Chapter 33
'This was probably a mistake,' Tanya thought as she sat across from black haired girl who was basically holding her prisoner in a metaphorical sense. She was sure she could easily escape but ah the legalities of harming the living were not worth it.
Next to her was the orange haired girl, Orihime, who was boxing her in the booth they were sitting in and next to Tatsuki was Akira who seemed just to be happy to be there.
This meeting was taking place in some sort of diner that looked old, possibly dating back to the 80s and though she would love to escape it there was no real way for her to get out of the meeting at this point. At least the diner was fairly clean looking and as the waitress put several ice cream based treats in front of them she had to admit they did look pretty good.
She could not think of any time she'd actually had an ice cream based treat in the last 20 years, Soul Society was lacking on that front when it came to modernization. That being said she had been managing to dodge most of the questions of importance at this point. They'd ask her about the Soul Society and she'd simply given them a basic understanding that it was the afterlife. They asked about the monster and she said it was a monster and that was all she was going to leave it as but Akira had spoken up explaining that they were souls of the restless dead. Monsters that hunted the living with either large spiritual power reservoirs or personal connections to the person who had died.
It was about that point the ice creams had arrived and she had hoped to enjoy the milkshake she had ordered when the orange-haired girl asked a question first, "What happens to the souls after you destroy the hollow?"
"Depends on who's doing it," Tanya said before clarifying. "If I were to slay a hollow it is cleansed of its hollowness and either sent on to the Soul Society or if they were a truly evil soul down to hell."
"And if I do it they're just destroyed," Akira said matter-of-factly filling in the hole Tanya created by saying that there was a difference of outcomes.
"Is that a bad thing?" Tatsuki asked.
"If you believe the Soul Society it is," Akira said, raising an eyebrow for Tanya.
"As far as I'm aware," she began, "there's a tiny chance that it will slowly, over a long period of time, destabilize the universe as we know it, causing the Soul Society to collapse into the World of the Living which is a problem if you're really thinking about it."
"I will clarify that I have some doubts about this whole process myself but as far as the people who supposedly are in the know, know if the Soul Society collapsed into the World of the Living… Well death would no longer be a thing which sounds like not a problem until you realize that just means people don't die before becoming hollow. Imagine every serial killer, mass murderer, and loner with a reason to hate society getting the ability to become a monster. And that's the best scenario unleashing chaos in the streets. The worst scenario is the Big Bang the Sequel."
The three girls around Tanya audibly gulped before Tatsuki asked, "If her powers are so dangerous, why doesn't the Soul Society try to figure out how to, I don't know, figure out how to make her powers less dangerous to the existence of the universe?"
"I've been arguing the same thing," Tanya said matter-of-factly as she sipped a little ice cream through her straw before saying, "The only details I have able to figure out is there was a war between the Quincy and the Soul Society a thousand years ago and, well, enough people are still around from that conflict that the bad blood remains even now."
"Wait, is there a way for Quincy to use their power safely?" Akira asked, catching that Tanya had not thrown out the possibility completely.
"There might be," she said before clarifying, "a Quincy is a person of large spiritual pressure so theoretically if you were to make them a substitute soul reaper they would have access to soul reaper abilities and using their soul reaper abilities they would be able to cleanse the souls of hollows instead of destroying them."
"So what you're saying is if I were to become like Ichigo I would be able to fight the monsters."
Tanya made a hum of annoyance but didn't get to make a comment as Tatsuki spoke up saying, "Wait wait did you just say Ichigo is a substitute soul reaper?"
Akira looked confusedly at Tatsuki before looking at Tanya who was looking back at her annoyed before saying, "I thought I'd done a pretty good job of trying not to explain what was going on with Ichigo."
"Oh," Akira said before realizing that she too was being asked questions about the world and would probably be spilling some information as well. "Ohh. Oops."
Tanya hummed again with annoyance before Tatsuki said, "So that's a confirmation then that Ichigo is wrapped up in this mess as a soul reaper right?"
"Perhaps," Tanya said, before adding, "but he's fine, he's getting the training he needs and the whole situation will be covered up soon enough."
"Uh huh," Tatsuki said, shaking her head before asking, "so we're just going to start seeing monsters now. What do we do about that?"
"The first reasonable question I've heard all day," Tanya said before continuing. "Hollows tend to attack beings of importance to them or with high spiritual pressure. You will most likely not meet that criteria most of the time, but if you look at it too long it'll realize you can see you which probably will tip it off that you have some spiritual pressure so do yourself a favor if you see a hollow don't look at it too long and just start walking the other way and then run as soon as you get out of its sight lines."
"That's it? We're just supposed to run away," Tatsuki said.
"Well you can run to the first soul reaper you see and point in the direction of the monster but otherwise yes. You cannot defeat a hollow. You do not have the abilities. Very few people do. You would have a better chance of surviving a nuclear explosion twice than winning a fight with a hollow without powers."
"So we're just supposed to sit back and either be victims or lucky enough not to be killed. Can I say that your Soul Society sucks at its job?"
"That's a bit harsh," Orihime said, seeming uncomfortable at the conversation.
"Yes," Tanya said, "though in my opinion the resources are just being mismanaged, it would be better to arm the population here on the planet then rely on the limited soul reapers we have keeping both the Soul Society and this world clear of hollows, but rules are rules and we'll follow them no matter how foolish they end up being."
"If there's better options though, shouldn't you be pushing for that or something?" Tatsuki asked.
