She noted a little bit of the menace seeming to leave the captain of the Sixth. Sure, she probably just lied, but it seemed that the idea that the captain of the Thirteenth was trying to deal with the situation but had not reported it because of his sickliness was something of a soothing notion to the captain, and that was something she could use to try and get the best outcome.
"The situation is confusing, to put it best. Rukia was injured in a fight defending a human versus a hollow. During said fight, things were desperate, so she used the uncommon but still technically acceptable method to create a temporary substitute soul reaper."
"Unfortunately, as you probably know, things did not go according to plan. The temporary soul reaper seemed to have become a lot more permanent than was expected and drew a lot of Rukia's powers into himself. She has been trying to deal with this situation as ethically as possible. However, her own powers appear to have been greatly weakened, and she has not found a way to return her powers and remove his yet."
"The kid took her powers?" Renji said incredulously.
Tanya gave him a look and said, "That's one way of looking at it, though I don't believe that it was as cut and dry as that. From my meetings with the kid it's more than apparent that this was an accident, a major series of unfortunate events that have left both parties changed in ways that were not expected."
"Well, that's unfortunate," the captain of the Sixth division said, shaking his head. "I have been given direct orders by Central 46 to bring her back for an interview on the situation so that the courts can decide how to deal with the situation and to remove the kid's powers, as you put it."
'Well, that was unfortunate,' Tanya thought before saying, "Hmm, that's unfortunate. The kid, Ichigo is his name, could be a very valid resource for the Soul Society. I tried to float the idea of perhaps using my plan to get him legalized, meaning fewer problems would appear for Rukia."
"Hmmm, an interesting thought, but I'm afraid the legalities of the situation that have been made by Central 46 are quite clear. If I run into Ichigo, I am to remove his powers."
Tanya raised an eyebrow at that. 'That's not good because he just made it quite clear that he would remove the powers. I need to go, but the direct way he said it made it clear that he would not be hunting you down. That said, I could push forward with my plans. I simply have to make sure Ichigo does not and get involved in a fight and bring them in as a potential candidate for the court case later on.' Nodding her head in understanding at the captain's statement, she said, "Of course, of course, if he runs into you, you must remove his powers."
"On that subject of running into people, I assume you're up here trying to plot how you're going to get in contact with Rukia to have her be brought in."
"Yes, we were discussing the possibility of possibly meeting her sometime tonight," Captain Kuchiki informed her. "Though it would require tracking her down. We know she's in this general area due to the uniform and a little bit of information we've acquired from the Second Division on this matter."
'The Second Division had information on this town? That's a bit odd. I had seen one of their agents, though now that you mention it, I wonder if that was the point.' Either way, Tanya nodded her head and said, "Well, I can easily arrange this meeting for you.' With a smile, she added, "After all, if Central 46 has recalled her officially, she must return. We've been preparing the best we can, and I have been doing quite a bit of research into the matter at hand and believe I can present a rather reasonable court case to prevent this from going too far.
"Well, if you don't mind me helping you in this little instance, I could arrange this meeting so both sides are available and no chaos breaks out."
"Turn herself in without chaos, that would be good, I think," Captain Kuchiki said. "Yes, if you can achieve that, we would have a much cleaner situation."
"Why not?" Tanya said. "It would be an honor to work this out for you, Captain of the Sixth. Leave the situation to me, and I will ensure there is no more chaos than a simple transfer of a reaper from one squad to another."
Seeming to have ended the conversation, Tanya kicked off the roof and fell down to the sidewalk below, looking out to see them watching her as she headed off in the direction of the school.
"Today was going to be a struggle to get this situation under control, but if I played my cards right, everything would be all right," Tanya thought to herself.
She moved quickly down the street, taking a turn to get closer to the high school. Of course, as soon as she got there, she realized there was one slight issue. She couldn't exactly just run in there and yell at them about what was going on. School was in progress, and she would have to wait until lunchtime. "Oh well," she decided as she took up a camping status by a tree. "I might be forced to wait a bit, but this is a necessary conversation, so waiting is all right."
"Are you sure about that, Tanya?" Tasha said from the back of her mind, drawing her notice and annoyance.
'Oh, and why would waiting be a problem?' Tanya asked mentally. 'What do you mean?'
"Well, I mean, for every moment you wait, there's bound to be something crazy happening. I mean, for all you know, another hollow is going to puncture through somewhere, and the Captain of the Sixth Division will go fight it and get killed."
'Unlikely,' Tanya said with a wave of her hand.
"Oh, and that's just as unlikely that the Captain of the Tenth Division would get killed in the town next door to this too," Tasha retorted.
'I thought we'd already come to the conclusion that the captain was not as dead as we believed?' Tanya mentally asked, which simply got a shrug of "maybe" from the spirit she could feel.
"Perhaps, but then again, is that not an unlikely situation as well?"
