Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth and Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I own nothing of either of them and make no profit from them. I am only playing in the worlds they gave us.
I can't believe what a slog this chapter was...this story is getting harder and harder to write it seems. Nothing is coming freely to me now like it was before and my perspective on it is messed up. Are the humorous parts working? Are the emotional parts getting a reaction? I don't know. My mindset on it feels like it has gone from colour to black and white.
As such, I have no idea about this chapter. It took so long to write it and it came out in such fragmented pieces...there were days that if I got anything written at all, it might have only been a sentence or two.
For what it's worth though, here it is. I hope it doesn't suck too hard.
A Chance Encounter
Chapter 15:
The door to the combat class arena opened very slowly and only part way. A pair of silver eyes could be seen cautiously scanning the interior from within the folds of a red hood.
"Well?" the whispering voice of her sister asked from behind her.
"All I see is Ichigo in the ring doing some kind of exercises with his swords," Ruby whispered back.
"What about Yoruichi?"
"I don't see her anywhere."
So what had the students of the advanced combat class exercising such caution? When they arrived for class the previous day they were immediately set upon by their teachers and were under siege for the entire class with no let up. Not only that but as they fought they were being asked questions about not only things directly related to their combat training and tactics, but many of their other subjects as well, and most especially the traits and vulnerabilities of certain types of Grimm. A wrong answer got a punishment, either a small orb of Yoruichi's electrically charged Aura, or a ball of kinetic force from Ichigo.
Many first year students made the mistake of discounting the tales Professor Port told in his Grimm Studies class. At a glance, sure, they sounded like nothing more than eccentric bragging by an old Huntsman reminiscing about his past exploits. But if you actually listened, and especially if you compared them against each other with the idea in mind of just exactly what type of Grimm he was fighting, you would learn how that type of Grimm typically fought and where its vulnerable points were.
The stories he told were also an exercise in deciphering the pertinent grains of information from the chaff of the bombastic storytelling. That in itself was a very valuable skill when it came to gaining little nuggets of useful information from a conversation that might otherwise seem like it was pointless. Most first year students found this out the hard way when Port sprung his first major test on them and they were all left bewildered because they didn't know any of the material.
There were always a couple of students who would actually pick up on what he had been doing and would verify what they heard in his stories against their Grimm Studies text book. When Port explained it to them all after the test there were a lot of mouths left hanging wide open and the students suddenly started taking his class a lot more seriously and spent a lot more time with their noses in the textbook.
By the time the marathon class was over, all eight students were sore, exhausted, totally out of Aura, and their brains felt like they had been extracted, pureed in a blender, and poured back into their heads. It was nearly twenty four hours later and they still weren't fully recovered from it and they wanted to make sure they weren't blindsided like that again.
Yang's head appeared in the opening, then Blake's and pretty soon all eight of them were trying to scope out the room.
"Hiya kids!" Yoruichi spoke loudly...and from directly overhead. She was standing in mid air and upside down, just above and to the right of the doorway.
With a surprised squawk the stack of students tumbled to the floor in a heap, landing in an interesting array of positions...which Yoruichi wasted no time taking pictures of with her scroll. Pyrrha had landed right on top of Jaune, her armoured cleavage right in his face and they were practically joined at the hips...and the boy only seemed to be reacting mildly to it. Pyrrha on the other hand...nearly every visible inch of bare skin was turning scarlet. She shot to her feet so fast that Yoruichi figured she must have used her Semblance against his armour to shoot herself upright.
"I'm sorry!" she blurted out quickly.
"No harm done," Jaune said as he got up. The were-cat facepalmed. Even Ichigo wouldn't have been this oblivious back in the day.
"You had better let her up Yang, she's turning blue," Blake said as she stood. A certain white haired girl had gotten buried under the blonde's bountiful assets.
"Whoops, my bad Weiss," she apologized.
"You're going to kill someone with those things one of these days!" the Atlesian yelled as she caught her breath.
"Yeah, but what a way to go right?" Yang laughed.
"Maybe you should register them as lethal weapons!" Nora chirped as she finally, obliviously, stopped smothering Ren in much the same way with her own not inconsiderable assets.
"Don't encourage her," Weiss countered.
"How are you doing that?" Ruby asked Yoruichi, who was still hanging in mid air above them.
"Trade secret," she answered with a wink. "What you call Aura, we call spiritual energy and the air is saturated with it. We can gather that energy beneath our feet and use it to walk on air...or hang in mid air."
"That's awesome!" Ruby exclaimed. "Can we do that?"
"Right now, no," she answered, getting a cute little pout in return. "Somewhere down the road...who knows?"
"What's the hold up?" Ichigo called. He had finished his exercises and was cracking open a bottle of water.
"Just discussing how there are worse ways to die than getting smothered by boobs," Yoruichi chirped as she turned and walked back to him, still upside down and in midair. "You should try it sometime, it'd be a lot less painful than what you're used to."
"True," he said with a shrug.
"Wait a minute," Yang interrupted as they were making their way to the seats. "You're not saying that you've actually died are you?"
"Afraid so," he answered as if it was no big deal.
"Twice," Yoruichi added as she flipped around and landed on her feet next to him. "And he's been nearly dead a few other times."
Blank stares and the echo of crickets chirping met their responses.
"You can't be serious?" Weiss finally managed to say.
"I can and I am," she said. She placed her right hand over the centre of his chest. "Blasted through and through in the same spot in two different fights against the same opponent."
"The scar on your chest," Nora gasped, her hands covering her mouth.
"It's not so much a scar as it is a patch of discoloured skin," he corrected.
"The first time he was brought back by a friend who had the power to literally reject reality," Yoruichi explained. "Primarily she used it to heal people of their wounds. The second time she wasn't able to, likely because of the trauma of witnessing it happen to him that time so a part of his own soul had to take matters into its own hands. When the wound regenerated it left that pale circle. It has gradually gotten less pale over time but it's still noticeable obviously."