"I am but I'm doing it slowly. I'm a reformer not a revolutionary and getting people to realize that their system is not working as they think it should be takes time. The system was set up for the world a thousand years ago and back then the world only had about a billion people on it and didn't have the current rate of population growth. By 2010 it'll be somewhere close to seven billion on its way to eight not too long after. I would imagine the system they've created is going to get more and more overwhelmed as the years go on and sooner or later they will realize that the old system doesn't work. When they do figure that out they'll go through all their records on possible schemes to get themselves out of the inevitable problem and they'll find all my proposed theories, which makes full use of the ability of substitute soul reapers, Quincy's, and other offshoots of humanity that have been created over the years."
"Wait, there's something other than the Quincy?" Akira asked, tilting her head as she looked at Tanya.
"Yes technically there's two others but people just with large amounts of spiritual energy are not really considered their own thing just a person with large spiritual energy."
"… Are we going to find out what this other one is?" Tatsuki asked.
"No," Tanya responded before sipping her milkshake.
"Of course we're not. You are going to keep secrets, aren't you no matter what."
"The less you all know the better, Soul Society does not like the living interfering in its work. You're just lucky that in the grand scheme of things I'm a bit more tolerant. Some reapers would not have taken the threat of violence very well miss Tatsuki and would have not cared about the repercussions of harming you."
"Tatsuki, what's this about a threat of violence?" Orihime said, looking annoyed.
"I didn't threaten her, I just stood over her menacingly."
"Menacing a soul reaper, yes that's not an invite for a fight," Tanya said sarcastically. "Most soul reapers I know would have taken that as a challenge and put you to the test over such behaviors. You would have been lucky to end up in the hospital more likely you would have woken up in a bandit village on the outskirts of the Soul Society wondering how you got there."
"Good to know," Tatsuki said.
"Wait, I thought the Soul Society was all about protecting the living," Orihime said.
"They are, officially anyways but the fact of the matter is if a soul reaper felt like something was a threat to the mission, which is to destroy hollows, well if a soul wanders around the outer areas of the Soul Society claiming he was killed by soul reaper there's no real way for them to get justice on that matter as the justice system is not very well built to deal with that sort of situation. And the whole Quincy situation does imply that they prioritize the order of the world over the lives in it if something threatens the order."
"Yeah that matches the stories dad says about the Soul Society." Akira said, shaking her head as she took a spoonful of ice cream and put it in her mouth.
"Grandfather was always amongst those who said we should try and figure out a way to work with them but my dad was more worried about them based on the stories and always thought they were going to come after us if we ever appeared on their radar. He's warmed up to him over the years but really only just because you saved grandad all those years back so I think he's just granting you the exception and keeps an eye on the possibility of the rest coming for us."
"Probably for the best," Tanya said, nodding her head. "As much as I would like to believe they wouldn't do such a thing, paranoia is your friend sometimes. After all Soul Society is dealing with the cosmic nature of existence and when that is on the line the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
"… Did you just reference Star Trek?" Orihime asked, tilting her head.
"No you're imagining things," Tanya said giving her bog standard answer when people ask a question that was a bit too close to something she'd like to keep secret.
"No you definitely just referenced Star Trek," Tatsuki confirmed. "Does the Soul Society get television?"
Well that was not where she was expecting the route of questions to go but she would jump on that one to distract them from the area it could have gone.
"Yes, though it is still in the process of being installed. Modernization of the Soul Society is very slow."
"Hmm okay," Tatsuki murmured, nodding her head. She seemed to be okay with that answer. Which is good as explaining too deeply would probably be a pain that Tanya really did not want to deal with.
Finishing sipping her milkshake she asked, "Are there any other questions you want me to clarify that I am within my capabilities to talk about or are we done here today?"
"No way to get you to explain what's going on with Rukia and Ichigo?" Tatsuki asked
"No, I've already said that will not be explained."
"Is there any way we can help fight the monsters?" Orihime asked.
"As I already said you're getting into territory that is run by the Soul Society so now unless by some terrible chance you end up acquiring soul reaper powers, which would mean some soul reaper is near death and decides the best option is to unleash some rookie instead of anything else, that's unlikely to happen."
"Are we going to see you again after you're done with your mission here?" Akira asked.
"No idea but considering it'll be probably 3 months before we have this whole situation in hand it's very likely I will show up here once or twice just to try and get everything running in the right direction."
"Is there anything we can do to help Ichigo?" Orihime asked.
"Don't interfere in his life maybe," Tanya said with a shrug clarifying, "He's got enough stress dealing with everything that's been put in front of him as is. He'll come through it fine I believe but it's better to be somewhat centered and working toward your objective than scattered because you have people trying to help you without knowing what they're doing."
She was going to have to warn Rukia about this turn of events to make sure she was able to keep the girls from getting too involved. This whole situation was a disaster already waiting to happen and did not need more complex turning points that could interfere with the situation.
Letting out an annoyed sigh, Tanya continued, "The more you interfere, the higher the chance is that something would go terribly wrong. The fewer elements in the situation, the more control that can be put over it. Too many wild cards will result in an unknown outcome and right now the only wild cards in play are me and Ichigo in this situation with Rukia being at the very center of it all."
"With enough hard work and dedication I think we can get ourselves through this situation with as little stress as possible but if we start throwing in other cards and parties who have problems with Rukia already will just have more ammunition to throw at her."
Which was why even though Tanya was still not sure about Ichigo's father he would not be ending up in the reports. Yes it kind of looked like the old captain of the 10th and yes there had been a moment that almost felt like recognition though he had done a good job of covering it if he did. But trying to sell the idea that this substitute soul reaper was not a problem would go off ten times better if he was just a regular human with large spiritual powers. If he was actually the son of a captain of the 10th division who was believed dead, well that would just be so damn complex and result in a lot more investigation and possibly a lot more books being thrown at Rukia with maybe a few would go possibly in the direction of Tanya herself which she wanted to avoid as much as possible.
