Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth and Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I own nothing of either of them and am only playing in the worlds they gave us.
I'm not really sure what to think of this chapter since I wasn't in very good shape during most of its creation. Shortly after my last update I seriously over stressed myself and have spent most of the last two months trying to get to a point where I wasn't feeling exhausted and where I actually had some motivation to do more than just drag my sorry ass through each day. Took me six weeks to manage just the first 2500 words of this thing.
Needless to say it has been an unholy grind. But, for whatever it may be worth, and that might not be much, here is the next chapter. Now I can go back to wracking my brains as to what the hell else I'm going to do with this thing.
A Chance Encounter
Chapter 10
"Yes yes, I know those stories quite well!" Doctor Oobleck exclaimed to the two young women standing before his rather cluttered desk. "It seems they are becoming quite popular lately, especially in light of their similarities to our two new instructors."
"Other's have been asking about them?" Pyrrha asked.
"Professor Goodwitch inquired about it shortly before they began working here," he responded. "I believe she overhead Miss Rose telling you and your friends about her encounter with them in the city. You knew of the stories yourself?"
"A few of them," the redhead answered. "The similarities were uncommonly similar, yet...seemingly impossible?"
"Yes, quite a puzzle that is," he mused. "A similar description of one person over such a stretch of time may be possible, but two people together with such closely matching descriptions, always together, makes it rather interesting and a mystery that begs to be unravelled."
"That's what we've been thinking," Weiss chimed in. "We were wondering how accurate the accounts might be, if any of the authors of such accounts were known to be less credible than others or if any of them may have been known to embellish their stories."
"Ah yes, that is quite a problem when dealing with historical matters," he conceded. "If there is a lack of hard evidence or a written history, then all we have to go on is tales that may have been passed down verbally. Of course many of those oral histories could have been embellished in the telling to spice them up a bit and it can be difficult to determine what is truth and what isn't."
"What about the professional historians, the ones who have written the accounts we may have read?" Weiss asked.
"There are four individuals who authored the majority of the accounts and in general they are considered to be quite reliable," Oobleck explained. "They tended however to centre their accounts on events that were fairly close to their time, relatively speaking, and a couple of them claim to have witnessed some events themselves and I have seen little in their writings that would bring those claims into dispute or to suggest that the tales are embellished." He paused for a moment. "There is another historian who delved into the tales of these two, he is of a more recent vintage than the rest as it were, but he specialized in attempting to unravel older historical mysteries."
"Who was he?" Pyrrha asked.
"He was a mid level Mistralian nobleman by the name of Aldus Stonebridge. He cared little for the life of a nobleman and spent his time travelling, studying, and unveiling the history of Remnant. His research and investigative methods were exhaustive. He was considered highly credible and was responsible for setting right several historical inaccuracies and made a number of discoveries. But it was his foray into the stories you are interested in that brought about his reputation during his latter years coming into question."
"How so?" Weiss asked.
"I'm sure that you both have heard of the five great geographical anomalies of Remnant?" he asked.
"Like the Great Crevasse in Atlas," Weiss said. She had visited the location a couple of times.
"Or the Thunderstruck Mountain in Mistral," Pyrrha added.
"Exactly," Oobleck confirmed. "The Great Crevasse, a mile deep and two miles long, the sides so smooth they look like they were carved with a knife, and the Thunderstruck Mountain, a mid level peak that was reduced to mounds of rubble by an impossibly massive lightning strike as legend has it. There is also the Vale Deeps, a region of ocean west of Patch Island that looks like a vast underwater blast crater and is also home to the most fertile fishing grounds on Remnant.
Then there is the Glass Scar in the deserts of Vacuo, a miles long trench where the sand was somehow super heated forming a thick layer of glass. Lastly on the isle of Menagerie, on the uninhabitable side of the mountains that divide the island there is the Cratered Foothills, where the mountain foothills and the flatland leading to them is marked with many hundreds of small craters. These five geographical anomalies have two things in common. Scientific study suggests that the cause of these anomalies cannot possibly have been natural, but a cause has also not been determined. The second things is that even the Grimm will not inhabit or even approach these areas."
"What does that have to do with the reputation of Aldus Stonebridge?" Weiss asked.