Bugged out eyes and slack jaws greeted them again.
"A power that rejects reality?" Ren asked incredulously. "That's..."
"Godlike?" Ichigo suggested helpfully. "Yeah, it was, and the otherwise normal girl that wielded it is the one who's soul reincarnated to Pyrrha."
A surprised gasp came from the Mistralian. "Orihime was one of the kindest and most gentle people you would ever meet," Yoruichi explained. "She also cared very deeply for her friends." She smirked. "So much so that you ended up with a two for one deal."
"A what?" the redhead asked, obviously confused.
"Two souls combined together and became your soul," Ichigo explained. "The other one was Orihime's best friend Tatsuki. She was also the first friend I ever made when I was just a kid. Tatsuki always looked out for Orihime...used to look out for me too when I couldn't look out for myself."
Yoruichi took over again. "We have a theory that when our worlds were being destroyed Orihime tried to use her power to stop it or fix it...whatever she could do, but when that didn't work we think she tried to concentrate on the two people she loved the most and that was Tatsuki and Ichigo. Somehow their souls ended up together and we think it may have played a part in how Ichigo and I survived."
"Speaking of surviving," Yang interjected. "She said after you died the second time part of your soul had to take matters into its own hands. What the heck does that even mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like," he answered with a smirk. "And you'll find out when we get to that part of the story."
"Dude! You can't just leave us hanging like that!" she protested.
"He just did," Yoruichi laughed.
"You...you really died?" Ruby asked. She looked and sounded a little distressed.
He sighed. "Yeah. An enemy had kidnapped Orihime, convinced her that if she went willingly then none of her friends would be hurt, which was a load of bull. I wasn't about to let them get away with it so me and some friends went after her." He smirked. "Like usual, I jumped in head first without a clue about what I was really up against. Maybe if I had used my head and been smarter about it I wouldn't have gotten killed. I had all the luck of a lifetime and then some to have a friend that could bring me back and to have something in my soul that could do it again when she couldn't."
"Take it as another example of what can happen if you go off half cocked and unprepared," Yoruichi said. "Although, that may be a little harsh since there were plenty of other people who should have been involved in getting her back but weren't. At least not right away."
She always regretted not going with him and she never forgave Old Man Yamamoto for his assertion that Orihime was a traitor and not sending anyone to help. For a while with him everything was a case of treason. She had begun to wonder if he had become senile or just lazy and declaring everything to be a treasonous act to be met with immediate execution was easier than going to all the work of actually investigating the problem. After all, the dead couldn't refute the charges against them and pitifully few among the ranks had enough balls to go against the Old Man.
"This all just gets more unbelievable by the minute," Weiss commented.
"Wait until we actually get into the meat of the story then," Ichigo said. "Which we thought we might give you all a break today and tell you some more of it, since we wore you all out with our little surprise yesterday."
"Speaking of which," Yang said. "There was something we were wanting to talk about yesterday but didn't get to because you bushwhacked us." She looked to Blake who wilted and gave her a bit of a 'why are you throwing me under the bus?' look. "We saw that new video."
Yoruichi looked at Blake. "And considering who you are and your past you have concerns?"
Blake's eyes went wide, a little like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. "You know?" she asked nervously.
Yoruichi nodded. "So are you more concerned about what we've been doing to the organization as a whole, or is it more to do with the particular antagonist of the video?"
She was pretty sure of the answer since Blake had never shown any level of upset over the other videos. Other than some wounded pride no one had suffered any great physical harm and the group as a whole was being called out for its unsavoury methods.
Blake sighed. "The man in the video...he was my partner and mentor in the White Fang and one of the biggest reasons why I left. He's spiteful and full of hate. Spilling human blood became more important to him than the cause itself. He'll kill anyone who stands in his way, even if it's another Faunus. The raids you were making on members of the organization would have been driving him insane with the need to find and kill who was doing it."
"Oh it was doing that alright," Yoruichi said. "We've heard a few of the rants he went on to his Lieutenants and there is no doubt that he is definitely out for blood."
"You've gotten close enough to him to listen in?" Ren asked.
Ichigo smirked. "There isn't a place that Yoruichi can't get into and out of again undetected. Getting into one of the Fang's hideouts wasn't even a small challenge for her. She's the best at what she does."
"He says the sweetest things," Yoruichi smiled.
"But after this latest attack and the way you humiliated him he's likely to do anything," Blake said, her voice carrying worry and a tinge of fear. "He'll be obsessed with getting revenge."
"That's what we're counting on and exactly why we did it," she said. "The intel that we've put together shows that when sufficiently angered he's more likely to become reckless than he is to become more focused by it. He'll either have to risk exposure to his group or himself and any plans they have in place to satisfy that obsessive need, or he'll have to find a hole to hide in and stew in his own juices until it's time to come out again. Either way the chances of him becoming sloppy and making mistakes increases."
"Then there's the issue of support," Ichigo added. "He has a reputation that has drawn a lot of the White Fang's hardcore supporters to him and he's their pillar of strength, the one they look to when they need to make a bold and bloody statement. But he just got slapped around, literally, by some unknown woman half his size and she did it to him easily. The hardcore ones may not back off from him, but they're sure as hell going to want an explanation and he won't be regarded the same way as he was. The less committed might want to defect to another branch of the organization or even get out entirely. Unless he's willing to abandon everything else for his revenge he's going to have to be working overtime just to keep things together."
"And this doesn't even take into account what High Leader Khan's reaction is going to be to this," Yoruichi added. "Because this is going to be a problem that she will have to deal with too. Unless Adam goes completely off the rails things should get pretty quiet with the White Fang for a while."
"But he could just as easily go on a rampage to find out who attacked him," Blake pressed. "He won't care who he hurts and he'll do anything to find out. He won't let it go."