'Hmm, let's not push this further than it needs to be. We already have everything working out in our favor right now. We simply have to wait 15 minutes, talk to them up on the roof, tell them to not get involved in the transfer, and that we will keep them up to date on the situation.'
"How are we going to keep Ichigo up to date on the situation? I mean, it's not like we can send a hell butterfly to him, so he's going to be left without information for what, a week?" Tasha asked.
'I have plenty of friends and agents I can use to send to the World of the Living to inform him of the situation, and if something goes wrong, he really shouldn't know about it to begin with.'
"Oh, what do you mean?" Tasha asked.
'I mean, by the rules of the Soul Society, humanity and the souls should not interfere with each other, which means he should not be informed of things that go badly in the Soul Society. He should be allowed to continue his life here in whatever state it is in. If I can't get Rukia out of harm's way, which I suspect I can, then, for all intents and purposes, drawing him in will just create more casualties in a needless disaster.'
"So, you'll let him know if things are going good, but you'll let him know if his help is needed. However, if things are going badly, you're just going to hang him out to dry and let him not know anything?"
'Exactly.'
"Tanya, that's some cold stuff to be pulling on that kid."
'Well, the world is a cold place. And besides, he's a kid. Leave these arguments to the adults.'
"Ha, adults. Most of the people in the Soul Society are a couple hundred years older than you."
'Tasha, stop that.'
"Fine, fine. Now look, your 15 minutes are up," she said, pointing to obvious movement inside the building, giving Tanya a good idea that classes were on break. So, kicking up the tree, she made her way to the roof and waited there, knowing that that was the most likely place to run into the pair of troublemakers she was looking out for.
She did not have long to wait as they soon stepped outside. Waving them over, the pair quickly saw her and walked over, Ichigo speaking first.
"What's up, Tanya?" he said with a wave as they came behind the stair building and out of sight of anyone else coming up to the roof.
"Well, good news, and bad news. I guess we should start with Rukia. A Captain of the 13th Court Guard Squads has come here to bring you back to the Soul Society for questioning on this situation."
"Oh no, I thought I was feeling something strange earlier today," she said, shaking her head.
"Good news, it's your brother," Oddly enough, Tanya had expected some other kind of reaction than the one she got from her, as she seemed to stiffen at that.
"My brother's here?" she said, almost drooping. That raised an eyebrow, but Tanya continued on, noting that for later conversation when she had time to question her client and why that could have been a problem.
"Yes, your brother is here, as well as Renji. They were apparently asked by Central 46 to bring you in, which I take as a good sign. If they were really wanting to punish you, they wouldn't have bothered bringing in a relative to do the job."
"Oh, okay," Rukia said with a steady breath.
Ichigo, too, spoke up, saying, "So, what do we do?"
"We do exactly as planned later tonight. So, if you will meet with them and turn yourself in, I've already arranged that this should happen. I'll go back to them and suggest near the park, as that place is rather open and easier to summon a gate after the little hollow incident from yesterday."
"Okay, well then, how about I go with her, then make sure she gets there safe and sound?"
"No," Tanya said sternly before continuing, "according to the Captain of the Sixth division, he is under direct orders to remove your powers if he sees you. I know it's the way he said it, which means he will not hunt you down. That's good for our plans, but it means that for this operation to be successful, you must not get involved in the transfer."
Ichigo looked like he was going to argue with Tanya, but he took a deep breath, sounding annoyed that she had made a good point. "Fine, I will not be involved in the transfer. I will walk her to the edges of the park though, there are a lot of weirdos at night," he said.
Tanya nodded, as this was a respectable thing to do. "Fine, you may walk to the edges of the park, but no closer. If they see you, there's a good chance they'll take that as confirmation that they need to remove your powers. And let me just say, currently the only way I have found to remove a soul reaper's powers involves either dedicated surgery or, well, severe injury. Neither would leave you in a good state unless someone comes along to bring you to medical aid."
Ichigo nodded in agreement, which Tanya took as an affirmative before Rukia asked, "Will you be there to see me off?"
"Assuming nothing insane happens, yes. I have nothing else to do now that this is all coming to a close," Tanya replied.
Rukia smiled and nodded before saying, "I guess I should probably think about giving everyone a real goodbye. This is probably going to be one of the last days I'll see most of them."
"Probably for the best," Tanya said with a nod. "We knew that this was probably going to happen the moment you showed up in the World of the Living, and now it's simply coming to fruition as was already expected."
Rukia nodded before saying, "All right, I'm going to go talk to the others and enjoy my last day. Talk to you later, Tanya, Ichigo." She walked off, leaving Tanya with Ichigo who shook his head before asking, "What are the chances your plan is going to work?"