Better to claim she'd never met the man and had no idea in that situation even if it was not true.
That being said as she looked over the three girls they seem to be getting it into their heads in understanding that the more complex the situation the worse it would be. Well most of them did. Orihime seemed to be more focused on enjoying her ice cream.
Finally Tatsuki said, "All right I guess that's as much as we're going to get out of you then. It's better than nothing and at least we understand what's going on now." Shaking her head she got up from her seat and said, "If you want to run you can run off now though I'd be willing to buy you another ice cream if you're willing to continue talking."
Tanya nodded before starting to pull herself out of the booth. "No thank you Tatsuki, that was fine." Taking a moment to straighten her clothes as Tatsuki took her seat again she turned and gave a bow to the three. "I hope that I answered all your questions that I can answer and I guess if you come up with any more before I return to the Soul Society in a couple days you can contact Tatsuki as I'll be staying with her. Past that thank you for the ice cream and goodbye."
She started to turn but was interrupted by Akira speaking up saying, "Hey one more thing." She turned and wasn't prepared to be taken in a hug.
"I just wanted to give you a thank you for saving me all those years ago. Everything back then was a lot crazier and I didn't get a chance to give you a proper thank you."
Tanya didn't really know what to do with this so she simply patted the girl on the back and said, "It was just my duty I don't need a thank you."
"Then I'm giving you a thank you because I want to," Akira said as she gave Tanya a bit of a squeeze and a hug before letting go, "I could have died back then and I'm glad I didn't."
Smiling Tanya said "All right, I'll accept your thank you. Now go live your life."
The Quincy nodded and turned back to sit down in her seat and Tanya nodded to the three before heading off to her next meeting of the day; more training with Ichigo.
"Has Tanya ever been late before?" Ichigo asked as he checked his watch, a little bit surprised that their erstwhile combatant was not there yet.
Rukia shook her head and said, "I didn't think she could be late. She's usually early if anything. Then again I guess we didn't actually set up a time for these meetings per se. Whenever we arrive here she's just here."
Ichigo let out a concerned noise before shaking his head and said, "Yeah I guess that's a good point and usually she comes by school and gives us a warning about today's thing before we even show up here. Maybe she's just running late from having to catch whatever anime she's into."
"Ichigo she's a third seat in the Soul Society. I don't think she is reading manga and watching anime when she's not doing her job."
"Okay, what does she usually do when she's not doing her job then?"
"Well she trains, hangs out with her girlfriend, trains some, does paperwork, gets some training in… I'm not actually sure what she does when she's not doing her work. That's all I ever see her doing now. And training. That I see her doing I guess."
"She does a lot of training doesn't she?" Ichigo asked dryly.
"She takes her self defense very seriously from what I've seen. I mean not many people can go up against some of the lieutenants of the Soul Society without already being at lieutenants and well she's gone up against one at least in a sparring match."
"How'd that go for her?" he asked, kind of curious how his teacher had done in a mismatched fight.
"Double knockout, it was rather impressive actually we were able to keep out of each other's kill zones but able to inflict damage and helped me with coming to understand my sword a bit better," came a familiar voice from out of Ichigo's line of sight.
"Oh there you are," he said, turning expecting to see the black clothed teenage girl only to be somewhat stunned. Standing there was Tanya but she was not wearing the soul reaper's uniform. Now she was wearing a uniform not too dissimilar to his schools if not his schools exactly and that was not necessarily a problem. Well, her school uniform apparently was going to be the one that everyone was using to sneak around within the World of the Living.
No it's that the uniform just displayed something that was kind of hidden by the soul reaper uniform AKA Tanya was hot, and he had to do a double take to register that yes that mysterious warrior from World War 1 or 2 could probably compete with Orihime in one specific department. Thankfully he wasn't one to stammer, he was taken aback sure but he didn't let it show he thought.
"Tanya?" Rukia asked, sounding surprised to see her as she was and so was Ichigo though he would let Rukia lead on this one.
"Yes it's me, had a hell of a night last night," Tanya said walking forward shaking her head as she got into the open field they've been using to practice.
"What kind of a hell of a night?" Rukia asked as she tilted her head.
"The kind that leaves me wishing I could erase memories but more importantly nothing too dangerous."
"You didn't end up giving your powers away and are trapped in a gigai right?" Rukia asked which got a chuckle from Ichigo.
"No, nothing that terrible. I just got a body for the convenience of walking around really, do a bit of investigation on my own and handle a few situations that need to be handled as well as attempting to push you past your current training," she said locking her eyes on Ichigo
"What?" he asked, confused.
Tanya shook her head before raising her hand and created a shield using her spiritual pressure.
"There is always the possibility you will be attacked while in your human form. Now there's two options for that situation: get out of your body or fight back and as you are right now I would imagine fighting back would result in broken legs and a lot of pain if not outright death so, why don't you try and break through this shield without using your sword."
"So you just want me to punch you?" Ichigo asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Punch, kick, just attempt to actually hit me while I'm in a human form, there's always the possibility that in a combat your sword will be knocked away or your powers will be curtailed so think on your feet. Your sword's been knocked away and your soul reaper powers are diminished in some way. How do you defeat me?"
He shrugged before taking up a stance and then charging at her trying to throw a punch. Tanya simply dodged out of the way much quicker than he would have expected and immediately punched her shielded hand into his side.
He coughed and stumbled a bit but got himself turned around and kicked out at her side which she managed to block with both hands.
"Good counter assault," she said before taking a tighter grip on his leg, "bad implementation." With that she tossed him to the side causing him to go spinning till he fell into the grass.
