"Sorry Ryo," your apology almost comes out of instinct as you deflate, the weight of what you're about to tell one of your best friends starting to bear down on you. "I haven't been busy with the karate club, or my family, or whatever else you guys think."
"Alright," he looks at you, a little confused, and moves towards the machines. It sounds like Nao and Mio have already started playing, the game must allow the additional two players to drop in at any time.
"Hold on," you fail to suppress that urge to chew on the inside of your cheek, "I've been… helping ghosts," you finally admit, and this gives your friend pause. "Not like, keeping up their memorials or whatever, but—" you suck in air, realizing how crazy what you're about to say is going to sound "—helping them pass on, like in the game."
"What, like, you leave your body and turn into a samurai and kill monsters?" He's stepped away from the machines and lowered his voice, but he's still looking at you like you're crazy. Still, for some reason it seems like he believes you.
"Yeah, exactly," you confirm with a nod.
"Swear on the vending machine?" He invokes an ancient rite of your friendship. When you were all in nine, in the third grade, you'd come across a vending machine which, when the right number was punched into the pad, would give out two free packs of snacks. It was there for about a year, and ever since you found it, swearing on the vending machine has been the most serious of oaths among you and your friends. Well, there's one thing you could swear on, but you'd rather not.
"I swear on the vending machine, and all the free snake cakes it ever gave us," you reply, placing your right hand over your heart and left in the air.
"What? How? I know like, ghosts are real but monster ghosts? How long have you been doing this stuff, Chiyu?" He starts talking a mile a minute, but manages to keep his voice down.
"You remember that truck that hit my house?" You ask, and he nods, "Right, so that was actually a monster that attacked my family, it was drawn there by a Soul Reaper, I think. That's what the ghost samurai are called, Soul Reapers. Oh, and the monsters are Hollows. Anyway, she gave me her powers so I could fight "
"Wait, does that mean the Soul Reaper who gave you your powers…" he struggles to finish the thought.
"It's Ma- it's Koukin-sensei, yeah," for some reason,
that admission is harder to make than the one about your being a Soul Reaper.
"That does explain a lot," Ryota nods, putting a hand to his chin. "I don't know Shu, but I believe you. I hate to say that it makes sense, but… yeah, yeah it makes sense. I've been able to kind of see ghosts for a while now, I dunno when it started, since they're so faint. I didn't want to tell you, since I wasn't sure, but-"
"Yeah, I get that," you cut him off with a smile. "Oh uh, I got this thing to take care of my body while I'm a ghost-"
This time, Ryo cuts you off, "Wait, yeah, you said you were a ghost. So you're dead?"
"No," you shake your head, "I don't really know how it works, but I have Ma- Koukin-sensei's powers, so I can leave my body. Ghosts have a um—" you gesture futilely to your chest, the chains ghosts have is something you've mentioned before, but now that you know about other ghosts which don't have the chains, it makes it feel like it's harder for you to explain things. "—they've got this chain that sticks out of their chests. I think it connects them to the earth or whatever, cause Ma- Koukin-sensei—" you kick yourself for stumbling over that honorific every time "—called them earthbound, anyway, cause I have Soul Reaper powers, that means… okay I really don't know what it means, but I'm definitely alive. Oh, back to the thing to take care of my body, it's called a Mod Soul. It's a thing that can pilot my body while I'm out of it."
"So, should I pretend it's you? Are you gonna have some sign to tell me if it's the Mod Soul or if it's you?" He's taking this information surprisingly well, you guess that makes sense, if his spiritual awareness is developing.
"Yeah, and for now…"
Ryo just nods. "Yeah, we can keep this between us."
With a solemn handshake, and another swear on the vending machine, you both join your other friends in the VR game.
It is
shocking just how close this game is to your reality as a Soul Reaper. The uniform, down to the sash, is exactly like the one you wear, and the twenty spells you can use are all numbered. Even the swords have a name you can call out to power up, and the only way to defeat the monsters (which are large, masked creatures) is to cut through their heads.