Tanya raised an eyebrow at that, but she shrugged before saying, "Well, in order to make this as non-serious a problem as possible, I need to hold a court case that confirms that this was all an accident and not intentional provocation. Assuming Central 46 is in a good mood, which I'm going to guess they are since they were willing to allow her brother to bring her in, I think we have a good chance of pulling that off. Past that point, it gets complicated. She might be able to keep her career, she might not. At the very least, she'll live. You, on the other hand, is where it gets a little bit troubling. They most likely will attempt to have you brought in for having your powers removed. Perhaps we will go forward with the operation to have you challenge a few junior officers in order to prove that you are a worthy candidate to serve as a member of the reapers in the World of the Living."
"You sound unsure of that," Ichigo said.
Tanya turned her side before shaking her head. "The last known substitute soul reaper apparently killed several reapers for reasons unknown, but it caused a lot of bad blood and hurt feelings towards the idea of allowing humans to have spiritual power. Hopefully, it's been enough time that such bad blood and hurt feelings would have died down, but the fact is, it's probably the same Central 46 and the same officer corps who oversaw that incident. They're still going to feel burned by that incident, and they're not going to be willing to give it a try without a lot of work to show it could function as part of their system.
"If I understand what you're getting at," Ichigo continued, "I assume you're saying this could work halfway, but I might be a problem that will require a lot more talk."
"Yes, it's quite simple. If you're willing to give up your powers, it might be easier. But if you want to fight, you can fight. Theoretically, it is possible to even fight and lose your powers and have this whole situation pass you by. We just have to hope that things go right."
Ichigo nodded and then held out his hand. "Well, I hope that this goes right. I'll take it and be on my way. See you later tonight, maybe."
"Maybe," Tanya replied, as she jumped up onto the fence line before giving him a nod and jumping down to the street below.
How foolish Tanya was to assume a plan would go directly as expected. Here she was, planning to spend most of the day simply killing hollows and then show up in the evening to make sure everything worked out fine.
Surprise, surprise! As she entered Naruki City next to Karakura Town, she found that this was a mistake in thought as there was someone waiting for her.
"Hey, Tanya!" a very familiar voice, a very senior voice in the ranking of people that were important to her keeping her job, called out. Turning, she saw none other than Rangiku Matsumoto walking and waving as she approached, causing her to do a double-take as she had not expected to run into the Lieutenant of the Tenth division in the World of the Living.
"Rangiku Matsumoto!" she said in surprise as the woman quickly jogged up towards her, reminding her that once upon a time, she had definitely been male, and Rangiku definitely did not wear a strong enough bra for that activity.
"Hey, Tanya!" Rangiku said, coming up and clapping her on the shoulder as if they were old friends, which Tanya guessed, actually, yes they were old friends by this point. They'd known each other for nearly 20 years, so she should not be surprised by how close they were.
"So, how's my little sister doing?" Rangiku joked as she gave her a hug.
"Fine, Lieutenant Matsumoto," Tanya said, as professional as she possibly could. She tried not to think about where her head had been just a second ago as she was released from the hug.
"Oh, that's good, that's good. So, Tanya, a little bit of a thing showed up in our office yesterday. Seems there was some sort of big hullabaloo in this town next door, and as a result, all soul reapers are being recalled. Seems you were near whatever had happened, and they want you as a witness."
"Oh, well, that's interesting," Tanya said, wondering if her testimony would even be accepted, considering she was basically functioning as an advocate for Rukia, even if she didn't acquire full-out lawyership of the case.
"Yep, I'm supposed to come here and bring you home," Rangiku Matsumoto said, tapping her on the shoulder. Tanya realized that she probably was not going to make it to the return of Rukia tonight if she was to be escorted home right away.
"However," Rangiku Matsumoto said with a smile, giving her a look that told her she was not going to like where this was going. "I was able to convince the commander to give me 24 to 48 hours to bring you home."
"24 to 48 hours?" Tanya asked as Matsumoto grabbed her shoulder and started to walk with her towards the direction that would lead them to the downtown section of the city.
"24 to 48 hours of girl time with you! Yep, we're going to go enjoy all the World of the Living has to offer before we head back. I'm sure they won't mind if we're a bit late. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Well, quite a bit," Tanya meant to leave it at that, shaking her head, though as Tasha said, "Is it really? I mean, what would you being at the meeting tonight actually accomplish? Making sure she gives Ichigo a goodbye kiss, right?"
Tanya stifled a chuckle at which Matsumoto looked at her, wondering if she was laughing at the idea of 48 hours of girl time. She shook her head and said, "I just thought of something funny I saw earlier. But, girl time? That doesn't sound so bad. Yeah, we can do that, though I did have a meeting set up later tonight with the reaper next door."
"Ohhh, having a little bit of drunken escapades without me?"
"No, no Matsumoto. I was just hanging out with Rukia. That's all." The truth from some perspective? Yes, I was with you again. No, we weren't just hanging out, but Matsumoto didn't need to know about that just yet. It might as well play into her idea that we would have a girls' night. What's the worst that could happen? Force me to wear clothes? Drunken escapade? In both cases, we had no bodies, at least Matsumoto had no body, so anything we got up to, the people of the World of the Living wouldn't see.