"Neither will we and if he goes down that path he'll find it to be a dead end," Ichigo said darkly.
"The attacks we've made on both the White Fang and the human supremacist groups are a warning shot," Yoruichi said. "A wake up call that someone who can and will kick their asses is fed up with their antics. They can rethink their positions and get out of the hate business or they can face worse consequences down the road if they continue to escalate. It's their one and only chance to reconsider their ways. Some might, some won't, maybe none of them will but either way they will serve as an example to others to consider a different point of view. That's why we also leave the messages behind that we do."
"All of their hate and their actions that are driven by it do nothing but cause misery and it attracts the Grimm, the real enemy everyone should be concerning themselves with," Ichigo said.
"Speaking of misery," Yang said. "You nearly gave us all a heart attack! We thought he had killed you when he ran you through with his sword."
"That thing you did...that's just like Blake's shadow clones isn't it?" Ruby asked.
"Close," Yoruichi answered with smirk. "You could even say they're related. Her Semblance allows her to use her Aura to make a temporary clone of herself. What I did is actually a speed technique. I move so fast that I leave an afterimage. And if I use a little of my Aura..." She was now sitting on top of Ichigo's shoulders while also seemingly still standing in front of them, leaving them all gaping. "The image will linger for a bit."
A moment later said image wavered and disappeared but there were now three Ichigo's with Yoruichi sitting on his shoulders standing before them.
"As you can see, my Ichi can do it too." A moment later the left and right images disappeared leaving the real couple in the middle, once again leaving their students stunned.
"Cat got their tongues I guess," Ichigo smirked as he looked up at his wife. She placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed herself up into a handstand, lowering enough to give him a quick peck on the lips before flipping over and landing on her feet. It was all done in one smooth, seamless motion.
"That was amazing!" Ruby exclaimed. "Do you think I can do that too?"
"I don't know," Yoruichi pondered with a growing, devilish smirk. "What do you think Ichi, can Ruby get a kiss too?"
"W-w-wha..." she turned scarlet and began frantically waving her hands in front of her as she backed away, only stopping when she bumped up against Yang.
"Wow, you're getting pretty bold there Ruby," Yang cheered. "I'm impressed."
"Yang! T-that's not what I meant! I-I...that speed thing! I meant that speed thing they did!"
"Gotta be careful Ruby," Ichigo said, smiling and shaking his head. "Give Yoruichi and opening and she'll take it."
"I tease because I care," the were-cat defended herself, folding her arms over her chest. "And you can't expect me to pass up an opening like that, it would be unnatural." She looked at Ruby. "As for the speed thing, right now I would say probably not because your speed Semblance is different. You actually turn into a cloud of rose petals when you move and we haven't quite figured out how that works just yet."
A mischievous grin graced Yang's lips. "So have you figured out why Blake can use two techniques that are awfully close to what the two of you have?"
"Yang!" Blake admonished.
"What? You wanted to know even before we found out about that speed thing," Yang reminded her. "That Getsuga thingy and the purple hair in your cat ears...your only hang up was on how it would be possible."
"And we did learn at lunch the other day that just asking was the best way to find out," Weiss reminded her.
They all looked at their teachers expectantly. When no response came or even the actual outright stating of the question they all now wanted to know the answer to, Nora took matters into her own hands.
"So is Blake related to you two or not?"
Ren facepalmed. He cared deeply for his ginger haired companion but she really did need to learn some tact.
"That's a question for the concerned party to ask, if she really wants an answer to it," Yoruichi said neutrally. "Do you Blake?"
She felt like she was suddenly in a spotlight, a feeling she never liked. She wasn't angry with Yang or Weiss or Nora, but this was something that if she was going to ask the question, and there was no guarantee that she ever would have, she wanted to do it in her own time. At least that way she wouldn't feel like as much of a fool for asking a question where the obvious answer should be no. She couldn't see any possible way that Yoruichi and Ichigo could have had a Faunus child.
But what if they did and she was one of their descendants? Did they really know about her past and the things she had done? That past and the shame of it was why she hadn't been in contact with her parents since she abandoned Adam on the train that day and made a run for it. She had spoken to them so badly, calling them cowards and accusing them of abandoning the cause. She had been such a naive and idealistic fool, letting herself be blindly led by the nose until all of a sudden she found herself unable to ignore the unpleasant reality of what she had really involved herself in.
If these two really were her blood family and even if they knew and looked beyond what she had done, what would they think of how she had been hiding like such a coward? She hid the visual evidence that she was a Faunus. She had been hiding here from those she had run from. When things got difficult her first instinct was to run. What kind of a person ran and hid from her own family like she had? What kind of a person put them through the worry of not knowing what had become of her just to avoid the shame that she had brought down upon her own head?
But she couldn't really run here now could she? Especially not when one of the confidence building things they were being taught in this class was the need to stand your ground whenever possible and face things head on and not avoid them because they were tough or unpleasant. Running or not asking would also make her a hypocrite when all of her friends already knew by her actions that she wanted an answer to that question, even if she had never come right out and said it. One doesn't show curiosity about something if they don't actually want to know.
She looked up at her teachers, two people who had already made such a positive and lasting impression upon her, upon all of them. She made her decision.
"Yes," she answered. She even reached up and removed her bow. "I really do want to know if I am related to the two of you."
"I knew you'd look even prettier without it," Yoruichi smirked.
Ichigo smiled and there was a warm look in his eyes. "Yes you are Blake. You are a direct descendant of ours. You're part of our family." When her cat ears flattened and her entire demeanour seemed to droop he became worried. "Blake? What's wrong?" he asked, his voice heavy with concern.
"I...I haven't exactly been good to my family," she managed to say with a voice that was beginning to quaver.
He stepped down off the arena stage and sat on it's edge so he could levelly look her in the eyes. He was glad to see Yang place a reassuring hand on her shoulder and Ruby and Weiss moved closer to her to show their support.