"He claimed to have found evidence of our mysterious pair being in the vicinity of each of these locations at the time that the local populations claimed the anomalies were created, which were all somewhere between three hundred and fifty and four hundred years ago, according to his research," Oobleck answered. "The majority of his claimed evidence was circumstantial and came more from stories the locals of those regions told and handed down through the years than by any officially recorded accounts, which is what began to raise most of the skepticism.
The inference that this pair of individuals might somehow be responsible for the events made that skepticism grow and other historians, many of less that stellar reputation, began to call all of his work into question. The final blow to his reputation was a claim, again, learned from handed down stories, that the couple had produced two children, a boy and a girl and that the girl was a Faunus even though no other accounts of the two had ever described either of them as having any Faunus traits. He claims that at that time they had settled in a fairly prominent Mistralian village not far from the coast of the sea between Mistral and Vale, marking an interruption in what had seemed to be a migratory life, and he is the only historian to claim having found names for them."
"Do you know what the names were?" Pyrrha asked.
"Allegedly, the man's name was Sado and the woman Shaolin," he answered. "Although any records from that village that may have existed and could confirm their residency there were destroyed during the Great War as were so many historical records all over Remnant. Such a pity, along with the horrendous loss of life we also lost so much evidence of our history."
"Do you know if the library has a copy of Stonebridge's work?" Weiss asked. "It's the only one of the major author's accounts we haven't read."
"Actually I have it right here," he said, digging the thick book out from under a pile of papers and other books. "I had been reviewing his work and haven't yet had a chance to return it. I'll let the librarian know that you have it."
"Thank you Doctor," Pyrrha said.
"Not at all, I'm always glad to help my students in their pursuit of knowledge!" he declared. "Speaking of which, if you don't hurry you'll be late for your next class."
Next class happened to be combat class and they certainly didn't want to be late to that.
Advanced Combat Class Arena
The others were already inside by the time they got there but class hadn't yet started. As a matter of fact, the others were all standing along the railing in the seating area watching the unexpected spectacle that was taking place on the arena floor. Their teachers were sparring and quite frankly were dressed rather minimally to do it.
Yoruichi was wearing a black sports halter and form fitting black shorts. The attire revealed something they hadn't known about her, that she had a large tattoo on the outside of her left thigh that was rather tribal looking in its design with a stylized sun at its centre. As for Ichigo he was wearing just a pair of loose fitting black shorts. The definition of their sweat soaked bodies made it abundantly clear that they were at a level of physical fitness that was well above that of any of their students. It was also obvious that they had been at this for a while and yet neither of them seemed to be winded or breathing hard at all.
For the next several minutes they watched, engrossed, as their teachers traded kicks and punches of all manner, the vast majority of which were blocked or deflected. They weren't holding back either and none of the blows that landed seemed to phase either of them. Not when Yoruichi landed a hard kick to Ichigo's ribs and not when he landed a solid right to her jaw. If anything she seemed to grin at him and dare him to land another. Their movements were fluid and effortless but the near constant and sharp slap and whap of flesh meeting flesh proved that there was power and legitimate effort behind every blow.
Beyond the spectacle of the fight itself there was something else that was very noticeable to them all. The number of scars that adorned Ichigo's body. There were many smaller ones and nearly all of them looked like they had been cause by a blade, but there were a few larger ones that left them all to wonder just what the hell he had been through. Sure, he and Yoruichi had both told them that he used to try to do things the hard way and early on he too often fought opponents that outmatched him and that he had gotten badly hurt a number of times. But the marks they saw upon his body went beyond their definitions of badly hurt.
On each shoulder he had wide, deep scars that looked like something had sawed or hacked down right through his collarbones. There was a scar on the left side of his chest that started just beneath his heart and ran all the way out to his side, looking very much like he had been stabbed and the blade had sliced across and out through his ribs. If that was the case, it had stabbed in deep before being ripped out of him.
There was a thin scar that seemed to wrap right around his waist, giving one the impression that something had nearly cut him in half. In the middle of his chest and correspondingly in the middle of his back between his shoulder blades were two perfectly round circles that they couldn't say for sure were scars or not. They were both just ever so slightly lighter in colour than the tanned tone of the rest of his skin but were certainly noticeable.