All in all, at best, they would have nearly 8 hours of talking before breaking for a little while, and maybe if she wasn't drunk enough, Tanya would be able to walk over to Karakura Town Park and make sure that the handoff went without issue. If, of course, she was too drunk to do that, well, she would have to have faith that Rukia and Ichigo would not mess this up.
'Here comes the conclusion that Rukia is a bit of a screw-up.' Shaking her head, she said, "Alright, about taking me out on the town. Where exactly are we going first?"
Miss Matsumoto smiled before looking at a building in the distance and saying, "Bikini shopping."
"Wait, what!?" Tanya asked before she was pushed further down the street in the direction of what looked like a swimwear store. Her fear grew a little bit as she realized there was a lingerie store right next door. Perhaps it would be a terrible day after all.
Ichigo
Ichigo deflected the blade as it came at him again, doing his best not to get his arm ripped off by the slashing action of this shikai.
Things had not gone as Tanya had suggested they would.
Oh, did things start off right? It brought you to the park where you then waited at the edges of the park for a bit to see if he was needed in any way. He heard her scream and he knew he needed to get in there and do something. Except it's like the sort of issue that neither side saw happening until it actually did.
It would seem that Tanya had not negotiated that one side would enter from the west and the other side from the east, preventing both sides from running into each other in a situation that could not be stepped away from.
Rukia was somewhere in the park behind him. He was currently fighting this Renji character while Rukia's brother was standing off to one side, observing as his underling attempted to give Ichigo a lesser lease on life.
Ichigo hadn't even had much time to get an understanding of why he was under attack. He'd simply been standing at the edge of the forest when this red-haired maniac tried to grab him. From there, they exchanged a few insults before he drew his sword and demanded Ichigo draw his, which he tried to refuse, but the maniac came at him with a sword, and he had to defend himself.
And that's where they had stood for the last three minutes in a constant combat of him trying to block attacks while Renji kept trying to stab or cut him, something that had gone a lot easier since he revealed his damn sword's second form and attempted to whip that blade around with such a force that it sliced through him.
"Get over here, delinquent," Renji called as he attempted to decapitate Ichigo with the slash of his whip-like blade. Thankfully, training allowed him a little bit of understanding of how to deal with this, and he deflected the blade up.
Ichigo quickly withdrew his own blade when he realized that Renji's sword had enough dexterity to it that he could attempt to try and wrap his blade around his own sword in an attempt to pull it out of his hands.
He dodged out of the way of another strike as the rampaging redhead muttered something about him stealing powers. He couldn't hear it very much because he was too busy not getting cut in half.
As the blade came for him again, he decided to go a little bit offensive this time, blocking it with his own. He created a defensive shield around his right fist and punched the redhead, who had closed the distance, directly in the face, causing him to back off.
"Why are you trying to kill me?" Ichigo said, backing up himself, preparing to defend himself against the next attack. "I thought Tanya and you guys had a conversation on this matter."
"We did," Renji said, whipping his sword around. "But I think she misunderstood that you have to be depowered or killed. It's the only way for Rukia not to end up in trouble."
"That's not what I've been told," Ichigo tried to say before Renji brought his blade down, causing him to block it once again. But this time, he had an idea of how it works.
As Ichigo blocked, he attempted to give a slash at Renji's shoulder, hoping to cut him and force him to back off. However, at that moment, he felt something was wrong and jumped back, sensing that something was attempting to interfere in the fight.
Ichigo was confused before he noticed the tip of his blade was gone. If he hadn't jumped back, the entire thing probably would have been cut down to just a couple of inches in the handle. Looking up, he saw that Rukia's brother was gone from where he had been standing, and quickly spotted him now behind him to some extent, holding the tip in curiosity.
'He didn't even draw his blade from what I had seen, let alone move, yet somehow he'd gone from somewhere behind Renji to cutting my blade. He was too fast for my abilities to keep track of him very well. If I hadn't been paying attention to my spiritual sense, one of the things that Tanya had trained into me over the last few months, I'm pretty sure I'd be defensive right now,' Ichigo thought.
"Hmm, not bad," Rukia's older brother said. "It seems you've had some decent training for someone of your station," he said as he dropped it on the ground. "But I'm afraid whatever other option Tanya believes exists is unfortunately not what Central 46 wants. The law has been decreed that you shall not have your powers. The question is, will you fight or will you surrender?" Rukia's brother asked.
"Well, from my understanding, if I can prove myself in a fight, I can help Rukia. So yeah, I'm going to fight," Ichigo said.
"Hmm, so that's what you believe. Well then, prepare yourself," Rukia's brother responded.