"Tell me," he said gently.
She took a deep shuddering breath. Normally she would keep this to herself, keep it internalized like she did so many other things, but for some reason she just couldn't do that right now. "My Father started the White Fang and he did a lot of good, but there were those who didn't think change was coming fast enough and they wanted a more aggressive method. He refused to be a part of it and stepped down as leader." She sniffled and her voice became more broken.
"I was a believer in what we were doing and argued and screamed at them. I called them cowards for abandoning the cause and I took off with Adam. I was so stupid and I didn't see where it was going, where he and Sienna Khan were leading us until it was too late." She began to openly cry now, tears leaving their tracks down her face.
"My parents were right and I helped turn the peaceful movement they started into the violent and hateful thing it is today. They were making positive change and all I did was help turn it into an instrument of fear. I haven't talked to them since I left and I'm too afraid and too much of a coward to try. I know they must hate me."
"I'm pretty sure that's not the case," Ichigo said. "But I doubt that anyone other than them will ever be able to convince you of that. You may have participated but you didn't lead the group in the direction it took. You can't blame yourself for that and when you saw how far off the rails they had gone you got out. That took guts."
"You never hurt or killed anyone right?" Yoruichi asked.
Blake shook her head. "No. That's not what were supposed to be about. I could never do that."
Yoruichi smiled. "You held onto your principles despite what the others were doing around you. You would have been pretty young when you broke away from your parents and I would imagine that you looked up to Adam and hadn't seen the ugly side of him yet."
"It was always there but I refused to see it and believe it until it was too late," she said miserably.
"And sometimes that's just the way life goes," Ichigo said. "If you dwell on it and blame yourself then you end up like we were for so long, the way you all saw us at lunch a few days ago."
"What all of you said to us the other day kick started a process we've been trying to get to for a very long time," Yoruichi continued. "The process of forgiving ourselves and realizing that there were some things that we had no control over, things that we couldn't have changed even if we had another chance. We thought that we had been doing that but then something would happen that would make us see that we were doing anything but, and in our own way we were hiding from it and never advancing, never moving forward." She smirked. "It must run in the blood."
"So learn from your new found relatives," Ichigo said. "Let the past stay in the past, it's done and there's nothing that can be done to change it. In us, you've seen a glimpse of what dwelling on it can do to you. Don't do that to yourself. Give yourself a break and forgive yourself and move forward. You've got some pretty good friends that love you and have your back...and you've got us as family if you want us to be."
Yang went from having a hand on her shoulder to wrapping her arm around her and the others all moved a little closer, letting her know that they were all there for her. She felt a warmth go through her that she hadn't felt since before the argument with her parents. She looked up at her teachers.
"That sounds nice," she said softly. "Even if I still don't know how it could be possible."
Yoruichi smirked. "Well settle in kiddies and we'll tell you some things that will shed some light on that."
Flagship of General Ironwood:
If anyone had noticed that the General seemed a little distracted or out of sorts they hadn't said anything and he prided himself on always showing a veneer of control and decisiveness to his subordinates. It wouldn't do for them to see their commander be any other way. Morale and the confidence it bred were as vital to their success and the fulfillment of their duties as their training was.
That wasn't to say however that the General was his usual self under that outward veneer. The revelations of the last few weeks had turned the world upside down for him. Remnant being exactly that, the remains of another world and the dimensions that were linked to it. Kurosaki and Shihoin, two beings that had survived that cataclysmic event and who held power that could make them veritable gods in this world, and two people he seemed to keep ending up at odds with. The recent admissions from Ozpin.
It had all left him feeling a myriad of different things, the most disturbing of which was a sense that the situation was so much larger than he had ever contemplated and that he was feeling rather small in the midst of it. He hated that feeling. He commanded the largest and most advanced military force in the world, and he had a strong presence on the Atlas council. His positions gave him a considerable amount of influence and respect in most parts of the world.
Yet, in the hidden conflict against Salem all of his power and influence could not be wielded openly and he wasn't one to go too far outside the established channels and protocols to make use of it. Rules and procedures existed for a reason and wantonly breaking them or otherwise circumventing them was akin to trying to balance on a very thin and sharp knife edge and there was never a guarantee that the end results would be significant enough to warrant the risk.
They may be in a time of peace and it had been eighty years since the end of the Great War, but that did not mean that there weren't still some festering wounds in the hierarchy of the various kingdoms and people who were looking for anything they could latch onto as proof that their neighbours were up to something. He had to be careful about which toes he may step on.
Despite being invited by the Vale Council to provide security for the Vytal Festival, a move meant more to allow petty politicians the mistaken belief that they were sticking it to Ozpin, he was well aware that if anything went wrong he and the Kingdom of Atlas as a whole would be on the sharp end of the hook for it. He knew that there were those in Vale's upper echelons who saw the presence of his fleet as an affront to their sovereignty and who were just waiting for an incident that would allow them to pounce.
Such an incident loomed large as a possibility and that was the virus that was currently active within Vale's CCT system. Something had to be done about it yet the Council would not even give approval to have the system programming examined without the existence of a verifiable threat...which there was, but it wasn't like he could tell them. True, he might be able to give them an explanation that they might buy, but they would want to have their own local technicians see evidence of tampering, which he couldn't provide since the introduction of the virus had left no trace, not even as little as a log that anyone had accessed the CCT's systems at that time.
As much as he hated to admit it, Ichigo and Yoruichi were right. If the Council wouldn't play along then the only option was to go behind their backs and there were too many complications with that. The agreements in place between the kingdom's in regards to the CCT systems existed for a reason. It was a mechanism to build and maintain trust and it would be a serious breach of the agreements if he were to be caught digging around in them. By the same token however, they couldn't allow Cinder Fall to continue to have control over the system.