He rolled for a bit before getting himself back up and then shaking his head. "Yeah I should have thought that one through."
Shaking his head he took another fighting stance and waited for a moment as he tried to figure out how to get through Tanya's defense. As long as she had that shield there any attack he used could be deflected and if he overextended himself it was more than apparent that Tanya would be able to grab his leg and make him pay for that.
He would need to figure out some way to get past her defenses… or maybe somewhere to lock her defenses. An idea started to form and though it wasn't a great idea it was one he was willing to try. After all worse comes to worst the only thing he did was manage to not get the hits and if better comes the best he might actually get past this little training thing Tanya was trying.
Breathing in and breathing out he tried to control his spiritual energy and tried to mimic what he'd seen Tanya do. Somehow she was creating a shield so try to make a shield. After a few minutes he was ready.
He attempted to punch and the moment he thought he succeeded Tanya's shield seemed to have moved with her hand. As he continued on he thought he saw something start to form there before his fist actually impacted, then it broke in his face hitting the shield and he was left flailing his hand a bit in pain.
"Good attempt," Tanya said, seeming to have noticed what he had been trying. "We'll call that a step in the right direction. Keep working on it. It might save your life someday," she said, shaking her head as she walked past Ichigo as he waved his hand about.
"How are you doing that, like I understand getting the people with a sword but making a shield out of spiritual energy is not exactly something that Rukia has ever covered," he said looking at Rukia wondering if she could explain.
Rukia shook her head saying, "That's actually one of Tanya's tricks along with her friends. I've actually never been able to figure out how to do it myself. If I had I probably would have saved ourselves a bunch of trouble with the whole situation we're in now."
Tanya shook her head, her ponytail flying a bit giving a look as if everybody should know this before explaining. "It's math, a series of math formulas trying to force spiritual pressure to run across this math formula to produce an effective set of effects. Of course there's the shield though there's other things that can be done with it."
"As for these math formulas, they can be learned. Yes, from me now but you can learn them from Rukia since she knows some of them."
"What?" Rukia asked, looking confused.
Tanya who shook her head before saying "Page 207 I think it is the book I gave you."
"Oh right, the book!" Rukia immediately ran over to her backpack and pulled out the book Tanya handed them nearly a week ago at this point. She quickly flipped through the pages before finding the app for the mentioned number and then said "The hell?"
"What?" Ichigo asked as he turned to see what was the problem. She stood up and flipped the book around, allowing him to see an algorithm of some kind that basically stretched an entire page not in small prints but definitely not in big print.
"How do you keep that memorized?" Rukia asked as she flipped the book back over and flipped through a couple more pages. "How do you keep any of this memorized?"
At that point Ichigo was interested so he walked over to get a look and, yeah every page was basically full of an algorithm or to explain how they worked as well as what they would do. There was of course the shield spell, another thing called a sensor spell and most interesting of all an explosive spell which caused his eyes to go wide and look over at the third seat. "You gave out a book with the recipe for an explosive in it?" was basically the only thing he could ask at this revelation.
"The US army gave out books in the 50s that told people how to make napalm. If anything this is less of an issue when you think about it, Way back then they were giving it to civilians. I gave it to someone who's possibly going to need to know this information."
Rukia shook her head before asking, "Okay is there anything else in this book we should probably know about?"
Tanya shifted her shoulders before saying, "It's a book full of useful information that I feel is important for being a soul reaper. I am currently a third seat based off of that information. Take that as you will."
Rukia let out a sigh before saying, "What you mean to say is you feel everything in this book is important and we should read it at all isn't that what you're saying?"
"Yes, yes it is. Having a good grasp of those formulas that are going to be useful for you in the future. I can guarantee that there's even a few for healing in there."
Rukia muttered inaudibly for a moment, shaking her head with a sigh before saying, "Okay well you've managed to peak my interest. I'm definitely going to have to go through this a little bit more intently."
Ichigo nodded his agreement. He wasn't exactly big on spell castings yeah but if it was just somehow understanding math it might be worth trying to figure it out. He wasn't terrible when it came to math, and having an advantage like that shield could be handy. If he had that shield when he was fighting Grand Fisher he wouldn't have been speared so many times on his sentient hair.
Although that explosive spell was a bit much it might also be useful. Tanya had been using them as some sort of land mine and the ability to put an explosive under your enemy's foot to slow them down was something that could save his life though how he would manage that was still up in the air.
Shaking his head he turned back to Tanya and said, "Well now we've got through your adventure of beating the heck out of me in the real world, care to move on to our regularly scheduled sword fights?"
Tanya nodded her head before saying, "Of course," and stepped away from us reaching into a purse and pulling out a Pez dispenser that it took a moment for Ichigo to recognize as one of the artificial soul devices that Rukia had bought which had had Kon in it. Without much pomp or circumstances she opened it and popped the soul candy into her mouth. There was a gulp and then there were two Tanyas, one dressed up as a school girl and the one who was dressed as a soul reaper.
The soul reaper Tanya looked over her hands and said, "Quite remarkable. This is the first time I've ever had a chance to use one of those soul candies and the first time I've had a chance to use a body."
She looked up at the other Tanya and nodded. "Well that's only slightly disconcerting," she stated before turning back to Ichigo and Rukia. "Okay so how should we begin today's lesson?"
There was a bit of a pause before Rukia asked, "What soul candy is that and where did you get it?"
Tanya raised an eyebrow before shrugging. "Mr. Urahara threw it in as a package deal. As for what brand I don't know, I've never actually paid attention to what brands of this stuff they are." She held up the "Pez dispenser and Ichigo noted that there was no head on it like there had been for the one Rukia had gotten.