What followed seemed to flow in an instant. Ichigo focused everything on keeping his eyes on Rukia's brother so he caught it when he began to make that flash step. He was able to bring his blade to block what was coming, well almost block. He watched as a bit more of his blade was removed, leaving him with only half a blade, and he could feel the next attack coming. With whatever power he had at his disposal, he tried to form a shield to block that one. His free hand managed to create a basic shield, and he saw a flare of blue light as Rukia's brother's blade hit the shield before it shattered, and the blade entered Ichigo's side, cutting deeply.
Ichigo grunted in pain and fell to his knees, holding the hole in his side. The only reason he wasn't completely down on the ground was that he had half a blade to hold himself up. But something felt wrong, as if his blade didn't feel like his blade.
Not only that, he felt weaker, as if something had been cut between him and his connection with the blade. Hearing the chink of metal on wood, he looked over and saw Rukia's brother walking towards him after sheathing his sword, looking him over before saying, "I have cut your Saketsu and Hakusui. Your ability to use soul reaper power should be neutralized, and you can go back to having a normal life. Count this as a blessing that there was an option to simply remove your power."
Renji came up looking rather insulted as he said, "I had that under control, captain."
Rukia's brother shook his head before saying, "No, no, you didn't. He was within two strikes of hitting you. He would have used the momentum of your blade to get it stuck in the wall to your right and then attempted to break your sword by cutting the connecting chords."
Renji shook his head, appearing to want to argue, but the look from the captain apparently silenced him, causing him to let out a deep breath and say, "All right, sir."
The captain turned and said, "Let's go find Rukia and complete our assignment."
"Yes, sir," Renji said, turning to follow as he went to move.
"Tell her," Ichigo interrupted, grabbing the captain's pant leg.
Holding on for a second, he breathed in and out a couple of times before saying, "You better make sure Rukia comes out of this unscathed, or I will come after you."
Renji gave Ichigo a look of confusion before smiling and chuckling. "All right, punk. Yeah, I'll make sure Rukia comes out of this unscathed. Just sit there and either die or find someone to help you. Well, if you have spent a few moments there, you'll probably be able to crawl home to your body."
Ichigo let go as he turned and started to actually think about that. He wasn't feeling good, and he was losing a lot of blood. Could he actually crawl home in this state? Would he be able to make it, or would he die on the way? That was a daunting and unpleasant thought.
He watched the two leave the area, heading further into the park. After a while, he could feel their presence along with Rukia's disappearing from the park, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Or at least, he thought he was alone until a small black cat sidled up next to him and looked him over before shaking its head.
"Well, you held out better than I expected, fighter boy," came in a gruff voice from the cat.
He blinked before saying, "Okay, that's a new one."
"Not bad," came a more familiar voice. Kisuke Urahara stepped up on the other side, looking down at him with a shake of his head. "Gotta say, I was not expecting things to go that terribly. I was kind of hoping Tanya's plan would work. Too bad you both entered from the same side of the park. I wonder why they had orders to enter from this side of the park." He shook his head before taking a knee next to Ichigo and looking at the wound.
"You got it pretty good," he said. "But you'll survive." He slapped the wound, causing Ichigo to moan in pain. "Don't worry, we'll get you back to the shop and get you all patched up. Then you can decide what to do."
"What do you mean, decide what to do?" Ichigo asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Do you want to take what was given to you, go back to having a normal life, and not worry about your friend in the Soul Society? Or do you want to hear how Tanya's plan has gone completely to hell, and most likely, she'll end up being arrested, and both of them will be sentenced for aiding in the creation of a substitute Soul Reaper?"
Ichigo blinked and said, "But her plan..."
"Was a good one when she was planning things out with the best outcome in mind," Kisuke said. "Let me tell you though, there are forces within the Soul Society aligned against her. The current order must be kept no matter what sacrifices must be made to ensure that order is kept, and the lives of two Soul Reapers and a human are a small price to pay for that order."
Ichigo didn't like what that was implying, not at all. But he was starting to lose a lot of blood and concentration. In fact, it felt like he was going to pass out at any moment. The best he could do was grab onto Kisuke's pants and say, "If you're implying that Rukia and Tanya are in danger, you don't even need to wait till I'm conscious. I'm in."
"Excellent," Kisuke said before slapping the wounded area again. Ichigo rolled onto his side in pain, starting to pass out, just conscious enough to hear him say, "Might have been a little too forceful on that one," before his world became darkness.
Urahara
"And he's out," Kisuke Urahara said with a shrug as little Ururu Tsumugiya came out of the bushes with her pseudo-brother. They quickly got to work putting Ichigo on a stretcher to be carried back to Urahara's shop.
"I see what you did there," Yoruichi said as she sat on Ichigo's chest, watching Urahara stretch.
"What? What did I do?"
"Oh, I don't know, imply that someone gave the order to the two agents of the Gotei 13 to enter from this particular side of the park, implying that there is someone pulling the strings of the divisions to make sure that this happened."
"Well, a little bit of misdirection is always a good way to get someone on our side, trying to explain the situation will just, well..."