If their thinking was correct and Salem was up to her usual divide and conquer tactics, it would be a disaster if the Vale CCT was lost. Distrust between the kingdom's would rise and with Atlas and its military right in the middle of it, it wouldn't be hard to figure out who would end up wearing the goat horns whether it was warranted or not. Having been one of the antagonists of the Great War, Atlas was still viewed with a certain amount of suspicion and it certainly didn't help that some of its more prominent citizens did little to change that view.
He wanted to make the world a better place for everyone. He realized the mistakes his kingdom had made in the past and he wanted to make amends as he could for that. Atlas had the advanced technology and know how in a great many fields of endeavour to make a real difference in the world, but between the still lingering mistrust outside of Atlas and the obstructionists within, it was a constant uphill battle and that was before you considered the threat Salem posed.
Speaking of the witch, he wasn't sure if what he had recently been told by Ozpin made things better or worse. It had certainly been greatly disconcerting to hear it at first and he was now suitably embarrassed by his outburst. He had reacted instead of listening, something he seemed to have a bad habit of doing, but even if it was possible for someone else to put an end to her when Ozpin could not, they still didn't know for sure and he didn't much like the idea of having to fight a constant war of containment against her if they couldn't end her. It would be a never ending cycle that would do little more than devour lives.
As much as he wanted to be able to take some form of direct and meaningful action to put an end to this, he knew that what Ozpin had said, and had been saying all along, was ultimately correct. This would require patience. They needed to keep their eyes and ears open and dismantle any of her plots when and where they found them. That certainly ran the risk of pushing her to eventually act directly instead of manipulating things from the shadows but perhaps they really did have an ace up their sleeve in Ichigo and Yoruichi. If there was to truly be any hope he would have to believe that and he wasn't entirely sure yet if he could. Blind faith wasn't one of his strong points.
So, to salvage some of his pride, pride that he had largely dented himself, and to feel like he wasn't just sitting on his hands he had to do something, whatever he could at the moment to help the process and that required taking a little trip. He had some important calls to make and he couldn't risk having any communications traffic, even if was encrypted, go through the Vale CCT. Any risk of interception was unacceptable. To that end his flagship was flying back towards Mistral where he would route his communications through one of the relay stations and on through the Mistral CCT. Using one of the relays would keep them further away from the Mistral CCT which was situated at Haven and with Professor Lionheart's loyalty now being in question it was better to not be noticed. The more Leo was kept in the dark about things right now, the better.
As it was, he was having his second in command take the ship on a patrol sweep of the area where their turn back point was, having already logged the flight as a possible Grimm interdiction patrol. If anyone were to raise an eyebrow over it they could always claim they had received an erroneous report of Grimm activity. If they were lucky they would actually find some Grimm to shoot at.
He hoped that what he had in mind didn't come back to bite him in the ass, but he supposed that was better than the alternatives and asking for forgiveness was easier that asking for permission. Especially if you were right and he sincerely hoped that things would fall in his favour.
Advanced Combat Class Arena:
"The world before this one, was called Earth," Yoruichi began. "On this world was an island nation known as Japan, and in the town of Karakura we meet our handsome hero, Ichigo Kurosaki."
He rolled his eyes as she draped her arm around his neck. Their students were filling out the front row of the spectator area while she and Ichigo were sitting on the edge of the raised arena floor. The focus of their tales today was going to be the different beings that had inhabited their worlds, which they assured their audience would lead them to how Blake could be related to them.
"Ichigo was a rarity since from the time he was just a small child he could see the spirits of the dead."
"He could see ghosts!?" Nora blurted out, beating Ruby to the punch.
"We referred to them as 'plus' souls, but sure, you could call them ghosts," she answered. "In many cases when a person died their soul would move on to the afterlife. The ones that didn't were often unable to because of deep regrets they had or they had a deep attachment to someone or something that prevented them from moving on. Maybe even an obsession be it good or bad. They could even be seeking revenge. No matter what it was, if they didn't move on they would need a little help."
Ichigo continued. "That help was beings known as Shinigami. They were also known as balancers, or soul reapers, or if you really want to get dark about it...death gods."
"D-death gods?" Jaune said with a gulp.
"Wait, does that mean that the two of you are death gods?" Pyrrha asked, wide eyed.
"Well I certainly am," Yoruichi grinned. "But Ichigo here is so much more than just that. Actually he's an entirely unique existence."
"Oh, so he's special," Yang teased.
"Well I certainly think so," Yoruichi answered with a chuckle and a wink. Ichigo just stuck his tongue out at the blonde. "Shinigami would send souls to the afterlife by performing a 'konso', or soul burial. By tapping the butt end of their Zanpakuto," she pointed to Ichigo's blades that were lying nearby, "to the spirit's forehead they would send them on to the afterlife, which also happened to be the home of the Shinigami, a place called Soul Society."
"Unfortunately you can take all of the notions you've heard or imagined about an otherworldly paradise and chuck them out the window because the Soul Society was anything but a paradise," Ichigo groused.
"Unfortunately he's not wrong nor is he exaggerating," Yoruichi sighed. "At the centre of the Soul Society is a city known as the Seireitei, the Court of Pure Souls, which for the most part looked like something that could have come out of Japan's history books and for good reason because it was a backwards, stuck in its ways kind of place."
"Outside the city, arranged outward in concentric rings were the eighty districts of the Rukongai, or wandering spirit towns. This is were the spirits of the dead ended up and they could arrive in any of the districts. The arrived with no memories, not even of who they were."
"They wouldn't have any memories...of anything?" Ren asked, obviously disturbed by the idea.
She shook her head. "No. Only in extremely rare cases would anyone retain memories of their life and as you can imagine, suddenly finding yourself in a strange place with no memories would be very disorienting and debilitating. As a matter of survival souls would often form familial groups and they needed to because the Rukongai was a rough place. Unfortunately the higher the number of the district, the worse the conditions were and you didn't have to go too far in before they started to get bad. Sadly, it was about as far from heaven as one could get short of actually ending up in Hell."