She tilted her head unsure before turning to the other Tanya and asked, "What brand of soul candy are you anyways?"
The other Tanya gave a rather soft smile before saying, "I'm a Yuki model mistress soul reaper. How shall I be of service?"
"Hmmm well you can go stand over by those trees with Rukia over there Miss Yuki. I'm currently training. I need to go and I don't want the body harmed. We'll have a conversation on the matter once we're done here."
"Okay mistress I shall do that," she said with an attempted curtsy which was not easy with that skirt before walking past Tanya to go stand by Rukia.
Ichigo was immediately concerned. The artificial soul they got him from Hat and Clogs had been a bit of a disaster. Even if it did give them Kon it was only through sheer luck that they've been able to come to some sort of resolution that was best for everyone and now Tanya was getting one of those souls as well.
Granted, Kon was a mod supposedly different from this artificial soul so maybe nothing would go wrong. Well he thought that until the school girl Tanya passed reaper Tanya and that smile became a bit more demonic for a moment as if they were pulling something over on her. He was immediately concerned but the face returned to something more serene as she walked past him to stand by Rukia.
On one front he probably should tell Tanya about his concerns right now. If that artificial soul went on a rampage he'd probably have to deal with it. On the other hand if he did voice his concerns he would have to explain why he was concerned which would reveal Kon's situation as a modified soul. And that was something he didn't think would be a good idea. Tanya had already made it clear that they were on thin ice so adding more weight to the ice would probably not be good for the court case.
For now he would just keep an eye on the artificial soul Yuki and hope everything would be okay. Turning back to Tanya he was about to ask Rukia to give him a hand when Tanya said, "By the way, some of your friends ran into me last night. You might get some questions in the next few days about that I'd imagine. I didn't tell them anything major as far as I could do and I would recommend doing the same."
He blinked for a couple of seconds before asking, "Which friends and how much do they know?"
"Inoue and Arisawa. They were nearly attacked by a hollow while traveling with Akira and they both developed the ability to see what was going on so as you might imagine it was a bit of a problem I had to deal with."
Ichigo looked at Rukia and then back to Tanya before saying, "I think we can get Mr. Hat and Clogs to deal with this, he helped with clearing out people's memories before."
"I suspected as much," Tanya said, "though I'm not sure it will be that successful considering in this case they can continually see the dead. You may need to explain some things to them nonetheless."
Ichigo sighed in annoyance before saying, "Fine I'll deal with this as best I can, I'm sure they can keep this a secret."
"I'm sure they will," Tanya said. "I've explained all the details as well as how dangerous the situation is when it comes to the Soul Society not liking the living dealing with the dead. It should be more than enough and Rukia will be there to give you a bit of a hand I'm sure."
"Right, right it's good then," Ichigo said before turning to Rukia again. "A hand please?"
And of course Rukia was already behind him waiting to slap him out of his own body. He stumbled forward before turning, planning to grab his body only to find the other Tanya Yuki waiting there already holding his body steady. "I got it, master soul reaper." the not Tanya said with a smile.
"Right, just take care of it, move the body over there," he said with a nod as she carefully dragged the body away, laying it against a tree.
Turning back to Tanya he said, "All right let's do this," drawing the blade from his back.
"Yes, let's," Tanya said, drawing her blade from her side.
It was really amazing what a person can get away with when said person had their own person who could make fake IDs and had a knowledge of the legitimacy of some stocks and how they would go in the coming months at your back. Also having a safe house in the human world seems like a reasonable thing to get in Tanya's hands just in case this whole situation with Rukia goes completely and utterly the wrong way.
Tanya had only a few dollars to her name when she took on that body and probably still only did but when you have fake documentation it's kind of easy to play a bit of a long con with some financial institutions. In essence, over the last 48 hours she had managed to not only get an apartment and several bank accounts but she also knew about enough stock and companies that she knew would slowly grow over the next year to be able to pay off that initial money into the system.
Yes it was quite possible that this would all go horribly wrong and her estimation of what was going to be profitable in the long run would be thrown off by events not following the same path as she believed but come September she probably would find out. Terrible thing that will be but it's one way to know for sure. Either way Yuki Tanya would be set up to survive for a good long time. And as far as actual Tanya was aware the body didn't need much in the way of food. After all it wasn't exactly human so she suspected that she would be able to keep the cost to a bare minimum which has been the majority of her training to Yuki over the last few days.
She had taken those 48 hours to make this artificial soul a bit of a wiz kid with finances and she thought she had accomplished the basics as well as giving it plenty of things to research on the way, unfortunately there wasn't much in the way of internet at a cheap price but that'll change and should be able to get more financial freedom as time went on which meant she would have a secure bolthole here in the World of Living to retreat to and if she didn't ever come back well she guess Yuki got to live in a life of luxury on the teachings she gave her.
Although that being said she doubted that would be the end result of all this. The idea of getting another body for Visha and having a date night in the World of the Living was rather intriguing. She only had to figure out how to pull it off. She had been resistant this entire time mainly because it was a bit of a hassle to get a body but now she not only had one but a person Tanya could get a body from and legitimate government documents or at least legitimate enough that the government wouldn't look twice.
One thing she had to be happy about though was that the World of the Living seemed to be focused on Japan because she didn't think she'd be able to pull all this anywhere else. It was kind of a standard thing that some students would go away to other cities to learn from an institution that their parents approved of which meant she could pull off quite a bit with what she has been managing to do. People didn't have a reason to look twice as long as the money was good and sure she didn't provide money that would be an issue but she was using credit to get the situation started.