"Make you look as evil as the man you're fighting."
"Yeah, that," said Urahara with a shake of his head as he twirled his cane.
"Going to have to ask this just to make sure, but you didn't have anything to do with the pair coming from the east side of the park instead of the west side, did you?" Yoruichi asked.
"What me no,I couldn't have intercepted a Hell Butterfly and sent a note saying that Rukia would be entering the east side of the park and haven't seen anyone else at all back to you written by Tanya." Urahara said with a nod.
"Hmmm," the cat did not look pleased, but all he could do was smile and say, "What can I say, my four-pawed little friend? I do what is necessary, and in this case, what was necessary was creating a bit of uncertainty in the captain of the Sixth."
"Uncertainty? I don't think he's ever fallen into that."
"Perhaps, but he's going to wonder why that butterfly came from Tanya, and she'll say she never wrote one. And he's going to be curious, and as things progress, he might start asking questions, questions that can make our operations a little easier."
The cat laughed before saying, "I don't think you're going to turn the captain of the Sixth to our side that easily."
"Neither do I, but I think I've turned Ichigo enough to our side." He watched as the pair of kids, or at least Jinta, grumbled and carried Ichigo away in the direction of his shop before shaking his head and adding, "Though, thanks to that, he will not like me one bit when this is over." He still thought that over for a moment. That was the problem with this game he had to play; you couldn't take things head-on. He had to play from the shadows, manipulate, and push things to go the way he wanted, which meant he had to burn assets the way he had just burned Tanya and somewhat with Ichigo.
This plan had been rather slapdash. He originally planned to interfere himself at the last moment to make sure Ichigo got in a fight with the pair, as the more enemies he faced at a higher level, the better it would be. But the perfect opportunity had presented itself, thanks to the third seat's meddling. Thanks to the cat and her ability to track the pair of soul reapers, he'd been informed of their mission parameters, which meant he knew exactly how to make sure the fight that he wanted happened.
Yes, there was a risk he could die. However, he didn't believe it would pan out, and now he was currently on a winning streak. But there's also a risk that his plan to restore Ichigo's powers would be a bit risky.
However, the amount of energy Ichigo was able to release fighting that Menos Grande made Urahara believe that the plan would be successful. Yes, his Saketsu and Hakusui had been cut, and theoretically, if he was a normal soul reaper, that would be the end of his career. The thing is though, he was not a normal soul reaper, now was he?
Even before you get into the fact that Ichigo was a soul reaper, he was a Quincy and probably, assuming that his current understanding of the Fullbringers was correct, partially them too, meaning he had two separate systems underneath the one that had been granted to him by Rukia and her failure to kill a Hollow several months ago. Two separate systems that could work as redundancies for transferring the power necessary to become a soul reaper. All he needed to do was give it a proper push in the right direction. It would either come back with his own new system or rebuild the system that had been cut. Either way, he could attain soul reaper status once again, which gave him two things that guaranteed a bit more success.
One, he was unexpected. The Soul Society thought that the rogue soul reaper was dead or wounded. Ichigo popping up would be a surprise, a surprise they didn't know how to handle. And two, he was quickly gaining power faster than most soul reapers could, which meant every time he fought from this point on, it would be close to failure. But if he pulled it off, he would just get stronger and stronger.
All Kisuke needed to do now was make sure that the kid was well-prepared and had a team. Thankfully, that part had probably already been solved thanks to the Hollow storm a day ago. He just needed to make sure that the team was prepped. Get those Quincy's and Fullbringers ready for a fight and unleash them in the Soul Society. Let the chaos reign and hopefully force his enemy, Sosuke Aizen, to overplay his hand.
"You know his dad's going to kill you when he figures out what you've been up to."
"Hmm, maybe," he said with a shrug, "but if I can successfully deal with Aizen, I think they'll be less inclined to strike me down."
"Maybe, but I still think he's going to beat you up for this. Misleading his kid into getting nearly killed not to mention the rest of your plans you've outlined. I don't know, I think he's going to blow a gasket."
"Possibly, but I can live with that," Kisuke said with a smile, twirling the cane as he turned to follow the group of individuals heading back to his shop. "I have surgery to perform to make sure the kid isn't completely done. Maybe attach as much of these soul reaper systems back to each other as possible, at least give him a better chance of pulling this off."
Tanya
Tanya attempted to roll out of where she was. Looking around quickly, she figured out she had apparently broken into a hotel room. By the looks of it, everything was still rather in good shape, so obviously, the majority of whatever they had gotten up to, they had not done here.
There was a counter on one side of the room with several bags full of clothing, which reminded her that she spent most of the day yesterday picking out various clothing items from swimsuits and lingerie to sports gear, both for her and Matsumoto. Part of the girl's night initiative she had wanted.