It seems like everyone else has a lot of fun, but you just can't get over it. It feels like you're working or something, but not getting anything done.
After a few rounds of Slay Soul, Naoto leads the three of you through the arcade to the best games he had experienced, and some which just sound cool. There are a couple you enjoy more than Slay Soul, but most of them are slightly worse console games ported over to VR. So it's neat to play them, but the novelty wears out after the fifth or sixth game.
When you arrive back on Banmuro's West Side, with the intent to split up at the train station, you and Ryo hang back for a while, after saying goodbye to Mio and Nao. "Just like, tell the Mod whatever to give me a sign when it's you, alright?"
You nod, "I'll hit you up on Line later. I still have to talk to it."
~~~~~~~~~~
"Look, I get that the kangaroos are cool, but the other ones are just big birds," you try to tell Tousuke, but he just brushes you off, going back to feeding the weird bird through the fence with the pellets the zoo provides.
"For once, it seems we agree, my errant daughter," Dad proclaims as he places a heavy hand on your shoulder. Between your previous conditioning and your activities as a Soul Reaper, the contact barely moves you, though it feels like it should. Dad seems to take this in stride, either oblivious to your resilience or impressed by it. "Did you know that emu are only the second largest bird, and far from the most dangerous!"
"Those would be ostriches and cassowaries, right?" You engage your father this time, your younger siblings too wrapped up in the animals which have congregated around them on the other side of the fencing.
"Correct," he removes his mitt from your shoulder, and crosses his arms, nodding self-assuredly. He's opted for contacts and sunglasses today, as he usually does when he's not trying to look like a consummate professional of a doctor. "I'm surprised, Chiyu, I thought you'd be more interested in this exhibit."
"It's alright," you shrug. "Pretty cool I guess. I do still like the kangaroos, but they're like… big bunnies today."
"Not engaging enough for you?" Dad looks down at you. His eyes are shaded by his glasses, but his face is split by a meat-eater's grin. "I suppose it's understandable, but I don't hope you're following your older brother down the thrill-seekers' path."
"Maybe," you answer, almost completely under your breath. "I don't know, I don't think I'm a thrill-seeker, but…"
You trail off, and Dad puts you in a headlock. You almost fight it, until you realize it's just an aggressive hug. "It'll be alright, Chiyu, you're the strong one. Whatever it is, I know you can get through it."
You melt.
~~~~~~~~~~
"We're lucky enough to have a bull African elephant," the zookeeper giving a presentation from the side of a docile old female says. "Unfortunately, you won't be able to see him today. All male elephants undergo a period of something called musth, where their hormones drive them crazy before the breeding season! As you can see—" she gestures to a concrete barn in view of the amphitheater gallery "—we have a special pen to keep our bull in during this month or so! Fortunately, we still have our whole herd of females out and about for you to see today!"
"They have a whole season…" Natsu says, face red, though Dad quickly distracts her.
"Would've been cool to see," Tousuke says, leaning on the railing with you after the zookeeper has moved into the crowd. "The bull all worked up and stuff."
You might have agreed with him, before all the Soul Reaper and Hollow stuff, but now you can't think of something destructive that way. You
can still think that the elephants are cool for what they can do, but you see enough mayhem through your spirit-eyes. Okay, that sounded cooler than it actually is.
"Nah," your brother raises an eyebrow when you respond with that. "I wanted to see the bull too, but not like that. I dunno," you turn away from the pachyderms and lean back on the railing, lolling your head back to look at Tousuke, "I don't really want to see something that big and strong freaking out and stuff, I think we're better off just appreciating it for what it is. Or maybe that's dumb, I don't know."
"I get it," your otouto looks back over the exhibit. "Still would've been cool though."
~~~~~~~~~~
"I think I'll get a penguin too."
Natsu inhales so quickly you think she'll faint. "You really mean it Shu-nee?" Her eyes are open so wide you're still concerned that she'll pass out.