"That sounds terrible!" Ruby exclaimed. "Why was it so bad?"
"It often was terrible, but it actually beat the alternatives," Yoruichi said. "The government in place, Central Forty Six, were all appointed to their positions by the Soul King, a being that lived in a sub dimension of the Soul Society. His primary job was to be the linchpin that kept the dimensions of the afterlife from colliding together and with the living world, and to help regulate the flow of souls in the cycle of death and rebirth. That meant that the Central Forty Six had little active oversight and since their ranks were filled from the noble class families, you know they would never sully themselves with the concerns or living conditions of the souls in the Rukongai. If they deemed you to be lesser than them, they simply didn't care."
"That doesn't sound much different than the way some of the kingdom councils treat some of their own people now," Ren said.
"Sadly you're not wrong," Ichigo said.
"We can always get into the politics later," Yoruichi said. "Although I don't think we'll be solving too many of societies ills ourselves. Now, the Seireitei was home to the five great noble clans and numerous smaller noble families, the seat of government, as well as the home and the base of the Shinigami, whose ranks were broken up into what was known as the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, or the Gotei 13. The Captains of the squads were the most powerful of all the Shinigami, followed at some distance by their Lieutenants. The rest of the squad members beyond that paled in comparison."
Ichigo smirked. "On that note, let me make a formal introduction." He put his arm around Yoruichi's shoulders. "Allow me to introduce to you the Princess of the great noble Shihoin clan, formerly the 22nd generational head of the House of Godly Gears, and former Captain of Squad 2 of the Gotei 13, Lady Yoruichi Shihoin."
"You were a Princess?!" Ruby and Nora blurted out simultaneously.
"Not really," she answered, mildly glaring at her husband. "Some people referred to me that way but it was a noble family not a royal family."
"Close enough," he smirked.
She gave him a playful shove. "Hey don't forget that your family was once one of the big five."
"So does that mean he's a Prince?" Weiss cracked.
She snorted. "Hardly. With his manners he'd do well to make stable boy."
"And where is it that the Princess would be spending all of her time?" he prodded.
"In the stable riding the stable boy of course," she answered proudly.
"That sounds like the plot of one of your books Blake," Yang laughed.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the Faunus mumbled as she sank in her seat, her face turning red.
"Can we get back on track please?" Weiss suggested, looking a little red in the face herself.
"Killjoy," Yoruichi sassed.
"Okay," Ichigo began. "The Shinigami also had another job that was as important as helping souls get to the afterlife and that was purifying corrupted souls so that they could pass on as well."
"Corrupted souls?" Ruby questioned.
"Also known as Hollows," Yoruichi continued. "If a plus soul stays too long in the living world they could become corrupted. A hole would open up in their chest signifying the loss of their heart and a bone-like mask would cover their face. Their body would transform into a monstrous form that could be anything really, but quite often it was representative of some form of animal. It could resemble something from the real world or even something from mythology."
Nora gasped. "Like the Grimm?"
"The only thing they have in common is the mask and they're not quite the same," Ichigo said. "The Grimm also aren't anywhere near as powerful as even the lowest class of Hollow, but imagine something like an Ursa with a big hole all the way through its chest and you get the idea."
"The worst thing about Hollows is what the corruption does to them," Yoruichi continued, her tone serious. "They lose their sense of humanity and they are are hit with an all consuming hunger for other souls that they must satisfy no matter what. Souls of the dead, souls of the living, other Hollows, it doesn't matter. Since many souls that linger too long do so because they can't bear to leave their loved ones, it is those same loved ones who are often their first victims."
Gasps and horrified looks were the response a couple of them looked like they might be sick. "H-how could they do that?" Nora stuttered.
"They have no choice," she responded. "That hunger is not something they can fight and every soul they devour becomes a screaming voice in their head that they can only mute by devouring more souls and even then they don't entirely stop. They have to go through multiple stages of evolution before the voices either go away or become quiet enough that they can be ignored."
"They can evolve?" Jaune asked, wide eyed.
She nodded. "And they become exponentially more powerful as they do. Fortunately the most powerful classes of Hollow were rare. We'll get into the details of that another time."
"These Hollows, the corrupted souls," Yang began. "You said the Shinigami can purify them so they can move on?"
"That's right," Ichigo answered. "That's another one of the properties of a Zanpakuto besides konso. When a Shinigami kills a Hollow with their Zanpakuto it purifies the soul of the sins it committed as a Hollow and allows it to move on. But if that soul committed serious enough sins when it was still alive, it suffers a different fate and is sent to Hell."
"Have you ever seen that happen?" Weiss asked, her tone somewhere between skepticism and dread.
"Yeah, and the first time I saw it I had no idea what was going on and it freaked me out," he answered. "A huge gate appears that has the head and torso of a pair of skeletons on it and it's held shut by chains. The gate slides open just far enough for a giant hand and sword to come through and it impales the soul and drags it inside. The gates slam shut with a loud boom and then crumble to dust."
"I never want to see anything like that," Ruby said, shuddering and pulling her cloak around her.
"No worries there," Yoruichi assured her. "That dimension, just like the rest, doesn't exist anymore."
"All that's left of it here is the taint of its energy that we can feel in the Grimm," Ichigo said. "And we'll get to that in a few minutes."
"The last type of being from our worlds you need to know about are the Quincy," Yoruichi said. "They were humans who had developed their own spiritual powers. The spirit energy of Hollows was particularly dangerous to them so they didn't hesitate to kill them. Problem was, when they killed Hollows they didn't purify them and send the souls on to the afterlife. They eradicated the soul completely."
"Wouldn't that upset that balance you spoke of?" Ren asked, a concerned look on his face.