Thankfully, Tanya had quite a large amount of money at hand. So after they had theoretically stolen the stuff, they left money in the registers to pay for what they had taken. They should have to do the same for this place, considering even though they hadn't wrecked it during the night.
At this point, Tanya realized that both she and Matsumoto were sharing a bed. Thankfully, nothing was out of place, so she didn't think anything had happened. Though, Matsumoto was hugging Tanya to herself like she was some sort of teddy bear.
Mumbling, she tried to get free of the iron embrace of the second lieutenant but was unsuccessful.
Shaking her head, she tried to remember if she'd gone away at any point, but she couldn't really remember much. After they had done their shopping, they'd gone on a binge drinking pretty much every alcohol between here and Karakura Town.
If they had been seen by the public, she would have been embarrassed by some of the antics the pair of them had gotten up to the night before. But thankfully, they were not visible to the public, so they were pretty benign things to worry about.
She was worried about the fact she probably forgot to pay a few of those bars she had been drunk off her ass at for several hours. So she wouldn't put it past herself to have screwed up there.
Mumbling something, she finally managed to say internally, 'Tasha, you don't get as affected by my alcohol binges as I do. Mind telling me if I missed anything last night that I should know about?'
There was an audible yawn as Tasha pretended to be sleeping. Tanya doubted she had the ability to sleep, at least not in the way humans did. Tanya didn't know, and now she was very curious about that matter, but that would have to wait until after she had a report from her blade.
Continuing her yawn, Tasha began, "Let's see, after you left school, you went shopping, killed a couple of hollows, more shopping, killed a couple more hollows, then began the drinking saga, which most of the night was a couple of random hollows that the two of you basically tag-teamed to death. And then you flashed some guy because you were drunk."
'What?' Tanya asked, not liking that last bit.
"Ranguku encouraged you. Don't worry about it. You were drunk. She was drunk. You were just having fun. Besides, I'm pretty sure the guy was not spiritually aware, so he didn't know."
'Okay,' Tanya said, moving her hand to unwrap the iron claws that were holding her in place, finally getting free and rolling herself out of the bed. She landed with a rather loud "oof," which seemed to have done the job of waking up Matsumoto, who owned the room, and looked around the room.
"Looks like we had some fun last night," Rangiku said, sounding less hungover than Tanya, which was to be expected considering Tanya couldn't hold her alcohol.
"Yeah, I think we had a little too much fun," Tanya said, brushing herself off as she got up. "I think I missed the meeting I was supposed to go to last night."
"I'm sure Rukia is fine. Whatever meeting you had couldn't have been that important, or you would have scheduled it to be immediate and not several hours off," Rangiku replied.
She had a point, and Tanya couldn't deny it, so she simply brushed herself off and said, "Well, you're right there."
"I'm always right, Tanya, and you should listen to me more," Rangiku teased.
Tanya gave her a look that said she didn't believe that, which only got a smile out of Rangiku.
"Anyways, I think we've got another few hours of girl time if you want to put off going back to the Soul Society," Rangiku said.
Tanya reached into her pockets and pulled them out, showing that they were empty. "Afraid I'm out of money to spend on girl time. Need to go back to the Soul Society anyway. Besides, 48 hours is a bit of a stretch. Couple hours late? Yeah, that's fine. But people are going to ask questions at exactly 48 hours."
"Oh, you're no fun, Tanya. You need to break the rules more," Rangiku pouted.
Tanya shook her head, saying, "Rules are there for a reason. I might think some rules are stupid, but they're there and they must be obeyed."
Tasha spoke up at that moment, saying, 'Really? You're going back to this? Aren't you currently in the process of trying to break a rule about substitute Soul Reapers?'
'Not break,' Tanya mentally corrected her. 'Reinterpret. The rule was set in the more reactionary time, so I'm simply pointing out that it was an overreaction.'
Tanya could feel Tasha's skepticism, but she ignored it and continued getting herself ready for the day. She put her clothing back into its proper position as Rangiku rolled out of bed, halfway fed up and continuing to stretch, reminding Tanya that she was standing with her back to one of the largest racks in the Soul Society and that, yes, she used to be male.
Finishing getting herself ready, Tanya moved on to the bags, quickly stuffing them into each other so that they could be easily carried, before saying, "So how are we getting back to the Soul Society? Is there a special place that we have to use, or do they give you a gate key?"
Rangiku yawned before saying, "We're supposed to use the normal entrance over by those towers near the middle of the city. It should be open and available for us to walk out."
"I know it usually is," Tanya replied, leaning over to take a seat on the bed so she could pull her boots on as quickly as possible. "Well then, we should probably get going, I think."
As she stood back up, a Hell Butterfly fluttered through an open window and dropped a note on the bed before fluttering back out.
"Well, that was unexpected," Rangiku said, leaning over to pick it up and unfolding it before raising an eyebrow. "Huh, the demand for us to come back has been expedited. They want us back now. Rukia has apparently been arrested in connection to the creation of a substitute Soul Reaper. Why would she do that?" she asked with a bit of surprise and curiosity.