Given enough time it would all work out, she believed. Well, then again relying on information from the future was a bit of a shotty plan but it was better than nothing.
As for the apartment she'd gotten, it was nothing too grandiose, it had a kitchenette, a living room, a hallway bedroom, and a bathroom. More than enough room for her and plenty of room for Yuki since she would most likely be spending most of the time here she believed. She also set up a bookshelf with a few manga books that she picked up for good prices.
According to her calculations the first dividends on her plan should start producing money next month and if she chose to get something like a television it'll be up to her. After all, what good is a safe house if there was no money saved in that house so you could stay there. No use giving strict orders to only spend money when needed if things worked out.
There was one mental concern she had when Tanya started dealing with the artificial soul, after all it is a bit weird when one thinks about it. She was bossing around an entity that she technically owned which would make this slavery. However, on the other hand the entity known as Yuki would have no movement or money unless Tanya bought it and put it in the body.
That was actually a worse thought now that she was about it because you could imply that that was Tanya's child. Then again many family businesses for generations have been running off child labor so she was actually well within her rights to give her child a white collar job. Either way slave or child labor was an odd experience. Having to teach an artificial soul what to do and how to do it. She did consider breaking up this plan rather quickly but the possibilities were well worth it. Getting out of Tatsuki's house as quickly as possible was probably for the best. As continued exposure to high spiritual pressure was not good for the girl as far as Tanya was concerned, the longer it went on the more likely something unfortunate would happen be it a hollow attack or something unexpected, after all spiritual pressure seems to work on the radiation of the 1950s rule, either outright killing you or giving you superpowers and she'd rather not give Tatsuki super powers as that seems like a recipe for disaster.
"Mistress, I finished cleaning up the main bedroom," came, well, a slightly accented version of her own voice as Yuki Tanya stepped into the room and gave a bow.
Tanya nodded her head to her and said, "You know you don't have to call me that." "That" being mistress, earlier problems with the idea of this being some form of indentured servant set aside, that was just sort of a weird way to refer to people in Tanya's mind.
"Of course, I must refer to you as mistress mistress, it's part of my programming," said Yuki giving a smile as she shrugged her shoulders.
Shaking her head Tanya said, "All right then. Well, go arrange those notebooks I gave you into something you can easily read through and get ready for whatever you'll do when you're not attending to financial stuff."
Yuki Tanya nodded before bowing and leaving Tanya in the room alone who in turn picked up a newspaper to read through it. It was still quite strange to read headlines that matched up with her memories from all those years before, sure this isn't exactly time travel but it did feel like it.
'Do what I do and don't think about it,' came the voice of Tasha over Tanya's shoulder, reminding her that there were really three Tanya's in this little apartment when you really thought about it, not two.
Tanya let out a sigh before saying, "Not thinking about things is probably the right way to do it but I wouldn't be me if I didn't analyze things to some extent."
'Well that's one way to look at it. Another way is in a couple hours you'll be on your way back to the Soul Society to your nice little apartment above a coffee shop with your girlfriend."
"An hour after that I'll have to give a report to the captain of the 13th explaining how his soldier is currently trapped in the World of the Living due to a loss of power and how she's accidentally created a permanent substitute soul reaper which will probably be the start of a long and troubling investigation where I will have to dig up every court case ever done in the Soul Society about something like this to hope that I can find something to get them off scott free or at least with minimal casualties."
'Again, don't think about it,' Tasha said matter of factly. 'If you think about it you get concerned and if you don't think about it, well, I'm sure the world will work out alright.'
"Yeah and how do you know that?" Tanya asked, raising an eyebrow as she sat back in her chair.
'You know my true name, trust me the world will turn out fine if you just go with the flow on this one.'
"Pretty sure just having a name somewhat connected to mythological legends does not mean you actually have an idea what's coming in the future," Tanya pointed out straightening the newspaper before folding it up and putting it down on the table.
'Well do you have any way to handle the situation now?' Tasha asked matter of factly.
"No but I will-" Tanya started but was cut off.
'Then don't worry about it. You'll have plenty of time to worry about it once you're actually doing something. For now just enjoy the maid or whatever.'
Tanya snorted, "What?" as she tried to get her head around what the hell Tasha just said.
'I said enjoy your maid, after all what else are you going to do with her? She's your maid. She'll be cleaning this place up and doing some financial work for you. If anything you should go buy her a French maid outfit just to make this even more entertaining.'
"I'm not going to spend my limited resources on a French maid outfit for an artificial soul, I have to do financial information."
'Or get one for Visha so when you see her in this world you'll have something fun to talk about.'
Tanya laughed before saying, "I'll take that under advisement but it's unlikely to happen."
'Ah come on, you're not going to find things like this in the Soul Society. You take advantage of this opportunity and get something fancy for her to enjoy.'
Tanya let out an annoyed hum before saying, "Like I said, I will take that under advisement but I actually do not have the time for this," she said getting up from her seat. "I should probably be getting on the road to the gateway to the Soul Society."
'Aw you're no fun,' Tasha said. 'Come on there's plenty of stores to stop by on the way there. Let's get something that'll make you feel pretty.'
"Tasha I'm on a mission that's of the utmost importance to my career. Wasting time with getting myself cosmetics and neat clothing when I do not have the funding to pull this off seems very unlikely to be very successful."
'Ba, if only I could pilot that body I would make sure you get the nicest things. And you look so drab all the time.'
"I do not look drab all the time," Tanya said, annoyed by this insult even though she really shouldn't be. Probably just years of being a woman finally taking its effect on her mental status.
'Can't we stop by one store? One store and you let me pick out one thing for Visha! Come on, it's a simple deal! I'll even shut up for the rest of the day if you do it!'
