Chapter 36
Oh, how Ichigo could not wait for Tanya to return. He had been suffering through what could be best described as prolonged exposure to insanity.
The Yuki Tanya soul candy inhabiting the body Tanya had left around after she left had continued her relationship with Keigo, and the way they acted around each other was, well, somewhat sickening.
Not that he was against soul candy-human relations, no, that wasn't what was sick. It was just the cutesy couple stuff that those two would get up to and show off to everyone that was just too sweet for his taste.
Not to mention, whenever they were doing their couple thing, it was rather distracting considering he was somewhat worried that the soul candy was using his friend in some way. Also, knowing that probably would not be looked upon favorably when Tanya returned, there was no way to do anything about that. Instead, he just had to survive another month, maybe. Who knew when Tanya would be back? It could be next week, for all he knew, depending on how her research and legal mumbo jumbo went.
Well, it could be worse. At least hollow hunting had been rather slim recently. Where it had been almost two hollows a day for a while, it was going down to one every three days, which was good. He actually had time to catch up on all his work and get himself back in line with what he wanted to be doing. Hopefully, this was a sign that whatever was going on in Hueco Mundo was abating, and he could stop worrying about what was happening there.
Maybe he could focus on having some fun for once and not have to worry about all the things he usually worried about, like soul reapers. You know, in the short time he'd been dealing with their stuff, he was starting to understand why they probably didn't want people who were alive dealing with this stuff. It wasn't so much that they were worried about their power, but it was very distracting from their real-life activities.
It's a good thing he didn't have any clubs or anything of that nature because he was sure he would probably have had to give those up considering how often he had to run off to deal with the hollows or stay up late handling problems.
The only good thing about the amount of work he had to do nowadays was that technically his body was asleep when he went out to hunt all those, unless he put Kon in. That meant when he finally did get around to getting back to his body, it was often well-rested, and he didn't need as much sleep technically. Hooray for side benefits! He wondered if he could abuse that in a way, though. Could he step out of his body, let it sleep, and do homework? He hadn't thought about that, but maybe he should start bringing along a backpack when he goes out hollow hunting and do a little studying when he's on patrol. That maximizes potential study hours, at the very least.
"Hey Ichigo, are you going to the thing tonight?" Keigo Asano said as he came over, his girlfriend right behind him.
Looking over at the pair, he said, "What thing?" which got him the worst possible response he thought he could get.
The pair folded their arms across their chests and let out a "Hohoho," similar to what had happened earlier today when Ichigo's father had mentioned that there was going to be a TV show filmed in the town, and all he could do was let out a groan. "Don Kanonji," he asked.
"Yep, they're filming at an abandoned hospital down the road. It's going to be one of the biggest shows that's ever filmed in this town, everyone's going - well, everyone but the dead."
"Oh great, I guess I'm a zombie then," he muttered as he looked out the window.
"Don't be like that, Ichigo," Tanya said. She continued to stand next to Keigo Asano with her arms crossed across her chest. "It's going to be a fun experience. You should come; who knows, maybe some girl will be scared and jump into your arms. You might actually get a girlfriend out of this," she said with the most insidious smile Ichigo had ever seen in his life. This caused him to shake his head and say bluntly, "No, I'm not interested in going to this, and no, I'm not going to go just to meet girls. I know plenty of girls as it is."
"Huh, does that mean you already have a girlfriend?" fake Tanya said, with a finger to her chin, tapping it rapidly in thought.
"Hmm, I don't know. He has been spending a lot of time with Rukia recently. Could you perhaps be already hooked up, and yes, he's holding out on all of us with the information," Keigo said, kicking Ichigo's desk in annoyance.
"I am not in a relationship with Rukia," Ichigo said, grabbing his desk to prevent it from being moved anymore.
"I'm not sure about that," the fake Tanya said, still tapping away as she continued. "Those two do tend to run off together all the time. What are they doing when they're away? Should we follow them next time, honey? Make sure these two aren't getting up to any lewd and lascivious acts."
"Hmm, perhaps you're right, my dear," Keigo Asano said, putting his arm around her and looking at Ichigo suspiciously. "Perhaps we should follow them and find out what they do when they're running off to who knows where."
"Maybe I'm going to kick you guys in the face," Ichigo said, looking at them and shaking his head before adding, "And I'm serious about that. I will kick you. There's nothing going on between me and Rukia. We just have a job that we have to do."
Ichigo stared down the fake Tanya in particular, knowing that she should know what the job was and hopefully would back off.
Thankfully, Yuki Tanya nodded and finally said, "Oh yeah, I guess it could be true that way. They do say love blooms when least expected," she said, hugging Keigo before starting to walk away with him back towards their side of the classroom.
Ichigo, shaking his head, started to get up when Rukia appeared next to him, looking out the window as she said, "Those two are going to be a problem for us no matter what, aren't they?"
"More like fake Tanya is going to be a problem," Ichigo said, with a shake of his head. "Why did she leave that thing active? It's absolutely insane."
"That's a question I'm wondering as well. Perhaps it's not a problem, but then I've never seen soul candy used for long periods of time. Perhaps neither has Tanya, and this is just something that sort of happens when you leave them alone. They get creatively interpretive of the rules you set down."
"Well, at least Kon's not as bad as her."
"Hmm, I don't know. He seemed pretty terrible when we first got him. Perhaps the same will be true of this fake Tanya. We'll figure something out," Rukia said, shaking her head before she asked, "So what's this about some sort of television thing?"