The picture it put into their heads was that something about the size of his fist had gone right through him but that surely couldn't be possible, certainly no more possible than nearly being cut in half at the waist and surviving could be. Even if the wounds weren't as bad as what their imagination was leading them to think, it was still obvious that he had taken some very serious injuries. Just how the hell had he survived and without any seeming lingering aftereffects?
Even with the healing ability of Aura one would think that he would have problems with his shoulders given how deep it looked like those wounds must have been. And if he really had been cut deeply through the lower torso, that means his intestines and several organs should have been damaged and it was doubtful that Aura would have held the Reaper at bay. The same could be said for the wound through the left side of his chest.
They knew that their combat teachers were strong, stronger than anyone they had ever met or even heard of. But were they so strong that they could survive wounds like his scars suggested he had taken? Not only survive but be able to still move and function like nothing had ever happened at all. There had to be another explanation because what seemed like the obvious to them just simply couldn't be right.
As for the two combatants, well they were pretty much off in their own little world. Sure, they knew they were no longer alone, and their senses and instincts had told them that there was no threat so they had seen no need to suddenly stop. They needed this. There were two ways that they normally coped with the stress of the past and everything that had come to be associated with it and those were sex or violence. This time violence had won out.
A psychologist would likely find a whole lot of things wrong with their approach, but no psychologist could ever begin to fathom what they were let alone the things that they had been through. Any old violence wouldn't do either. There wasn't a being on the planet that could truly offer either of them a physical challenge. Not the Grimm, not any Human or Faunus, but they could fight each other evenly and without restraint if they chose to. Good thing they weren't going all out however because that wouldn't have done the school much good and their students likely would have found themselves pinned to the floor and struggling to breathe.
Even so, they were fighting with a strength and power that was still a little above most Huntsmen and Huntresses and would have taken them down in short order. Ichigo had learned a long time ago that if he didn't fight Yoruichi with full intent to do harm that she would definitely do some harm to him to remind him that she was not to be treated like some delicate flower or with some misguided sense of chivalry. They had both found over the years that a good, hard spar got the blood flowing and got their minds right, or at least close to it. The sweat and the work made them concentrate on something else and purged all of the negative emotions and troubling thoughts. It was one of their ways of hitting the reset button.
After putting on a show for a good fifteen minutes or so their focus expanded beyond the two of them and they realized that it was past time to stop.
"Sorry kids," Yoruichi apologized as she picked up a towel at the edge of the arena platform. "We kind of lost track of time."
"How long have the two of you been going at it?" Yang asked.
"Three...no four hours maybe?" Yoruichi answered with a shrug.
"What?!" numerous voices responded.
"You've been sparring like that for four hours?" Jaune asked incredulously.
"We've gone longer," Ichigo answered nonchalantly. "And harder."
Jaune's jaw wasn't the only one hanging open.
"Now as for the ladies in the group," Yoruichi said as she walked over to Ichigo and wrapped her left arm around him, that ever so devilish smirk on her face. "I saw how you were all staring at my sexy Ichi but I have to warn you, that's all you get to do. Hands off, he's all mine." There was much sputtering and red faced reactions from her audience. She solidly slapped his hard abs. "Although, if I were to relent then Ruby would get first dibs. She met him before the rest of you after all."
Poor Little Red, she was a sputtering, stammering mess and Big Sister Yang was not helping with her comments. She'd have to do something for Ruby to make up for using her as a distraction but she had accomplished what she wanted. She had gotten their minds off of the sight of Ichigo's scars before any of them could say anything about it or start asking questions. She certainly wasn't dumb, she knew what had been catching their attention...well, at least most of it anyway. Scars or not her Ichi really was a sexy beast without his shirt. She also knew that her students were bright enough that the location and severity of those scars would have them shocked and curious.
It wasn't time yet for them to hear about the truth of the world and how he got those scars. Soon she suspected, because they knew there was something very different about their new combat instructors and they were trying to find out anything they could about the bizarrely coincidental historical tales, even beginning to ask and bring the stories up to them. It might take someone coming right out and asking what they had to think was the world's dumbest question, or she could decide that they had strung them along long enough. Either way, there were a couple more things she wanted them to see and experience first before that day came.