'Oh how tempting,' was the only thought in Tanya's mind. She really would honor her word and shut up for the rest of the day perhaps. Opening her pocket she pulled out the small bit of money. It was a couple thousand yen but she didn't have the time when she really thought about it. She needed to get to the gateway and get moving on and in order to buy something to shut Tasha up she would have to get back into her body which would be a whole adventure on its own. Shaking her head she finally said, "We'll talk about it next time okay?"
The response was what she expected: a childish whine of 'Fiiiiiine' and the feeling that someone was rolling her eyes at her.
Shaking her head, she got up from her seat and cracked a few joints before calling out, "Yuki I'm on my way back to the Soul Society now. Don't do anything stupid okay, stick with your programming, don't talk to strangers, and make money in order to keep this place paid for."
Yuki called back, "Yes mistress," as Tanya shook her head and opened the door to leave. Time to return to the Soul Society and get to work on Rukia's defense case.
"So… you sure this was a good idea giving Tanya a body?" Yoruichi asked as he tread along next to Urahara.
"Oh it was the best idea I think," he said as he made a turn. It had been four days since they'd given the body to her and he had not gotten anything in return yet. Granted she had said she might hold on to it for her own needs which was a bit unexpected but something he can work with especially considering she'd used the soul candy he'd given her.
"That girl now has complete stock of the information and has now gone back to the Soul Society and will tell people about Rukia's condition," the black cat said matter of factly.
He just shook his head before saying, "Yes and no. I don't believe she will, at least not in a way that would put us in any jeopardy."
"And why is that?" the black cat asked.
"Because," they stopped in front of an old apartment building, "she's trying to protect Rukia as well. I can tell that just from our conversations. I have a feeling she's going to tell the captain of the 13th and no one else."
"Okay how does that help? Jūshirō Ukitake will know about it and is still in charge, wouldn't he just tell Central 46 or maybe the Captain Commander?"
"No, no I don't think he would. If my memories are right about him he'd be more interested in trying to protect his division so he might start poking around here and try to help Rukia recover her powers which is a problem but in the long run could possibly be for the better."
"You think you can make an ally of him?" the black cat accused.
"I'm an optimist so yeah I think I can."
"You know the moment he realizes you're responsible for a member of his division not being able to perform their duties he's going to come for you."
"Oh I'm sure of it but if I can convince him someone else's responsible or give him a good reason why this needs to be done I think he'd be fine with it," he said, walking towards the apartment building with some speed. Once there he quickly pressed the button that he'd been told to press and waited.
A moment later a familiar voice said, "Hello?"
Leaning forward he said, "Hello Yuki it's your old man here mind giving me access?"
"Ah of course master."
There was a beep and he stepped inside, Yoruichi jumping up onto his shoulder as he did so.
"That's the artificial soul you gave her isn't it."
He smiled and said, "What do people take for granted amongst everything that they buy from me? In this case yes it's a modified artificial soul, not a mod soul if you're wondering if there's another one of those floating about, no this one's half of a Yuki model and half of another model I had hanging about."
"Yuki, that's the second most popular one. The duck right?"
"Exactly."
"Aren't they known to be a bit flighty, scatterbrained, and, well stupid?" the black cat said, giving him the best approximation of a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah that's all true about the Yuki model. That's why I used only half of its material as well as another model and a little bit of my own ingenious work," he said walking up the steps to the third floor and heading down the hall to the room they had been told to meet up with Yuki.
"So what exactly are we doing here then? Has she been operating as a spy for you behind Tanya's back? That's a bit mischievous."
"Mischievous? No no no it's down right espionage but yeah she should, if my understanding of the technology is correct, have been gathering information for me and be more than willing to hand it over when we ask."
The cat nodded before asking, "And you're hoping that this modified artificial soul will have information that Tanya will have let loose so we have a better understanding of her?"
"Exactly," he said as they came to the door and he gave it a knock with his cane.
"Trust but verify. That's the plan," the cat said with a smile in its voice.
"No better plan," he said with a smile on his face as the door opened revealing Tanya or at least Yuki Tanya in a French maid dress. He blinked a couple times, very confused at this before Yuki spoke up.
"Good afternoon master and his cat. Shall I open the door further for you?" she said as she opened the door further so they could enter. He simply shrugged and entered.
"Good afternoon Yuki," he said, stepping in. "What's with all this?" he indicated to the French maid dress.
"Mistress Tanya was having a conversation with herself about how she would love to have one but didn't want to waste money on it. I disagreed on that and since she gives me plenty of money I thought 'Shall I get one?' and decided yes, yes I shall. I think she would look wonderful in it, don't you think?" she said, giving a curtsy. Giving him a rather good view of her cleavage.
"You didn't," the cat said.
"I didn't what?" Urahara asked, confused by the question.
"Shall I?" the black cat said with a raised eyebrow.
"If that was supposed to ring some bells it really didn't."
"So you did not knowingly use the Momone in this project. You want me to believe that."
Urahara shrugged and said, "Yeah I don't know much about the modern brands of soul candy. I just grabbed whatever scraps I had lying around to build this thing."
"Typical," the black cat said, shaking his head. "It could have been worse, it could have been Chappy. Those things are annoying."
He shrugged before saying, "Well beyond modern brand discussions let's focus on the questions we have for little Miss Yuki here," he said before turning to her. "Miss Yuki what can you tell us about Tanya's goals?"
The soul candy version of Tanya tapped her fingers to her chin before saying, "She intends to help Rukia, she is training an orange haired kid by the name of Ichigo, and talks a lot about math, too much in my opinion. I'd make a joke that she'll never get a date but apparently she's already in a committed relationship."