Ichigo sighed and said, "Basically, some Ghost Hunters show is going to be filming in town. I've seen it once or twice because Dad and my sisters are kind of fans. It looks pretty dumb - a guy just walks around pretending to see ghosts for a couple of hours and defeating them or sending them to heaven or whatever."
"You doubt that that's what's happening," Rukia said with an eyebrow raised.
"Well, yes. After all, I've been involved in cleansing hollows, so I think I understand how the process works now. And I doubt the guy in particular has any ability to send spirits on to the soul society, so..." He shrugged, not really sure what to say.
"A good point, a good point. Though, I think we should probably go check this out ourselves. I mean, just because he doesn't have the ability to send spirits on to the next life doesn't mean he isn't doing something stupid. Perhaps he's harassing ghosts until they walk away and just assumes that that sent them on to the next life."
"Huh… that's a good point," Ichigo said, leaning back in his chair, thinking on that for a bit before he added, "Alright, I guess I was going to probably be dragged along to see it anyways. There's no way Dad and my sisters aren't going to want to see it. We'll go, and if there's any funny supernatural business, we'll deal with it afterwards. Sound like a plan?"
"A quite reasonable plan," she said with a nod before adding, "Also, we can keep an eye on those two to make sure they don't get into any shenanigans while we're watching the show."
"Sounds like a plan. Hopefully, fake Tanya just keeps being an annoyance at the current level. I really don't want to know how far she can go or how far she's willing to go to be a pain in my ass."
"Hopefully, it's not too far. I'm going to try and see if I can send a letter to Tanya to ask about the situation later today."
Ichigo gave her a questioning look before she answered, "Through Urahara. He says he has a service that allows you to send a message to someone in the Soul Society, so I thought I'd make use of it."
"Probably for the best," Ichigo said as he got up from his seat. The bell was about to ring, and they were going to be let out onto a short break. He was planning to get up to the roof to get a drink.
Unfortunately, as he was preparing to do that, Rukia's beeper went off, implying that there was a hollow loose somewhere, and they had to deal with it. Ichigo said, "Alright, let's go find this one," and started moving towards the door. The bell rang just as he put his hand on it, and upon opening it, he stopped and said, "Wait one moment." He looked towards the door suspiciously.
About a moment after he stepped through the door, it was opened by Keigo Asano, who immediately looked around, trying to find wherever he had gone. Unfortunately, Ichigo was standing right there and looking directly at him as he opened the door. As Keigo realized this, he said, "Not the face."
One kick later, that issue was settled, and Ichigo closed the door firmly behind them before heading up to the roof. There, he reached into his backpack where he stored something for moments like these and popped a little candy in, ditching his body so he could go fight the Hollows. Turning to look at his body, he said, "Keep an eye on Yuzu and Karin. Make sure they don't do anything to screw with me."
Kon gave a non-formal salute as he said, "Sounds good, boss. Will do."
Turning to Rukia, Ichigo said, "Alright, which direction should I start heading?" She looked at her beeper before pointing west and saying, "That way."
Nodding his head, Ichigo leaped off the roof and headed in the general direction that Rukia pointed to, hoping that this would not take too long.
Tanya smiled as she leaned back against the recently acquired couch in the living room that made up their shared apartment above the pastry shop. Today had been a rather good day; she had dug up a little bit more information about possible ways of removing soul reaper powers, as well as possible legal precedents that could possibly be used to try and force a challenge of combat to settle an issue such as what Rukia and she may have to deal with.
But she didn't know if she was getting all the ducks in a row; sooner or later they would be able to make a move on the next part of the plan, but that was for another day. As for today, Tanya was taking the day off as it had been nearly a month since she had a moment to take a rest from her work, and today was definitely a day to take a rest mainly because a new invention had apparently made its way to the Soul Society.
At least within the central districts, TV was now a thing, and it was rather glorious, expensive but glorious. Unfortunately, most people within the Soul Society who made it to the central districts, well, their souls were predating the modern era, so they didn't see the advantages of this device. However Tanya had quite an understanding of the importance of television, and so she bought a rather big screen TV for their apartment, as well as one or two smaller ones for some of the coffee shops they owned across the whole society.
If she could, she would have bought stock in a company that produced the TVs. Unfortunately, the only one producing the TVs was the 12th division, and as far as she could see, there was no official stock market for divisions. Thanks to the years of research, she hadn't found any stock market in the entirety of the Soul Society, which either suggested that it was a market that was untapped or it was some law she hadn't found that was preventing it. Something to look into when things were not very hectic.
Unfortunately, things always tend to be very hectic around here, but that was not a problem to worry about today. Today, she was going to sit right here at this couch with Visha next to her, and they were going to enjoy a television program from the World of the Living, some ghost show that was apparently big in Japan.
It was kind of a funny thing when you think about it; humanity was trying to contact them through television and all that, when ghosts could literally just turn on the TV and watch them act like they were not charlatans, pretending they could see things that weren't really there.
Oh yes, Tanya was aware that psychics were a thing, and she had a suspicion that some of them probably could see ghosts. There was also the possibility that people lie, and from the intro commercial showing this ghost hunter jumping from a helicopter, it was kind of obvious that this was a major liar. Jumping from a helicopter with no safety equipment whatsoever was the biggest tell for a lie she had ever seen. She would admit that there had to be some good editing on this episode, considering it almost looked like there was a live crowd reacting to this. Actually, it did look like there was a big crowd reacting to this, but it seemed unlikely to be real.