"Yes, it would," she answered. "While the actions of the Quincy lessened the number of souls going to the afterlife, other souls were still reincarnating back into the living world and that would create an imbalance that could cause the dimensions to crash together if not addressed. The Shinigami explained this to them and told them to stop but they refused. To them it was a matter of survival and the two sides ended up going to war and nearly all of the Quincy were wiped out. Very few of the survivors remained in the world of the living and unknown to the Shinigami, many more ended up in a shadow dimension within the Seireitei itself. The battle against that group is what led to the ultimate destruction of our worlds."
"The Shinigami committed genocide?!" Blake blurted out incredulously.
"It became one but that's not the way it was planned," she explained. "There were those on both sides that would have preferred some sort of an agreement or settlement to be reached, but there were also those on both sides who wouldn't budge and wanted a decisive victory. It was stupid really, since both sides should have been able to agree that upsetting the balance was a matter of survival for billions of souls, not just Shinigami or Quincy."
"It's not like the Old Man was the most reasonable of people," Ichigo groused. "His usual first response to any problem was to declare it a case of treason or to just kill it, or both."
"The Old Man?" Jaune asked.
"Captain Commander Shigekuni Genryusai Yamamoto, founder and overall commander of the Gotei 13," Yoruichi answered. "He was well over two thousand years old and probably the strongest Shinigami to ever live. He was very rigid in his ways, which were mostly the old ways and adaptation to new ways was not one of his strong points. Generally, he knew one way to deal with an issue and that was with an iron fist and a sharp blade."
"No disrespect intended," Yang began. "But this Soul Society and the Shinigami sound kind of...messed up."
"I can't say you're wrong," Yoruichi sighed. "The old thinking was starting to change though after Ichigo crashed through their stuffy and antiquated ways. He has all the subtlety of a broadsides from a battleship."
"I resemble that remark," he agreed. "Somebody needed to shake them up."
"Well you certainly did that," she grinned. "Okay, now that you know the different types of beings, we'll get to why that matters. Ichigo's father was Isshin Shiba, Captain of Squad Ten of the Gotei 13. He came to the world of the living looking for a strange Hollow that had been causing problems for a while...and there's a whole much bigger story attached to that which you'll hear at a later date. While he was confronting the Hollow he was joined in the fight by a Quincy, a high school girl by the name of Masaki Kurosaki. They defeated the Hollow but they were both injured. For her part she lured the Hollow to her and killed it up close as it bit her."
"You said that a Hollow's spirit energy was very dangerous to a Quincy," Blake spoke up. "Why would she lure it to herself like that?"
"It was the only real option they had at the moment to kill it," Ichigo said. "I used to think that my foolish bravery streak all came from my father but I think I got it from both sides. Within a day or two the Hollow spirit energy in her wound began to make her sick and would destroy her soul if something wasn't done. One of my other mentors and a friend of Yoruichi's since childhood, Kisuke Urahara, mad genius that he was, had a way to save her. He literally stitched my father's soul to hers and that stopped it at the cost of his Shinigami powers. He considered losing his powers and giving up his life as a Shinigami a small price to pay in order to save her life."
"Your father gave up his entire way of life for someone he had just met?" Weiss asked. It was a totally foreign concept to her, she could never in a million years imagine her father doing something even remotely like that.
"I guess my mom made a heck of an impression on him," he said with a shrug.
Yoruichi dropped her arm over his shoulders again, proud of how he had finally been able to leave the pain and the self blame over Masaki's death long in the past. "When Ichigo was born he became the first and only one of his kind," she said. "A hybrid being made up of the races of Human, Quincy, Shinigami...and Hollow."
Their eyes all nearly bugged out. "Hollow!?"
For a brief moment he was tempted to transform into his Hollow form, but considering how freaked out and horrified they had been earlier all he would be doing was scaring the hell out of them. "Don't worry, I'm not about to eat anyone's soul."
"It's the Hollow part of him that's most relevant to the purpose of this story," Yoruichi said. "Or at least the part of his spirit energy that's from the Hollow."
"Why would that matter?" Jaune asked.
"Because their are things from our worlds that carried over to this one," she answered. "What you call Aura is the spirit energy we call Reiatsu. The abilities you call a Semblance bear a resemblance to the attacks and techniques of a Zanpakuto or the Shinigami version of magic called Kido."
"The Grimm feel like the the spirit energy of Hell, despite the fact that they don't have souls...and you have no idea how repulsive a living yet soulless being is to us. Reishi, the type of spirit energy that made up the physical structure of all of the other worlds except Earth, and which made up the spirit bodies of every soul in those worlds, became what you know as Dust. The actual spirit energy of all of those beings has gone to all living things on this world and we already told you that reincarnation is real. There is one specific thing to note about this, and that is the fact that all of the spirit energy of Hollows can only be found within the Faunus."
To say that they were shocked was putting it mildly and Blake looked like she was rapidly heading for a nervous breakdown.
"No...that can't be," she gasped, shaking her head. "They're monsters! The Faunus aren't...we're not monsters!"
"Damn right you're not!" Ichigo cut in, bringing her up short just as the tears were about to start. They weren't about to let her follow that chain of reasoning. The girl already had enough self doubts as it was.
"You and I have Hollow spirit energy. So do your friends Velvet and Sun, and none of us are monsters. Adam, he's a monster but not because he has the spirit energy of a Hollow, but because of the choices he has made and they way he chooses to act. Just like other Faunus and just like Humans who don't have Hollow spirit energy. It's our choices that determine whether or not we are monsters. The Hollows, they had no choice in the matter, that was just how things worked. They were victims of how the system of life, death, and the afterlife worked."
"What the Hollow energy has done is give you your heightened senses and instincts," Yoruichi continued.
"You said earlier that often the Hollows would take on forms similar to animals," Weiss began. "Is that also how the Faunus got their animal traits?"