But before she and Ichigo told their story and told the truth of Remnant's origins, they would tell them the other hidden truths of this world that they had learned from Ozpin, but that wouldn't happen until they pried the rest of the truth out of the man himself and that would happen soon, one way or another.
"Okay," she said, getting their attention. She let Ichigo loose so he could go put his tank top on. "Let's get started. You all know how important maintaining the proper footwork and balance is when you're using your weapons. A stable base means everything and the same is true for unarmed combat whether you're on the offence or defence."
Ichigo took over. "We're going to have you and your partner go into one of the ten foot by ten foot squares we have marked out on the floor. The objective is to upset your opponents balance and disrupt their base enough that you can push them out of the square."
"You can only use your hands and arms," Yoruichi continued. "You can't use any other part of your body. You also cannot grab to either push or pull. You must use open hands and all contact must be above the waist and ideally above the midpoint of the torso. If you get lower than your opponent you can try to get them upright and back on their heels. If you get outside of their arms you can shove against their shoulder with your forearm or elbow to knock them off balance sideways. Keep your footing and get your legs into it. We'll give you a demonstration."
With Ichigo on the receiving end she demonstrated slowly and step by step the various ways of moving your opponent off balance to break their stance and shove them out of the square. In their old world the closest examples of what they were doing would have been found in Sumo and in American football in the struggle between an offensive and defensive lineman...without the grabbing and holding.
"And if this happens," she said on the last example...where she grabbed Ichigo's hand and mashed it into her left breast, causing a few of her students to eep and blush. Ichigo just sighed at her antics. "I don't want to hear any complaints. In a real fight your opponent isn't going to care if they happen to mash one of your boobs and I'm pretty sure your life is more important than a random battlefield grope...even if they did it on purpose. Which none of you had better do during this exercise even for a joke. Besides, if you're hitting titties you're aiming too low anyway, your target should be the upper chest and shoulders."
Ichigo, with some reluctance even considering the situation, reclaimed control of his hand. "You'll start off with your partner and go for ten minutes, then we'll break for a few and you'll switch. By the end of this exercise you will have faced everyone else. That way you get an idea of what it's like to face off against opponents of different sizes and strengths. And no using your Semblance. Now pick your square and start when ready."
They stood back and watched with both interest and some amusement as their students began the exercise. Yang tried to use her strength but was being countered by Blake's agile footwork and superior balance. Nora was similarly stymied by the exceptional balance and quick hands of her partner. Ruby and Weiss was really interesting. They were the smallest in the class but seemed to go at it with the most ferocity and determination. At first Ruby easily pushed Weiss out of the square. She may have been small but she was deceptively strong, she would have to be if she could wield Crescent Rose the way she did.
Weiss got indignant and didn't like the smug little look Ruby gave her so she waded back in with bullheaded tenacity. Relying on the dance and gymnastic training that had gone into her schooling on using Myrtenaster, she proved to be very light and agile on her feet and was able to get outside of Ruby and elbow her off balance several times and out of the square.
Jaune, well his footwork was a bit of a mess and Pyrrha had little trouble with him, although, almost predictably he was the first to accidentally get a handful of boob. Her face went as red as her hair and Jaune was mortified, apologizing profusely. It was a toss up if the redhead was offended or if she liked it, when you considered the source. It was all Yoruichi could do to not laugh out loud but it wasn't the only incident though.
"Renny! You booped my boob!"
She had done a pretty good job of disguising it but Yoruichi had seen the hammer wielder manoeuvre herself into position for the solid but purely unintentional grope. Poor Ren, he really was a gentleman and was a stuttering mess as he apologized while Nora was most likely storing the incident in her 'favourite memory file'.
Yoruichi had to slap a hand over her mouth to stifle her reaction to an amused snort while Ichigo just facepalmed. He raised an eyebrow when he saw an evil grin come over his wife's face.
"Don't do it," he warned.
"What?" she asked innocently.
"You're thinking about pranking them by using Shunpo to shoot around the room and grab everyone's boobs," he accused. "It would be over so fast it would look to them like you'd never left my side."
"...Maybe. You could do the same thing you know?" she smirked.
"I am not going to go squeeze my students boobs," he scowled. "...My co-teacher's boobs, yes, but not theirs."