Munching on popcorn next to Tanya, Visha asked, "So this Don Kanonji, he's a ghost hunter, right? Why is he jumping from a helicopter like he's a paratrooper?"
"I have no idea," was all Tanya could say, shaking her head in disbelief. "It's so insane."
"Well, at least this will prove to be quite entertaining. No matter how dumb the actual ghost story might be, the fact that someone is jumping out of a helicopter is always a highlight." Tanya turned up the music that she was listening to, drowning out Don Kanonji's talk about their location.
"Did he just say 'Karakura Town'?" Tanya asked, leaning forward, surprised by the randomness or the smallness of the world.
"Yeah, why?" Visha asked, tilting her head as she munched on the popcorn.
"That's where Rukia is," Tanya said matter-of-factly, watching the screen a bit closer now.
"Really? Small world. I wonder if they're in that audience," Visha said, leaning forward and squinting to look at the screen as the audience was shown for a moment.
"Hmm, I don't see her. So hopefully, she's not there. I would hate to have her show up on TV as a high school girl. That would probably cause problems."
"Why would it cause problems? Aren't these things kind of rare?" Visha asked, tilting her head.
"Well, it's probably rare, but that doesn't mean the Second Division probably doesn't have a group watching stuff like this. You never know. Not to mention, if we could get our hands on it, I'm sure others could too. They're rich and famous for looking at this as a novelty, at the very least," Tanya said, reaching over and grabbing a handful of popcorn and munching down on it. "Well, it probably wouldn't mean much to most people if they saw a black-haired girl in the background. Anyone who knows about Rukia being in the World of the Living may be a bit perplexed by what they are seeing. I think we're probably safe."
The only way this could be a problem is if, I don't know, the psychic isn't actually a fraud and actually can see ghosts and is here because they've seen one. A ghost sighting on television doesn't exactly happen often, but who knows?
"Huh… do spirits show up on television? I mean, we can see other spirits because we're, well, spirits, but would we be able to see spirits on TV if they were there? Or would the TV only show what the human eye can see, AKA what the living can see?" Visha asked, tilting her head in curiosity.
"Huh...I don't know," Tanya said, leaning back as she reached for another handful of popcorn, thinking on the matter. "Theoretically, I would assume we could not actually see spirits. After all, the TV camera only picks up what the human eye can see, supposedly. But if the TV camera actually picks up all things that can be seen, it could theoretically pick up spirits. But I don't think that's right. If that were true, humans watching it would be able to see the spirits, or at least not clearly. Which could explain why some paranormal shows have sightings of strange things. You're only getting a brief glimpse of a spirit that was probably extremely powerful."
"Hmm, so we might actually see a soul in this as well. That'd be interesting," Visha said, grabbing another handful of popcorn as she looked at the screen. They both stopped, however, on a chilling moan or scream. It was hard to tell what it was, but it came from the television set, causing them to look at it closely.
There on the screen was a proto-hollow. There was an official name; she couldn't remember it at the exact time - Jin something or another. Basically, it was a being that had become too tied down to the location they thought was important to them. They were talking about how the hospital was going to make millions, so probably, they had been somehow responsible for the construction of the building or maybe they owned the property. Either way, they were tied to it, with a chain coming out of their chest, barely holding on, wrapping around the body, and then diving into the hospital.
They were rare, but not an impossible outcome. They were one of the reasons hollows could get by them, even though they were out there hunting. Spirits would become so obsessed with the item of their life before death that they became tangled in it and thus became hard to find unless, well, a large group of humans happened to be on the property and aggravated them. Somehow, they thought that they were going to take whatever they wanted away from them. Tanya suspected that poltergeists were basically these proto-hollows for the most part. Perhaps some were in the last few moments of being a proto-hollow before full qualification, as these things tended to be weak enough that they couldn't actually do anything to humans.
Currently, this soul that had failed to find its way to the Soul Society or turn full hollow was shouting at the Don Kanonji fellow, yelling at him for stepping on his property. Don Quixote was looking right at him, which told Tanya right then and there that Don could see ghosts. Now, what he was about to do with that ability was still up in the air. She assumed he was just going to try and talk the creature down, it's not like they could walk away, so there was no way for it to.
"Fuck," came the voices of Visha and Tanya as they watched Don Quixote shove his cane into the hole in the spirit's chest and begin attempting to rip the chain out as if it was something really good to be doing.
Tanya got up in shock, saying, "He's going to turn that thing into a hollow on live TV. This is...oh, hell, that's a nightmare and a half. Whoever is responsible for cleaning up messes like this is going to be busy for a month."
"Remember, Tanya, we're probably the only ones who can see it, right?" Visha said, trying to reassure her, which allowed her to sit back down. Though her eyes were still fixed on the moron trying to turn a soul into a hollow on live TV.
"Right, right. We can see it. Humans can't, except for this moron who's probably going to turn that thing into a hollow and then immediately be mauled to death on live TV."
"You keep saying 'live', what does that mean exactly?"
Tanya pointed to the lower corner and said, "'Live' means this is happening within 5 minutes from now. Whatever is happening on the TVs probably already happened, I hope. Otherwise, this is about to go from a ghost hunt with lighthearted hijinks to a horror movie with real blood and guts."