"Yeah, to match, kinda," you look over the plushies and pick out a smaller emperor penguin that's not too flashy. "But not the same kind, you know? We still have different styles."
Natsu pounces on you in a display of affection you're happy your dad can't see. "Oh, Shu-nee! Now you can come back to the tea parties!"
While you were somewhat aware Natsu still held tea parties, you didn't think it was with any kind of regularity. It's not something you would discuss with your little sister, and if it's something Tousuke gets roped into (which it would be), it's not something he ever talks about.
"I-I guess, if I have time," it's hard to refuse Natsu, especially when she's like this.
~~~~~~~~~~
Getting a stuffed animal was a mistake. Maybe you should have just robbed a graveyard like Kori had suggested, a corpse being discovered in your room would have been less awkward than
this.
Dad made a scene in the gift shop when you bought it, and he hasn't stopped talking since then, and that includes the entire car ride home. Natsu, somehow, after a whole day at the zoo, managed to match his energy. She's not as talkative, but she followed you into your room, practically nipping at your heels.
Tousuke. Tousuke might have just been the worst, he just gave you a withering look as if you were the biggest traitor since Akechi Mitsuhide.
"I can't believe it," Soichiro states a few hours after you got home, both of you digging into the takeout Dad had insisted you race home. "
You got a stuffed animal Chiyu? My little sister, the black belt. Got a stuffed animal?"
"I-" you can barely pick yourself up off the table, the day having worn you down. "I have my reasons, and they're good ones," your eyes narrow at him, but he shrugs, not letting it get to him the way Tousuke had dug into you without words. Damned eldest siblings.
"Oh, I'm sure they are," he just grins at you.
"Anyway," after a few minutes of eating in peace, Soichiro speaks up again, "have you seen anything weird lately? It seems like ghosts are more agitated now, or something."
"Yeah," you lie by omission, "I noticed that too. You talk to them more than I do, do they know anything?"
"Not really," he seems uncomfortable with the question, but quickly shrugs it off. "I guess there's just more going on in the soul, you know, wherever they go."
"I guess," you want to end this conversation as quickly as possible, so you stonewall him a little.
After that, the two of you are able to discuss your day at the zoo, and Soichiro mentions having been out with his friends, though he doesn't go too far into specifics. That's alright, you tell him about yesterday's outing at the VR arcade, though you don't mention the Soul Reaper game.
~~~~~~~~~~
"I-I'm not very good at making myself stronger or tougher," Mai sheepishly admits when you bring up wanting to be better at physical enhancement. "B-but it's alright! I-I'm pretty good at shunpo, actually! And that's p-part of making hoho into shunpo, actually."
"Awesome! I'm guessing you can't teach me that stuff yet though," you decide to keep your expectations realistic.
"Maybe um, maybe later," Mai nods, "yeah, definitely, but- um, let's yeah-" she shakes her head. "Let's just do this for now, but maybe I'll show you shunpo later, i-if I can."
Enhancing yourself physically (wait, is it still physically? You aren't in your physical body, but spiritual enhancement sounds weird. And body enhancement sounds weirder) is pretty similar to manipulating your spiritual pressure through your spiritual power. Except in this case, you keep it all inside of your body to make yourself stronger, faster, more durable, or whatever else you would need.
In theory, it should be easier than wielding your spiritual pressure, but for some reason it just
isn't. Mai explains that it's not easier for a lot of Soul Reapers because spiritual pressure is the outward expression of your soul, you aren't trying to change something inside yourself. There's not really any analogy for it in the physical world, but you can understand what she's saying.
Overall, at the end of the training session, you can tell you've gotten the basics of it down, but you haven't made any real progress.
~~~~~~~~~~
"What the hell is this body! You're that soul reaper! Give me that gigai back, I know you aren't using it! Where are we? This isn't the store! Oh, I bet you're going to—" you throw the Mod Soul, now embodied in the penguin you had bought at the zoo, full force into your bedroom wall.