"It's a date," she said as she pinched his butt and winked before calling a halt to the exercise. The first ten minutes was up.
There were only two more incidents for the rest of the exercise, one when Nora declared "Got your boob Jauney!" and startled the boy into stumbling out of the square. The second was Yang who couldn't resist grabbing a handful of her little sister. After running several laps up and down the steps in the seating area as punishment, Yang and Nora were grumpily sitting in the middle of the arena holding up a paper sign that said 'We're a pair of boobs' and had their pictures taken by their classmates.
After that and a small break they sprung the surprise Aura manipulation test on them and they were quite pleased with the results. It was obvious that they had been practising and they let them know how happy they were with their progress and gave them the rest of the class to play around with the skill, including setting up a firing range where they could try firing their constructs at the safety barrier.
Yoruichi gave them some pointers on that and a demonstration. She wasn't really expecting any of them to be able to do it yet, the biggest difficulty would be in learning to get the construct to leave their hand and do so intact. After that would come the ability to actually throw it somewhere. The interesting thing would be to see if any of them had it blow up in their face the way Kido used to blow up in Ichigo's face when she was teaching it to him. It wouldn't hurt them though, it was their own Aura after all and if they got hit by 'friendly fire', their Aura should protect them from it.
As the others got started and Yoruichi watched over them, Ichigo pulled Pyrrha aside. "I wanted to apologize for my behaviour towards you," he said. "I hadn't realized I was being so obvious with my reactions and I'm sorry for making you feel uncomfortable."
"Oh...um, that's alright," she said. "Now that I know why I guess I can understand your reaction."
"But you didn't at first and I made you feel like you had done something wrong," he countered. "And I should have spoken up before now rather than letting it get to the point where you needed to ask Yoruichi about it. Coming to class couldn't have been a lot of fun under the those circumstances."
"It...was a little tense," she admitted. "But I feel better now that I know the reason. I have to say I was shocked when Yoruichi explained it to me."
"I can imagine," he said with a gentle smile. "That wasn't exactly the explanation anyone would expect to hear."
"It's also a little overwhelming to know that what reincarnated as my soul was so significant to someone I know," she said. "I want to live up to that, to do them justice."
"Not that you have to but you're already doing a good job of that," he assured. "Just be you Pyrrha, you don't have to worry about anything else. Now, I've kept you long enough so go join the others and play with your Aura and see what you can do."
"Right. Thank you Professor," she said as she went to join her friends.
"Just Ichigo is fine," he reminded her retreating form. He thought about the two souls that had reincarnated into her and smiled. "I think you guys would have liked her," he said quietly to himself. One day he hoped to be able to tell the girl the truth and tell her about Orihime and Tatsuki.
As for Pyrrha herself, the subject of her reincarnated soul had become a bit of a fascination for her. She wondered what the person had been like and if there was an opportunity and she could pull up the courage to ask, she would like to hear about that person. She had been reading some articles on the net about reincarnation theory and had watched videos of a few discussion shows that had touched on the subject.
She certainly didn't doubt what Yoruichi had told her about the past life within a soul being just a collection of memories and experiences with no sentience, but she couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if you could consciously access those thoughts and experiences. She didn't want to think about the possibilities if one of your past lives was sentient, that would be something right out of a horror show.
Since finding out about her reincarnated soul she had been using the meditation techniques Ren had taught them to try and see if she could find any of the memories and experiences of that other life. It was probably a silly endeavour and she did feel a little foolish in doing it. Most assuredly it would yield nothing but for someone who rarely ever indulged in anything beyond her training and her studies it seemed a harmless pursuit. If nothing else she would at least get the calming benefits from the meditation.
Mountain Glenn
A small piece of the sky warped and split open above the desolate ruins of the would be city, revealing an ominous black void. Ichigo stepped out and let himself drop gently to the top of a derelict, half constructed building as the maw snapped shut above him. The dimensional void had always had an ominous feel to it, but that feeling had become magnified ever since things collapsed. Fortunately the use of Garganta was still possible and it had allowed them to traverse Remnant, seemingly disappearing without a trace when the need to move on hit them. On those occasions it was better to move half a world away than only a few miles to another nearby town where they might still be recognized when that would become problematic.
The perils of immortality could be an inconvenient bitch at times.