The proto-hollow was screaming in some sort of pain. To be expected, really. Tanya didn't think having your soul chain ripped out slow and steady by a cane was exactly a nice thing to feel. But the camera cut from Don, who was actually focusing on the proto-hollow in the shot, to the crowd as someone apparently had jumped the barrier and was tackled by the security team. That someone had a shock of orange hair that raised both of her eyebrows.
"Oh no… that is Ichigo," Tanya said, shaking her head as Visha looked at the screen.
"Ichigo, the kid who accidentally got Rukia's powers and you've been trying to help for the last month?"
"Yep…" Tanya said, shaking her head.
"On live TV in the presence of someone becoming a hollow," Visha clarified.
"Yep…" Tanya repeated, this time darkly, as she looked at the screen. Feeling like she already knew what was about to happen.
"This is going to get complicated, isn't it?" Visha asked.
"If this continues going the way it's going, I think this is going to be an absolute nightmare to deal with. Let's just hope that no one was watching this particular live performance, or else my plans to introduce the problem slowly is going to go up in smoke and things are going to start moving quickly around the Soul Society to deal with this situation."
"Well, maybe we'll get lucky. The security team seems to be hauling him off," Visha said hopefully.
"Yes, hopefully they'll stash him somewhere he doesn't get free and cause this problem to spin out of control even more than it already is," Tanya said, shaking her head as she saw the chain getting further and further loosened. Any moment now, that spirit was going to break free of its chain, go through probably the most painful experience of its death, and convert into a hollow.
And once that happened, there was really only one option left on the table: hoping that there was a soul reaper nearby to handle it. And technically, there was. Technically. But that would be somehow worse than... oh no.
As Tanya watched, Ichigo jumped down from somewhere in front of Don Kanonji and broke up the attack on this hollow. Neither party was mic'd, and the spirit behind them was screaming like bloody murder, so they couldn't exactly hear what was being said between the two. But it appeared his attempt to try and prevent what was about to happen was too late, as even though the spirit was free from the attack, the chain was too loose and broke away, and then the real screaming began.
On one hand, this was a terrible, terrible series of events that just kept giving; on the other, it was a rather impressive sight to watch a spirit convert to a hollow. Tanya had never actually seen it herself, and she didn't believe anyone had actually seen it that she knew of. When this is over, she should probably look into trying to get a copy of this sent to the Spirit Arts Academy, as this could be important for study and dealing with proto-hollows in the future.
The proto-hollow was now moving into a full hollow. Now that the screaming had stopped and the body had vanished into darkness before reappearing at the top of the hospital cameras, they were thankfully moving to look up there, trying to find where the screaming was coming from. Fortunately, that made it a bit shaky as they handed it back and forth, but thankfully it was wide enough of a shot that they could keep an eye on it. The creature's body was forming into a frog-like monstrosity before the head of the soul that had been the proto-hollow appeared through the neck of the creature. Then, screaming again, a white foam came from its eyes and mouth before covering it, replacing it with a hollow mask.
"And here comes the massacre," Tanya said, shaking her head, hoping that Ichigo would be able to handle this. If he didn't, well, things were going to get ugly real fast. At least this was useful in her case, to some extent, showing him fighting to protect the spirit and slay the hollow, or good qualities to show off to whoever was in charge of the final decision. Hopefully, this might work to help other people stand up for him, but probably not Central 46. Who was she kidding? Central 46 didn't give a damn about that. They just wanted control.
The hollow jumped down and attacked the idiot psychic, and Ichigo blocked it, defending him, causing the hollow to back off a bit. Though apparently, the orange-haired punk was paying attention as he noted the crowd around him and immediately pushed the moron into the building and out of sight of both the crowd and the cameras. The hollow chased in after them, leaving them staring at the destroyed front entrance of the hospital.
Shaking her head, Tanya said, "This is going to be a mess to deal with. Good grief. I'm going to have to contact the captain of the Thirteenth and let him know about this. Not only that, I probably should get permission from the captain of the Twelfth to go into the World of the Living again to straighten this out the best I can."
"I'm sure everything will be fine, Tanya," Visha said, petting her on the back, trying to be reassuring, which she appreciated.
"Hopefully, it will be, but the fact of the matter is, this is probably going to get back to the Second Division somehow, and once that happens, the levers of power are going to start moving. How they move, though, is up in the air."
Visha nodded in agreement before adding, "That may be true, but he seems to be doing fine. He's drawing the creatures away from the civilians, he's defending the spirits and the humans. He's doing the job of a soul reaper; he's just not official."
"Which, of course, is the problem. He's doing this without an official license or anything of that nature," Tanya said with a sigh, rubbing her forehead in annoyance. Not to mention, with a blade that massive, operating inside that hospital for a fight is not going to be easy on him. He's not going to have room to maneuver.
Before any more comments could pass, a couple of windows exploded out. Tanya could barely see another fight going on inside the building between Ichigo and the hollow, and she could barely make out that he was, as Tanya had predicted, having maneuver problems.
"It looks like he's falling back and trying to get to the roof," Visha said as she looked at the screen, causing Tanya to look back at it.
"Well, it is what it is. Maybe he's not a complete failure," Tanya said, shaking her head in annoyance.
"Think you're being too hard on him," Visha mused.
"I'm just being petty because I know this is going to be a problem going forward. I don't know how it'll be such a problem, I just know it will be."
Before she could make another comment, the fighting spilled off onto the roof, which was not visible from the angle the camera was at. It sounded like, after about a few minutes, Ichigo had won.
The person who stood up on the roof and seemed to take credit for it was Don Kanonji, giving his trademark laughing X symbol as he did.