"Quiet down! My family can't hear you yelling this late at night, what would they think?" Somewhat surprisingly, the Mod Soul's voice isn't robotic or anything, it just sounds like a (somewhat abrasive) teenage girl.
"Family? Am I back in Soul Society?" Again surprisingly, it actually quiets down.
"No, and this isn't a gigai," you inform the Mod Soul-turned-stuffed animal.
"You're a Soul Reaper," it states, matter-of-factly, before crossing its arms. Wings, it has wings. Not arms.
"Right, I'm human, this is my actual body, and—"
You slam the Mod Soul back into the wall before it can scream again. It seems that it finally got a good look at its new body. "What
am I? What did you do, vile Soul Reaper?"
"I told you!" You kick it into the wall, and it bounces back across the floor to your feet. "I'm
human! And that you need to keep it down." You put a finger in front of your lips, shushing the Mod Soul again, "You're in a stuffed animal I got. I'm pretty glad it actually worked."
"You fiend! You- you-!" It settles on glaring at you, which is actually pretty adorable. Or it would be, if the soul inside the stuffed animal hadn't stolen your body at the first chance it got.
"Look, I'll let you have my body when I have to go fight Hollows, but I'm going to lay down some ground rules, alright?"
"Why are you fighting Hollows if you aren't a Soul Reaper?" It questions, raising an eyebrow. It's interesting that it can manipulate its face, but that does make it easier to talk to.
"It's a long story…" you sigh, knowing that you won't be getting to sleep for a few hours, with all the explaining you have to do to the Mod Soul.
[] Write-in any rules you have for the Mod Soul, besides the basics. (It can't take your body without permission, it has to act like you as best it can, it has to tell you what happened while it was in your body, etc.)
"Oh yeah," you remember to ask the Mod Soul before you start to drift off to sleep, "do you have a name?"
~~~~~~~~~~
"It was nice of the Hollow to wait for us to get out of school," you remark to Mai, stalking through an alley towards the sound of a rampaging Hollow. You did have to scramble to get out of your karate club, but you were actually done before Mai's denreishinki ever went off. You had to leave the Mod Soul in your body for the first time, but you gave it strict instructions to head straight home (and left directions home on your phone for it).
"We noticed a lower density of souls present over the weekend," Mai mummers, glancing down at her denreishinki with a confused look on her face. "Th-there's no way the Hollow fl- left, I can still feel the souls it was after…"
"Maybe it sensed us coming and got scared?" You suggest, approaching the back road the Hollow was detected on. You sense someone else at the scene, at least two spiritual pressures aside from the souls, they're both almost as strong as you are, as far as you can tell. "Hold on Mai, I'll go ahead and check it out."
"O-okay, are you s-sure?"
You just nod, and hold up a hand to keep her back. Dropping your hand and adopting a more casual stance, you walk out onto the deserted backstreet. Now that you can see where the fight took place, it's clear that the Hollow did not retreat back into… wherever Hollows go when they're not in the Living World. There are dark stains on the street where the monster bled out, and fragments of its mask scattered over the pavement. Oh, and its body is rapidly disintegrating in the middle of the street.
At first, you don't see the pair of… whoever it was that killed the Hollow, until you look up at the streetlights on either side of the road.
"Finally saw us, Makiyou?" The figure to your left speaks first, pushing his glasses up his nose.
"Your spiritual senses are weak." The figure to your right finishes the other's sentiment, crossing her arms.
"That's pretty surprising," the first speaks again.
"For a Soul Reaper." the second finishes his sentence again.
They disappear at the same time, reappearing on the street next to you. You note that the sound their flash step makes is different from the shunpo you've seen Mai and Ui use.