During their last trip to the abandoned city both he and Yoruichi's instincts had told them that something was a little off here and it would be a good idea to check back regularly. After classes had ended for the day she had gone off to tend to her routine snooping for information and he decided to pay Mountain Glenn a return visit. They had a theory that they were trying to confirm or disprove.
A lot of it relied on circumstantial evidence and logic rather than a totality of absolute hard facts but that was what they had to work with. Cinder Fall had most assuredly been the one to steal the Fall Maiden's power and was leading the operation here in Vale. It seemed to be all but a given that she must be working for Salem, who advanced her plans through the actions of others to cause destabilization and sow mistrust. They also believed that it had been Cinder who broke into the CCT tower and was believed to have inserted something into the system that may or may not give her access and control over anything on the system.
If that was the case then she could exercise control over the matches for the tournament. Given that she was here with her own team and they were supposedly going to participate in the Vytal Festival tournament, she could easily set up matches that were to her advantage to get her team to whatever position that suited her plans. If indeed she worked for Salem then messing with the tournament was a good way to cause some mayhem. The festival and the tournament were important cultural events that the people always greatly looked forward to. What kind of discontent would it cause if something bad happened during a match...like a team or combatant from one kingdom attacking a competitor and injuring them, or obviously cheating in a match or doing something that was the height for unsportsmanlike behaviour?
There had been minor incidents in the past when someone couldn't handle losing or the pressure got to them and they either purposely hurt an opponent or attacked them after the end of a match and it had been greatly upsetting to the viewers. What if there were multiple incidents of some kind? They had already discussed how big the viewership of the tournament was and how a large outpouring of discontent over something could agitate the Grimm and the Kingdom's had already been experiencing an upsurge in Grimm activity for a while now.
The attack that had come from Mountain Glenn most likely was originally planned to take place during the tournament and probably after there had already been an incident. The incident revealed that the White Fang were at least working with Cinder if not directly for Salem, and that Grimm had been part of the plan as well. The White Fang, their stolen Paladins, and hordes of Grimm would have been unleashed upon the city. What's to say that there weren't other parts of the plan that also involved attracting the Grimm to the city, the arena, and Beacon itself?
That's why Ichigo had come back to Mountain Glenn again. The heavy forest cover, rugged mountains, and network of caverns and caves were an ideal place for the Grimm to take up residence and it was right on the edge of the Kingdom of Vale. That terrain also meant that the area was home to a large number of older Grimm and those Grimm would not hesitate to storm the Kingdom if the door was opened for them and the enticement was great enough.
With the taint of Hell on them, and with his familiarity with it, he could gauge how many Grimm were in the area and how strong they were. The older the Grimm the stronger the taint. The number of older Grimm around the area had increased slightly but the number of younger, lesser Grimm had skyrocketed. He had little doubt that they were gathering, possibly being directed here by Salem in anticipation of the unfolding of Cinder's plan.
"What do you guys think?" he asked his partners as they appeared beside him.
"Ya ain't wrong King," Shiro said as he let his own senses scan over the terrain. "There's a shitload more Grimm here than there was when you and the Queen put on that show for Little Red."
"Indeed most of the new one's are younger but there are more old ones," Tensa confirmed. "A lot of airborne Grimm have arrived and are roosting in the tree tops and up on the mountain. If Salem's minions are able to cause enough despair and negativity to lure these Grimm to Vale it will be a massacre."
"Then let's thin out the herd," Ichigo said, grinning savagely. "Let's spread out. Shiro, give them a reason to come out and play, then we slaughter as many as we can. If the old one's don't come out, we go after them."
Shiro grinned like a maniac. "You got it King." With a cackle he was off to the open ground down below where they had taken down the Goliath's. With a nod to one anther Ichigo and Tensa split off and went hunting.
Being a Hollow, Shiro was the ideal beacon if you wanted to attract Grimm. By their nature Hollow's were creatures of despair and when the Grimm felt that deep despair they couldn't resist it and flocked to it like moths to a flame. Dozens and dozens of younger Grimm immediately emerged from the ruins and the forests and charged towards that flame. Shiro chortled darkly and drew his sword from his back.
"C'mon you shitty, Hell stinkin' bastards...come and get it!"