"At least it's over," Tanya said, shaking her head, before saying, "Hopefully, the next thing we watch won't be such a pain in my brain."
For Akon there were certain benefits to being a member of the Twelfth division. Oh, there were plenty of downfalls; the captain was quite insane, and as far as Akon was concerned, he didn't think the captain considered anyone a living being worth caring about unless they were something he could test on.
The benefits were that you got access to modern technology quite quickly. Of course, officially he had to watch this TV just to make sure that the Soul Society was not being broadcasted to the World of the Living. So far, that never happened. Cameras could pick up souls in a way, but they were always shadows or mist or orbs, not really showing what was going on.
Oh, there was one real close event a few years back that even had him a bit suspicious that soul situations had been uncovered over in Britain. Thankfully, that turned out to be just a very well-done television special.
He hoped it was just a very well-done special, and there weren't any spirits working for the TV networks, and they were covering it up. It wasn't an unlikely thing, but you could never be sure with how the technology over there was developing. At least the CGI was looking worse than the practical effects as the years went on. It was easier to spot that.
That being said, this was probably the most interesting turn of events he'd seen on a television show about ghosts in a decade. Usually, he watched the ghost shows to have a little chuckle at how wrong they were almost all the time. But this time, there was a demi-hollow, and the main actor had obviously actually been psychic and done something to it. Quite the show.
And he'd actually got a hollow fight on film, of all things; not a thing that you would usually see, he thought. Although, because there had been a hollow fight on film, even if it was probably invisible to the human eye, he should probably do something about this quickly. He backed up the recording to get the best shot of the reaper's face and put it in a file to have it searched against the profiles of every soul reaper currently alive.
A quick search came up with nothing, which was odd but not impossible. Yes, it was supposed to be every soul reaper currently alive, but that could not be good enough or it had been one of those soul reapers that had avoided getting a picture taken of them.
With that settled, he decided to check out which reaper was supposed to be in the territory where the show had happened. He found the name of the town; Karakura something or another.
A quick scan of local records indicated that it should be the Thirteenth Division's situation. Looking into the Thirteenth Division's records indicated that it was meant to be under the care of Rukia Kuchiki at the moment. He'd never met the girl, but that was obviously not the soul reaper who had been involved in that fighting. A bit odd.
Could there be another soul reaper in the area just helping out? Perhaps, it wasn't uncommon for reapers to help each other out when they were in competing territories, but then again, something didn't feel right about this. Like he had seen that reaper's face before. Kicking up his legs on the counter, he pressed play to continue watching the show from the start again as he thought about the matter.
An unknown reaper in the territory of a known reaper who should be there wasn't a big issue, but he wondered why it was like that. Maybe it was a training mission for a student? No, they weren't wearing the student robes. But then again, some divisions do play fast and furious with their training methods. He had heard that the training of the Tenth Division had gotten rather brutal recently, so it was not impossible for divisions to change up their training styles. Still, you'd think they wouldn't take a student out into the World of the Living for training.
Hmm, his thoughts were interrupted as they got to the mid-part of the show and someone attempted to cross the barrier lines to talk to the main actor. He had seen it before, but he hadn't paid much attention because, well, there was nothing really supernatural about it, and he was more focused on the demi-hollow about to be converted into a full hollow at the moment. But no, was it him or did that kid have the same face as the mysterious reaper?
Probably his imagination, but he took a photo and added it to the file. There was something going on here, wasn't there?
Well, this wasn't exactly his call to figure out. He quickly put all the information in a packet and addressed it to the First Division. They'd go over it and figure out what the hell was going on, and that was that. This is how things ran. It might take them a week to look at it, but that was just the inefficiency of sending everything to the First Division. And unless they allowed for some tech upgrades over there (unlikely to ever happen considering the old man was kind of anti-new stuff), it would continue on like that.
Putting this all to the side, he put his feet back up on the desk and turned on the TV to the next show he needed to watch. Just because he may have stumbled onto something important didn't mean he didn't have work to do. And well, again, he wouldn't know if it was important or not for a week. And even if he did find out it was important, it wasn't really his division to deal with. It was probably the Second Division or maybe even the Thirteenth that would have to deal with this problem, not him.
Okay, so far so good. Tanya had been paying attention to the news and there was no firestorm of comments about a mysterious swordsman appearing on TV. Perhaps she was lucky and the whole situation with Ichigo had been completely missed by whatever the secret police were currently looking at.
This was good for her. It meant she had a little bit more time. Supposedly. Well, more time than she did a few days ago when the incident first appeared. But it didn't mean she wasn't already going through the procedures for another trip to the World of the Living.
This time, she was being a bit smarter about how she did it, arranging the trip a week in advance and dictating a larger territory that she'd be involved in. She'd even considered possibly bringing in a few other trustworthy agents that she knew would keep their mouths shut. But ultimately, she decided that would be a bad move. Loose lips sink ships, and the more lips there are, the more likely one was to lose it while drinking. And to be honest about the people of the Soul Society, drinking was a major pastime.
It was best to keep what was going on to those in power that needed to know, like the captain of the Thirteenth, herself, and Visha, who had the godlike ability to hold her liquor down to incredible levels.
That being said, she had put out feelers to some of the other divisions to see if anyone was aware of any information being talked about from that incident. She didn't have many feelers, only the elements of the 203, but from what she could tell, no one in the Thirteenth division, the Sixth division, or the Eleventh had heard anything. So, it was likely chances were that the only people who had seen that broadcast were maybe her and Visha. Hard to say.