"That's an unknown," Yoruichi answered. "It's possible but we also never really knew exactly why Hollows took on animal forms. People who are into existentialist philosophy have speculated that all people have a spirit animal within their souls and that with the Faunus the traits of those animals have come out. There was a similar train of thought regarding Hollows." She shrugged. "There may be something to it, or not."
"In Blake's case there is a much more specific reason for her traits," Ichigo said. "From me she gets the Hollow Reiatsu, but she gets the rest from Yoruichi."
With a smirk Yoruichi stood and before any of them could say anything her body began to glow, then her form became indistinct and rapidly shrank. When the glow faded they were all left open mouthed. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor and sitting in the middle of it was a little black cat. But for Ichigo's attempts not to laugh, the room was utterly silent as they all stared in disbelief at what was before them.
"What, you've never seen a cat before?" she asked in her now male voice.
"How the hell did you do that?!" Yang blurted out.
"My secret," the cat responded cheekily. "I can't tell you everything."
"Who cares!" Ruby exclaimed, her silver eyes wide with barely restrained excitement. "It's awesome!"
"If I wasn't seeing this with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it," Weiss said. "With that said, I'm still not sure I believe it."
"Are you sure you're not actually an alien?" Nora asked.
"Quite sure," Yoruichi answered as she jumped up onto Ichigo's shoulder, then clambered up to lay atop his head. He seemed completely unperturbed by it. "The best and only explanation we have is that my ability to transform into a cat combined with Ichigo's Hollow spirit energy is what allowed us to have a child who was a Faunus. The Hollow energy within Blake is an exact match for Ichigo's, while that found within other Faunus is more...generic. The purple hair in the ears is another unique marker."
"I'm not sure what to say," Blake admitted quietly. "I'm not even sure how I should feel."
"That's understandable," Ichigo said. "Don't worry too much about it, just give yourself some time and you'll figure it out. And if there's anything you want to ask or talk about just let us know."
"That goes for all of you as well," Yoruichi said. "If you need an ear to listen we are more than willing to help."
"You know how weird that sounds coming from a talking cat right?" Yang asked.
"Since you know I'm not actually a cat then there should be no problem."
"...Right."
The bell rang, signalling the end of the class. "Awww, but I wanted to hear more stories," Ruby said with a pout.
"Oh don't worry," Yoruichi assured her. "You'll hear more this weekend if you wish. We'll tell you about Ichigo's first meeting with a Shinigami and what it led to." She grinned as only a devious little kitty could. "We'll also tell you something else. There are four more among you who have the reincarnated souls of people we knew...but you'll have to wait to find out who."
They all groaned loudly, a couple of them muttering about it being unfair.
"Also," Ichigo spoke up, looking just as devious as he looked directly at Ruby. "We'll tell you just exactly what a Zanpakuto really is and about its true connection to its wielder."
Her silver eyes went wide and she was practically vibrating in her seat. Then the fact that she was going to have to wait a few days kicked in. "Nooooo! You gotta tell me! Don't make me wait!"
"Sorry," he grinned. "It'll give you something to look forward to and when you hear it you'll enjoy it even more."
Weiss facepalmed. "Do you have any idea what you've done? She'll be bouncing off the walls all week!"
"You mean more than she does now?" Yang asked teasingly. Ruby stuck her tongue out at her.
"Well if she gets too out of hand you can always hold her cookie supply hostage," Yoruichi suggested.
Ruby gasped and pointed accusingly. "You're a mean kitty!"
"I see myself as more of a naughty kitty actually," she responded.
"Okay, that's it," Weiss said, grabbing Ruby's hood and towing her along towards the door. "Let's go before this devolves." She looked to Ruby. "And if you don't behave I'll tie you to your bed."
"Oooh, kinky," Yang teased. "I didn't know you were into that Weissy."
"S-shut up!" she huffed as she increased her speed, hauling a hapless and flailing Ruby behind her.
The rest of them chuckled at their friend's antics and waved to their teachers as they left, though Pyrrha lingered behind for a moment.
"Um," she began uncertainly. "Would it be okay if I asked you about them sometime...about Orihime and Tatsuki?"
Ichigo smiled. "Of course. Anytime you want to just let me know."
"Thank you," she said with a relieved smile before going off to join the others.
Once they were gone Yoruichi transformed back and remained draped over Ichigo's back, her arms hanging loosely over his shoulders and crossing his chest. "So, what do you think?"
"About Blake?" he asked. She hummed in confirmation. "She's got a lot of self loathing going on about her life and has herself convinced that her parents will hate her. When she found out we knew about her past I think she was actually afraid that we'd have something against her too. I think it'll eventually sink in that no one is condemning her and maybe she might be ready to start forgiving herself, but it's going to take a while."
"A young idealist who got trapped in a lunatics web," she sighed. "Taurus did a lot of damage to her and took a lot of her youthful innocence and trust along with it."
"She's got us, even more so now, and I think she's learning just how much her friends really care for her," he said. "She just needs to learn to truly believe in them."
"I think she's trying but it's not easy for her," she said. "But, we'll do what we can to help her. Just like we'll do anything we can to help all of them."
"I'm beginning to feel like we've adopted them all," he chuckled.
"You too huh?" she laughed. "I'd say that's a pretty good sign that we're finally moving forward again. Feels nice."
"Yeah, it does," he admitted. He smirked. "Not as good as having you wrapped around me like this, but still good."
She gave him a squeeze. "Well then lets go home and you can take a cue from Weiss and tie me to the bed."
He laughed. "Well you did say you were a naughty kitty didn't you?"
After he picked up his Zanpakuto and she grabbed her clothes, he made a garganta. At times like this they really appreciated their own personal form of rapid transit.
AN: Hopefully this wasn't a total disaster and I hope you'll leave a review.
As always, trolls and idiots need not bother.