Standing in midair Tensa scowled as he watched a multitude of Giant Nevermore and Griffons take to the air from the trees and come down from their aeries on the mountain. Soulless, the Grimm were an affront to life itself and he could not abide their existence. If their origin, being creations of one of two brother Gods was indeed true, then their creator was a truly depraved being. The Grimm served no purpose other than to cause despair and misery and to destroy life. With a scowl and a wave of his blade the advancing airborne Grimm were met with a storm of Holy Arrows that they had no chance of escaping.
"You are nothing more than useless filth staining the land," he growled. "Be gone."
Ichigo hit the ground in a cloud of dust right in front of a massive Deathstalker just as it emerged from the woods. It swiped at him with its left pincer which he sliced in half with a wave of his large blade. As the other pincer came slamming down he was already gone, having stepped forward and driving Zangetsu into its head. A low powered Getsuga Tensho all but obliterated it. A large group of Creeps came stampeding from his left. He drew his Quincy blade and with a flick of his wrist several dozen electric blue crescents of spirit energy tore the reptilian Grimm to shreds. A large pack of Beowolves came charging at him, their Alpha hanging back to watch and wait for his opening. Both blades flashed as Ichigo expertly and easily bobbed and weaved around their attacks, cutting them to ribbons.
The Alpha roared but little more, confusion registering in its brain as it found itself relieved of all four limbs, the last thing it saw being Ichigo's scowling face as he removed its head. A massive Beringel roared and dropped towards him from well up in one of the huge trees. The thought crossed his mind to take it on unarmed just for the slim challenge it would pose, but this wasn't the time to play around. Instead, he swished into Shunpo and shot towards it, bisecting it from crotch to head before it ever had a chance to strike.
Things were still around him for a moment so he let his senses seek out the nearest potent Hell taint and took off after it. He was a blur as he sped through the trees, cutting down every Grimm he could and nearly every one of them before they even knew he was upon them. The air was thick with the feel of Hell and it took his mind back to the time he entered that horrible place to get his sister back. He hated the Grimm as it was, but that feel of Hell on them, especially when fighting large numbers of them, brought out all the pain and anger and desperation he had felt when the sinners had taken Yuzu into Hell's depths and he fought to bring her home. They simply had to die and he would damn well make sure that they did.
Large Grimm or small, it didn't matter. They were cut into multiple pieces before they knew what hit them. He blitzed through them like a force of nature. If it wasn't his blades it was a barrage of Bala reducing a large pack of Beowolves to mush, or a Sokatsui obliterating the head of an Alpha Ursa. A huge old Nevermore tried to take wing and vacate the area but found itself incinerated by Shakkaho. Another huge Deathstalker was smashed into the ground, its armour shattered when he rocketed down onto it from above. He sliced off its stinger and pincers before sweeping his blade through its head.
Nearly two hours later he and his spirits were back where they started, watching the enormous pall of dissipating Grimm slowly clear from the early evening sky. None of them spoke for a while, all having become dangerously absorbed in the hunt for their own reasons and needing to gather themselves.
"Even I have to say we might have gotten a little too into that," Shiro finally said.
"It seems we all needed some cathartic relief," Tensa added.
"Might be the only thing the Grimm are good for," Ichigo said. "Even if they aren't much of a challenge for us. If we come back in a few days and the numbers are going back up again then I think it's a safe bet that they're being sent here. Even the young ones should have strong enough instincts to make them avoid a place where we've used our power, at least for a while. You don't stick around in a place where a stronger predator has left their mark and made their presence known."
"And if Salem can indeed control them they aren't likely to disobey her," Tensa added.
"Killing those Goliath's should have been enough of a warning but the old ones stayed and all those new ones still showed up," Shiro said. "My gut tells me they'll keep coming."
"I think you're right," Ichigo agreed. "I wish we had more concrete proof but I think our theory is on the right track."
"We'll need to keep coming back and thinning them out," Tensa observed. "Even if we can't get rid of them all we can keep the numbers down. Even if she is pushing them here they might still become hesitant if we keep killing them."
"Heh...I volunteer to come out here at night and take them on," Shiro offered with a Kenpachi-like grin. "I could use the exercise."
"Have at it," Ichigo smirked.