With that settled, as Tanya could see, she focused on gathering as much information as she would need for a trip to the World of the Living. Documents she was planning to show Rukia and have her sign. That should settle the situation to some extent, hopefully, or at least begin the process of settling it.
She was also gathering a bit more intel on another problem that had started to prey on her worries, mainly who was Kisuke Urahara. Initially, she had not been too concerned with the convenience store owner. But if she had more time to think on things, she came to a realization that he was overly helpful in this situation. And overly helpful people were suspicious, especially when they were obviously hiding something. And they were honestly doing that because they'd been concerned about her finding something or asking the wrong question.
Being as it may, she had started to poke around, using his name in the records, and happened to find out that the last captain of the Twelfth had a very similar name. It could have even been spelled exactly the same. Was it proof that the last captain of the Twelfth, currently missing and banished, was the same one who was running that shop? Possibly. But if that was the case, that was concerning to her.
The last captain of the Twelfth had overseen the Twelfth Division's creation of a scientific wing. A scientist who was not being watched by an official government apparatus was involved in a strange series of incidents that resulted in a permanent soul reaper. Suspicion was rising that he might be more involved than he had currently let on, and if so, he might be a perfect sacrifice for the situation.
She had no ill will against him, of course, but the fact of the matter was that if you can lay the blame for the situation on someone else, someone you didn't really care about, and spare a friend from a terrible, terrible run of bad luck, you really should. That's simply the game that needs to be played.
Of course, that was a backup plan and would only be applied if there was no other way out of the situation. After all, burning an asset that could be useful in an escape was not exactly smart. You should only really burn an asset when you have a surety that it's going to work, and burning Urahara had no guarantee it would work right away.
She was also trying to get a little bit of the limits reduced on her abilities while she was in the World of the Living. In an emergency, she'd like to be able to go all out, and considering the luck that punk had with finding his way into situations that were rare for soul reapers and yet seemed to be common for him, she thought it'd be better to have a little bit of an extra hand to take care of whatever showed up for the kid if necessary.
The only real concern was whether she would have any problem getting this second trip to the World of the Living so soon after the first one without raising suspicion. Thankfully, it looked like that was not going to happen, but apparently, the captain of the Thirteenth had sent a letter to the captain of the Tenth to allow her to travel to the World of the Living, saying that they were helping out with a situation or something of that nature. So the second trip was okay and should be no issue, supposedly.
Although as the days went by, she was getting a feeling she'd forgotten something, some major thing that she should know about or have taken into account. She couldn't put her finger on it. Hopefully, if she forgot about it, it wasn't really necessary, and it would not be a concern.
And just like that, hollow attacks were back, and if anything, there were more than ever. Ever since the damn psychic had come to town, more and more hollows seemed to be showing up. Was it related? Probably not, but Ichigo wanted to blame him so he would blame the damn crazy psychic and his weird hat and laugh.
So far, the situation was under control. Hollows showed up, he hunted them, and they died. That's usually what would happen. Of course, there were more than normal, and so he was having to keep Kon on him at all times because he never knew when he would have to go out hunting. But there was something of a twist in the recent attacks. Mainly, someone was hunting them besides him.
Who was up in the air, but there had to be someone else doing it because why else would there be a beep? They would go to the location and find nothing, not even a trace of the hollow's energy in the area to give them a hint on where it had gone. At first, he kind of assumed that maybe they were just going back into their portal immediately after scouting, but the ones he was finding seemed to not be doing that. So more likely, something else was going on, and he had a suspicion that he might have an answer tonight. He was currently chasing after a flying hollow that was running for it at full speed, trying to get as far away as possible, and he was having no luck in the matter because it kept dodging his sword strikes and staying out of his range.
It was frankly quite annoying, as he was hoping to end this quickly, but even with Rukia catching up and launching a few of her spells at the thing, it was too agile. It avoided that easily and was trying to dive bomb her to take her out, which kept him from attacking and kept her on the defensive.
Not a great situation. He could use some help, that was for sure, and then the help came as a glowing bolt of energy came from down the road and struck the creature, killing it and dissolving it instantly.
Ichigo stood there blinking for a moment before the figure responsible stepped out into the light, and he was immediately dumbstruck by the costume. Standing before him was Akita's cousin, Uryū Ishida, a guy he'd run into once or twice, but didn't really know very well. He was looking over the scene of the dead creature with a dispassionate disgust and was wearing an all-white uniform that was rather silly. He spoke up, "Hello, Soul Reaper."
"Hello, Uryū," Ichigo said, reminding him subtly that he knew exactly who he was. "I see you're also a Quincy, 'cause of course it wasn't just your cousin who's one."
The fact that Ichigo apparently knew that seemed to annoy him as he muttered under his breath something about his sister being too active of an archer before saying, "Yes, yes, I am a Quincy, and as you've probably been noticing, we have a bit of a problem here in Karakura Town."
"We do, you don't say," Ichigo said matter-of-factly, folding his arms as he slid the sword back into its holding place on his back. Ichigo thought he was the only one noticing the increase in hollow activity recently. "Also, I noticed that there seem to be a lot of hollows dying recently. May I assume you were responsible for that?"
He blinked surprisedly before saying, "Yes, more hollows are bad for the people of the town. They tend to target anyone with large spiritual energies, so I've been doing my best to lower their population. No, you guys aren't exactly fans of the methods of the Quincy, but I think we can all agree that you were overworked and not able to do as much as necessary."