Letting out a sigh, Tanya said, "Probably an accident gone terribly, horribly wrong."
Rangiku immediately looked towards her and said, "You're aware of what's going on, aren't you?"
"I'm aware of something, yes, and I'm doing my best to handle the situation as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, it seems like I was a bit too drunk to oversee whatever happened last night."
"Alright," Rangiku gave her a look that said "don't blame me" before sighing and brushing herself off. "All right then, let's get back to the Soul Society so we can deal with whatever the situation is. And, while we're going, you can explain to me exactly how deep of trouble you and Rukia are in."
"Not that deep," Tanya said as the lieutenant of the Tenth walked past her, jumping out a window as she grabbed a bag of clothing and landed on the street below. Grabbing her own bag of clothing, Tanya jumped out after her, landing next to her.
"All I've done is try to help her deal with the situation before it became known that it had gone wrong and grab some information for a possible court case, in hopes of preventing this from being used to attack Rukia over noble issues."
"Right," Matsumoro said as they walked across the street, heading towards the center of town.
"Tanya, have you ever considered that you might be in over your head on this particular operation that you apparently engaged in?" Rangiku asked.
Tanya nodded her head before saying, "Of course, but I have some things that say that I'm not too far over my head."
"Such as?"
"The captain of the Thirteenth was aware of the situation and was having me operate in his stead to deal with it."
Rangiku nodded her head before saying, "Okay, that is something going in your direction. But maybe you should have, I don't know, let us in on the whole situation? We probably could have helped."
"Oh look, my Rangiku is talking sense. Oh my God, Rangiku is talking sense," chimed Tasha, trying to be annoying.
"Rangiku," Tanya said, "this is theoretically true. However, the more people learned about it, the faster this situation would have gone out of control. I was hoping to find a way to prevent an arrest from happening. If that had been accomplishable, there would be no reason for there to be a trial."
"Hmm, fine, but still, it's just a trial, Tanya, and Rukia is a member of the nobility. I'm sure she'll be fine," Myomato said.
"This assumption seems to go by everyone personally. Whenever politics and nobility are involved, I don't believe the trial will be conducted fairly. I could be wrong, but I would feel better for everyone involved if I had done what I did, trying to gather as much information and research to prove that the ban on a Soul Reaper's creation within humanity is an overreaction."
"Okay, so how exactly are we going to sell this overreaction being an overreaction?" Rangiku asked before Tanya replied, "Theoretically, my plan relies on the said substitute Soul Reaper meeting the challenge of other Soul Reapers within the division and claiming his loyalty to the Court Guard Squads. If that is successful, then hopefully there won't be many problems."
"And if it's not successful?"
"I'd rather not think about that," Tanya said with a shrug. As they arrived at the gateway back to the Soul Society, without much worry in her mind, she stepped through, planning to get to work and see if she could register herself as a member of the legal team.
On the other side, though, she found the captain of the Tenth along with several other members of the squad standing there, and he looked unhappy.
"Tanya, welcome back. Got some strange orders from Central 46 today."
She blinked before asking, "Strange orders?"
"Yeah, you're going to be put on suspension and house arrest, and you're to hand over your sword for safekeeping in my office."
"Okay, that was not a good sign," Tanya had to admit, and Tasha immediately was mumbling something about attacking anyone who would take her from my hand, so obviously, she wasn't happy about that either. Taking a deep breath, I said, "Well, that was unexpected, but if that's what orders have come down," she said as she unstrapped the sword from her side, turning it to face Tōshirō.
Rangiku stepped through the portal now, seeing what was going on, and asked, "Is everything all right?"
"Everything's fine," Tōshirō said, taking the blade before tucking it into his sash right behind his own, "just dealing with orders from Central 46. Rangiku, could you take Tanya back to her house? She is to remain there while the current situation is debated."
"Of course," Rangiku said, grabbing Tanya by the shoulder and starting to lead her away. She didn't say goodbye to the group and wondered what had gone wrong, because this was a bit more pomp and circumstances than "Hey, your friend's in jail, and you might have been involved in whatever was going on."
Tanya had a bad feeling there was something she had missed the night before.
Writers note: oh shit chapter coming out! Who saw that coming? Also look like tanya plans are going badly to be expected when there more player on the board then just her self. Well at least Ichigo seemed put up a better fight in this timeline.
Please comment, review, and generally enjoy yourselves…
L4: Coltsguy.
Coltsguy: Yeah? Need something?
L4: A Halloween idea.
Coltsguy: Why not do that one thing you had?
L4: …Okay.
Edited by: L4, Coltguy
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Reviews
David4796: things ae speeding up now
danj0929: will know in the next few chapters you are correct mawhahah
evilstatistic19: here you go
AnimeFan13579: a very good question perhaps it be used in court
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Phosphofinite: it begins
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