"I'll do night patrols of the borders and take down any other concentrations I find," Tensa said. "That will leave you and Yoruichi free to watch over the city, the school, and our infiltrators."
"Sounds like a plan," Ichigo said. "Since the White Fang are likely still involved we should try and find where they're hiding. If we don't get them we might at least find their supply drops and take away their toys. A little chaos might keep them from recruiting too." He looked back toward Vale. "Might as well go back. We can make a sweep through the city and call it a night. Yoruichi was going to spy on Cinder and her crew for a bit then go look into something else before coming home."
His spirits returned to his inner world. He took one last look around before opening a Garganta and going back to Vale.
Given his main occupation Roman Torchwick was used to waiting and understood the value of being patient. It could make all the difference between a successful job or a busted one, a big score or an outright loss. Still, that didn't make his current situation any better. Yes, he had agreed to get caught and be held by the good General and he knew it would be a long and boring ordeal before his next part of the plan came into effect. Of course he had made sure that he was being well compensated for this and being up here on the General's flagship did keep him out of any entanglements Cinder and her kiddies got into on the ground.
The cell was small but by contrast the bed was actually pretty comfy. He got three square meals a day and he was able to catch up on the sleep he'd been shorting himself on while planning and executing what seemed like an endless string of Dust robberies and deals for weapons for the White Fang, including those Paladins. He had to admit, he'd outdone himself there. The train crash had taken something out of him too so the rest and the downtime wasn't unwelcome.
He supposed it could have been even more boring, but the Atlesian's were so regimented that they kept up a schedule that actually gave his day some structure. The meals always arrived at the same time as did his twice daily interrogations. He could pretty much keep track of the time by the schedule they had him on. He also got to verbally spar with his interrogators, whether it was Ironwood himself or one of his officers. The verbal sparring was fun and he knew how to play the interrogation game and it was fun when he could stretch things out, making the poor saps think he was about to give them some actual useful information only to frustrate them in the end.
As stiff as the General was, like most Atlesians were, he didn't resort to torture or abuse. Not that it would have done much good because he had been down that road before and survived it relatively unscathed. He knew how to get an abusive interrogator to make that one mistake they would regret and physically skilled enough to take advantage of it, he had done it before. All he had to do was string them along and bide his time until Neo sprung him and he could move on to the next part of the plan.
Still, it would be nice to have a book or two to read. He could could only sleep so much or spend so much time keeping his mind occupied by running through countless schemes for the future once he was free again, as he new he would be. Despite his wish for a different distraction he was still rather surprised when he heard his cell door unlocking. He had already had his evening meal and the tray had been taken away so he shouldn't have been having another visitor until morning.
He was expecting either Ironwood or one of his flunkies but that wasn't what stepped through the door. The person was a little over five feet tall he guessed and the form fitting black outfit they wore left no guessing that they were female and a well put together female at that. They looked like some sort of ninja or something, only their eyes and the dark skin around them and their hands were visible. But those eyes, they were yellow and they bored into him with an intensity that brought him up short and made him think twice before any flippant words could immediately pass his lips.
"Well, this is different," he finally managed as the door to his small cell was once again closed. "Did Old Ironpants decide to change tactics?"
"He doesn't know I'm here and won't like it that I am," his visitor said. "But that's his problem and he'll just have to live with it."
He felt an invisible weight begin to settle upon him and she seemed to loom over him like a giant. Impossibly her gaze become even more intense and malicious intent prickled at his skin like the points of so many tiny and very sharp needles.
"You've been uncooperative Roman and I'm not going to accept that," the woman said coldly, sending an icy trickle of fear down his spine. When was the last time he had felt something like that...no, strike that thought. He had never felt anything like this and he didn't like it one bit. "You are going to tell me what I want to know and the quicker you do the less misery you will be in."
"And if I don't?" he dared. Hopefully he could play the same game that he did with Ironwood and his people but the chances of that working seemed pretty slim right now. His guts were telling him that this was going to be unlike any interrogation he had ever sat through.
"There is no don't or won't Roman," she assured him in a voice that brooked no disagreement. "There is only will. And you will tell me everything I want to know. There are no other options available to you."
AN: And there it is. Thanks for reading and I hope you will leave a review on your way out.
If you're bored, feel free to go read my other works and maybe review them too.