"I don't agree with that," Ichigo said before adding, "what I mean is I do not agree with killing people fully instead of cleansing their soul and sending them to the next life. That's what you're doing from my understanding of the situation."
Uryū shrugged before saying, "Yeah, it's what we have to do sometimes. If you were nearby or somewhat closer, I'd cripple them enough so you could handle them, but often enough, you're not, and I need to do what is necessary."
"What's necessary is going to draw a lot of notice to you," Rukia said next to Ichigo, folding her arms. "Dead spirits continually disappearing will draw the notice of one of the Court Guard Squads."
"Oh, that might be true, but I think killing one hollow out of a thousand is not going to upset the Soul Society too much. Besides, they were pissed off because not only were we doing their job better than them but more permanently. We're too effective to be tolerated as an opponent."
"Hmm," Rukia made a hum of annoyance before saying, "Okay, sure, one hollow out of a thousand probably is not going to be missed, but still, maybe you should, I don't know, get a cell phone and call me or something. We'd be right over towards the target the moment we knew about it."
There was a pause before Uryū said, "I'll consider it, but that still isn't solving the larger problem. If you haven't been noticing, the hollow population is increasing even with both our efforts, and I'm even considering letting my cousin take part in these hunts. And I'm worried that that won't be enough. This situation is spinning out of control, and we need to figure out a way to gain control of it."
"Okay, and how do we do that?" Ichigo asked, folding his own arms now at this point.
"Well, I have a plan. Not the greatest plan, but a plan nonetheless. And I think it could work, but I would need approval, I think." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small object and said, "I have acquired a thing that's called a hollow bait. Break this, and every hollow within the city will become active all at once, which will make it easier to hunt them down. All we'll need to do is just look for them. No more hiding and going into their world. They'll come here and start hunting, and we can hunt them. Between maybe the three of us and your Soul Reaper friend there, we might be able to eliminate all the hollows that have been causing problems and give us a moment of rest."
Ichigo blinked a couple of times before saying, "This sounds like a horrible plan. Unleashing an unknown number of hollows across the town will just result in more hollows being unleashed than we can handle. How are we going to hunt them all down? They'll be everywhere."
"I'm sure it's not that many, a hundred at most. What are you worried about? You can't kill at least 33 hollows in a prolonged fight?" asked Uryū.
"No, I'm worried about all the people who will be put at risk of hollow attacks because they've suddenly become active when they've been inactive," Ichigo pointed out. "By the way, it's probably going to be more than a hundred. According to one source, there's something big on the other side of the divide between the World of the Living and wherever the hollows come from that's drawing hollows to this area. Whatever that is, it'll probably also be drawn through, which could be anything from a large group of hollows to who knows what."
"Nothing good," Rukia chimed in. "Whatever is big enough to scare a hollow to tattle on it to other kinds, it's not exactly something we should be poking."
"Yeah," Ichigo added. "This plan's bad, got anything better?"
Letting out a sigh, Uryū put away the device he was holding and said, "Well, not really. Just continuing to treat the symptoms and not taking care of the problem sounds like it's our only option. That means we keep killing these hollows that are apparently being attracted to another hollow. But explain something to me here: What do you mean, a hollow gave up info on another hollow?"
Ichigo shrugged before saying, "Exactly what I said. Some hollow apparently hates being a hollow and gave us information that there's something strange going on in Hollowland."
"And you just believe this thing? This known monster probably hunted plenty of humans. You just believe this thing? At least tell me you killed it."
"No, it wasn't a threat and left without issue."
"You are perhaps one of the worst Soul Reapers I think I've ever run into," Uryū said, shaking his head before turning away and trying to walk off.
"Hey, the hollow is an ally and gave me information, and wasn't a threat. It was unexpected, and they didn't attack me. Why was I supposed to do anything?" Ichigo said.
"Kill them," Uryū said, turning back to look at him. "It didn't attack you this time, but it wasn't hungry. Maybe next time it will be. Maybe next time, it'll decide that you're its best meal."
"Listen, it's a hollow that hunts other hollows. As far as I could see, that was a good thing. And it seems more driven to hunt down some devil and isn't interested in eating humans," Ichigo said with a defiant shrug.
"Oh my God, okay, this is what you were thinking by giving this guy powers," Uryū said, looking at Rukia.
"How do you know I gave him powers?" Rukia asked with a raised eyebrow.
"He was human, and then he wasn't, and then you showed up. It's not hard to figure it out. Plus, I do talk to my cousin now and again. Information does get past all the rumors that are shared," he snapped at Rukia.
Rukia let out a deep breath before saying, "It was a desperate moment. I didn't even... I agree with you a bit that you shouldn't have let the thing get free, but I wasn't there, and it's not like we've seen it since, so I can't exactly tell him to make this thing right."
"Alright, fine. Still, in the future, could you please kill the hollows? I don't care if they offer you information, they're a problem."
"I withhold my judgment until they show themselves to be a problem, and 90% of the time, they've shown themselves to be a problem. This one time, they didn't, and I let it live, and so far, it hasn't bitten me in the ass, so I'm thinking it was the right move."
Uryū shrugged and let out a tired sigh before turning and waving as they left. "Fine, fine. You deal with it when it goes feral and starts attacking people. Then it's on your head."
Shaking his head, Ichigo said, "If it's attacking people, I will gladly kill it."