"Ah see we've learned something already, we've confirmed that she does intend to help improve him which aligns with my personal thoughts on the matter."
"Trust but verifying," the black cat said, nodding his head in approval before he asked his own question. "How come she left you out here anyways? It seems unwise to not have returned you to Urahara."
"Oh she intends to use me to create a safe house in case everything goes to hell and she needs to flee the Soul Society."
The cat and Urahara both blinked and unison before the cat spoke up. "Well she's apparently paranoid."
"Yeah, this is also useful information. She expects the possibility that this could go bad. Now why would she suspect that?"
"Probably because she's done more than 20 minutes of history research," the cat said matter of factly.
"True though this does fulfill a possibility of my theory," he said walking over to the nearby kitchen counter that looked over the main living area and taking a seat.
The cat jumped down from his shoulder and sat down on the counter saying, "And what theory is that oh mad shopkeeper?"
"Ever heard of the wild card effect? It's when something enters a situation that they don't know anything about but completely messes it up," he said as Yuki Tanya walked around into the kitchen area and started filling two glasses of water, putting them down in front of the cat and shopkeeper. "Thank you," he said, picking it up and sipping at it before continuing.
"Wild cards are dangerous in any situation. They don't know what they're doing and can cause a lot of mayhem. Unless you have an idea how to guide such a wild card it's best to avoid them. In this situation I think we can say that Tanya is definitely a wild card but one we don't need to worry about."
"Why is that?" Yuki Tanya asked, tilting her head.
"Because we're on the same side. Ultimately we do want to see the best for Rukia. It's just that we have different ways of doing it because of a situation that's best you don't know about." Just because he was able to get Yuki to tell him Tany'a secrets didn't mean he wanted it to go the other way so it's best to keep information that he didn't want Tanya to learn about to himself just in case.
"So what you're saying is Tanya is a wild card for Aizen," the cat said, nodding his head in amusement, "something he possibly does not have full control over and could screw up his plans."
"Exactly. We know he's already making moves to try and secure the Hōgyoku. Why else would he be sending hollows to attack Rukia and Ichigo. However what he will do now that this piece is on the board is still up in the air. How will it affect his plans? He probably already knows Tanya knows something's up with Rukia and he'll do something but what will Tanya do?"
"If she's under his power likely either nothing at all or be used against us. "
He nodded before saying, "Except we don't know the extent of his powers to control others but I don't think you'll have an easy time controlling Tanya. Something about her seems stubborn. If she was just a standard rule following soul reaper she'd already have turned this situation over to the authorities. She didn't and the moment she was given the possibility to flee the Soul Society she started making preparations to possibly do it. I don't think she's willing to believe those in charge when they tell her things. Why that is I don't know but it is curious."
Sitting back in his seat he asked, "Do you have anything that might explain her personality quirk Yuki?"
The body shook its head before saying, "The most I know is that she has an active conversation with her sword. Quite active, in fact that's how I learned about her interest in this," she said and did a little twirl again showing off the French maid costume. "Also these," she continued as she reached up into a cupboard and pulled down a set of notebooks. "She told me to study these and to act on them when the possibility for the action was able to take."
"Oh what's this?" he said. Reaching over to the notebook and opening he read the first few pages and tilted his head and confusion. Then his eyes widened as he thought he understood but couldn't quite comprehend it.
"What is it Kisuke?" the black cat asked, looking at him.
"Oh it's just supposed financial information dating to 2013."
"What?"
"Yeah that's pretty much my opinion on the matter," he said, closing the book. "Either she has a weird strategy for guessing future information or I think her sword might show her things that we don't normally see, possibly along the 4th dimension."
The cat looked at the book then back at him before saying, "Are you saying you think she sees the future?"
"I don't know what I think. All I know is that these talk about some interesting events that might have far reaching outcomes."
Turning to Yuki he said, "How would you like some investment money and help paying this place off?"
"That would be wonderful, master! Shall I go get the investment books that are not in the kitchen?" Yuki asked with a bright smile.
"Why did you program this soul to say it like that?"
"I didn't do that," he said, confused."
"I just prefer to say things this way," Yuki said with a somewhat more creepy smile showing a bit more teeth.
"Ahh yeah go get the investment books Yuki. I'll help pay for this place if you keep track of these investments that Tanya is recommending."
"Wonderful!" she exclaimed and stepped out from behind the counter walking into a nearby room that was probably the bedroom.
Turning to the cat he said, "Yeah I don't know what I was doing on this project. It was a rushed job."
"At least you're willing to admit that," the cat said, shaking his head.
Writers note: well what a wild chapter let see what we get this week: Tanya training Tanya, talking to some girls, and backstabbing mad scientists learning somethings up with her… I'm sure none of this chapter will have far reach consequences NO SIRY
Edited by: L, Coltsguy, Guardsman Pius, TheBattle Sage, Delta0, Sleepy Llama
Community edited by:
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
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Reviews
ksfb17: will do!
Eedura: have another
Spartastic 4: well your cought up till now
Mernom: she has been physically age 18 for like decade and a half now
setokayba2n: yep
Blaze199: you should have answer to that question now
Pathreader: hey that my JOB! :P
zanarkand wintercall: it going to be big
Wynn Silver: a moment of genuses i think
e10620ac: feel free join the fan discord and become editors causes that only way your going to speed this stuff coming out, i have 11 chapter already written ahead of this point i just need editors
jockinjock7: she is young but yeah it was her fuck up
Wynn Silver: well feel free check out the rest!
zubhanwc3: ahh thought about deiced it was not as fun