Seeing that the conversation was over, Ichigo shook his head and turned to Rukia. "Alright, I was right to call it there, though, right? Saying no to the idea of this hollow bait being used... I mean, it sounds a little bit too dangerous."
"Thank you. You're perfectly in the right there. Something like that goes off, we don't know what could happen. In fact, it's kind of dangerous to leave them with that, considering how they phrased the situation."
"Huh," Ichigo asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We're treating the symptoms and not curing the problem. That phrase kind of implies that he thinks that the hollow bait is the cure to the problem of the constant hollow attacks we've been going through ever since I had to give you powers."
"Hmm. Maybe I'll just talk to him again tomorrow, see if I can convince him that using that would be a bad idea." Ichigo said as he rubbed the back of his head in thought.
"Oh, honestly I thought you had a voice in the back of your own head, asking, 'Was it a terrible idea?' Like, 'He said they were just fighting the symptoms. The proper cure would be to use it. It was too dangerous to use it here. Maybe they could go out to the countryside and use it if they just activated it in a place where there's not a lot of people. Try to summon the monster that was gathering the hollows to a location where it wouldn't cause that much damage. Maybe that would be all right.'"
He let out an annoyed noise as he tried to wash those thoughts away. The risk to civilians was too great. At least as long as it was just him, Uryū, and Akita, there would not be enough people in town able to handle this problem. They could do some damage to the hollow, but they were still too weak to actually do anything else. Maybe if Tanya was here, discussing with her, the odds could be a bit more in their favor. Otherwise, it was just a bad, bad idea.
"Alright, well, he killed this hollow. Are there any other spiritual bearings in the area?" Ichigo asked Rukia as he looked around in case there were any other portals being opened in the immediate vicinity.
Rukia reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone and gave it a quick look over before saying, "No, looks like we're clear. I think we can go back to your house now."
"Alright then," he said, cracking some muscles before starting to walk back at a slow and steady pace, keeping his eyes open. "Let's take it slow and kill any hollows that happen to pop up between here and my house, just in case."
"Sounds like a plan," Rukia said with a nod as she followed behind, watching out for any problems as well.
It was a rather quiet night, and they quickly found their way through the streets, not finding any issues as they did. If anything, it seemed it was even quieter than before the hollow showed up, so likely, there was not going to be another attack.
This was good. It was a relaxing walk, and as such his mind began to wonder, wondering what he would do without these powers giving him a chance to do some real good in the world. Hell, they helped him get some mental health recovery as well with the death of Grand Fisher. If he had never gotten these powers, he probably would still be just taken as a punk, getting into fights every day. Really, he was just so busy dealing with the spiritual world nonsense that he didn't have time to get involved in such situations now. That was great for everybody, especially his family.
Hopefully, he would be allowed to keep his powers when this was all over, this whole complex situation Rukia was forced into. Not that he wanted to continue to fight every day, but he really felt like he was doing real good and didn't want to stop doing it. Not to mention, just because he wouldn't be able to fight things if they took away his powers didn't mean he wouldn't still be a potential meal for hollows, and his friends wouldn't be potential meals as well. If he had a choice, he would prefer to have the ability to protect them than not have an ability to do anything at all.
Maybe it was a bit self-centered to think that he should have the right to protect his friends, but so be it. The hollows were a menace for the most part, and he'd rather have the ability to do something about them than not have anything he could do to help.
Right before he was about to turn a corner and make the final stretch to home, he thought he caught sight of something, causing him to look off in the distance confused.
"Ichigo, did you see something?" Rukia said, stopping to look back at him.
"I don't know," he said, still confused, before adding, "I thought I just saw some guy in sunglasses and a black coat looking in our direction, but when I looked closer, he was not there. Maybe I was just seeing things?"
"It is late," Rukia said with a nod, "and the shadows are a good way to see things. What you thought was a guy in sunglasses and a black coat at night was probably just a shadow. It looks like it could be pareidolia. I looked into this a while ago in one of the books at school."
"Yeah, that probably was it," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "It's just late and pareidolia. Let's get some sleep. We've got tests and stuff in the morning. Summer break is coming up, and we need to get ready for that."
"Sounds like a plan. Well, hopefully, I'll have this whole situation settled, and I can go back to the Soul Society before we get into summer. Not that I wouldn't mind hanging out for summer. It's just, well, I am somewhat worried about stuff I left that I need to deal with back home."
"Like, yes, I have other friends, like Tanya. One of them was even trying to become a lieutenant in the divisions. I wonder how that's going for him."
"Well, hopefully, we'll find out next time Tanya shows up," Ichigo said, looking towards his open window. "Now, how are we going to get up there tonight?"
"Hmm, maybe throwing me up would be the fastest way," she suggested, causing him to look at her like she was insane.
Writers note: oh hey a chapter has appeared and in it we see things moving… and event prevented. As well something in the distances. And high school chinagans and soul society movements. All in all a bit stuff. Hope you all enjoy and let me know
Edited by: L, TIGER, Coltsguy
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Reaper
setokayba2n: what noooooo
evilstatistic19: here the next
Carlos Andres Araya: yes i have no mentioned anything about mary... no sir Y
danj0929: soon tm
danj0929: have fun!
Eedura: what? what she ever do?
AnimeFan13579: well some investigation bound to happen now
Guest: na not big enough
Guest: thought it would be good idea
Guest: nooooo
Guest: maybe
Guest: sound wondeful
Guest : yeah it happens