Now that they're closer to you, your suspicions are confirmed. Despite being dressed up in what look like weird cosplay outfits (not that you're one to talk, but at least this is your spiritual body), you can't mistake the pair of teacher's pets from your class that are the Iwaba twins. Eidou is the older of the two, a somewhat short and slim boy who wears glasses and keeps his black hair in something like a shaggy bowl, parted to the side. Tenko, who shares her brother's black hair, though keeps it in a braid, is younger, though she's an inch or so taller than her brother, doesn't wear glasses, and probably possesses the best figure out of all the girls in Class 2C. Not that either of them have shown any interest in anyone else in your class, they're both so aloof. The weird outfits they have on are matching, consisting of slim white pants, a long, form-fitting, white shirt with a blue line running up the middle (maybe a zipper?), and a short, high-collared cape around their shoulders, clasped with a cross on a chain. You can see that both twins are wearing a chain bracelet with a star-shaped charm hanging from it.
"Mind telling us what brings you all the way out here, Makiyou?" Tenko asks, her tone mocking but her eyes narrowed.
"We took care of the Hollow, you should have sensed it go down," Eidou's tone is similarly smug to his sister's.
You just roll your eyes and sigh, "Look, I don't even know what's going on here. How'd you two take a Hollow down on your own, how do you
know what a Hollow is?"
Both twins visibly deflate at that. "Do you mean they don't even teach Soul Reapers about the Quincy anymore?" Eidou questions, after a few seconds of silence.
"I'm still Chiyu!" You insist, "just because I look like a Soul Reaper doesn't mean I go to Soul Reaper night school or something!"
"How does that work anyway?" Tenko questions while her brother continues sulking over your ignorance.
"A Hollow attacked my family, a Soul Reaper got hurt defending us from it, and she gave me her powers," you quickly summarize, the third time you've had to explain it in as many days.
"So Koukin-sensei is a
real Soul Reaper?" Tenko asks again, and you nod. "That does explain a lot, including our classmates' altered memories. You wouldn't know how the Soul Reapers do that, do you?"
"No idea, some kinda gadget," you respond honestly. "What's a 'Quincy' anyway?"
"We're a group of humans with high spiritual awareness and powers," Eidou cuts back in, pushing up his glasses as if to punctuate his answer. "We're able to combat Hollows by gathering ambient spiritual particles to ourselves to create weapons or cast spells with," he holds his hand up, and the star hanging from his bracelet levitates and glows blue briefly, before a bow made of blue energy flashes to life in his hand. "And unlike you Soul Reapers, we only fight with a bow."
"But you just said you fight with spells too, and what do you do if a Hollow like, gets up in your face?" You point out.
"That's why we fight in pairs," he answers, rolling his eyes.
"But what if you were on your own?"
"We never are!" He insists.
"That seems like a weakness," it does sound like one, from the point of view of someone who's been self-sufficient as long as you have.
"Well it's not, okay?" Both twins say at once, even more insistent.
"Alright, whatever," you move on, it's not that big a deal. "Why'd you choose now to come out to me anyway?"
The twins look at each other, then back at you, then back at each other. Finally, Eidou answers you, "You're going to come with us to hunt a Hollow!" He finally states with utmost finality.
"What if I say no?"
"This is important," his sister replies, with a tired tone.
"Yeah," he nods, crossing his arms. His bow was dispelled a while ago, "we're going to show Soul Society that Soul Reapers and Quincy can work together."
"Yeah, and our dad," Tenko adds.
"We already have one picked out," Eidou brings the conversation back around, "don't worry, it hasn't gone anywhere or hunted yet, it sticks to a pretty small area."
"Doesn't sound like it needs all three of us," it really doesn't, and you make your opinion known.
"We're not really sure how strong it is," Eidou adds, "its spiritual power keeps fluctuating."
[] Alright, you'll hunt this Hollow with them after school, you'll have to leave the Mod Soul to do your afternoon activities, but as long as it's not teaching karate it should be fine. You won't bring Mai either, just report to her afterwards.
[] Alright, you'll hunt this Hollow with them after school. The Mod Soul will have to handle your afternoon duties, but it should be up to it, everything besides teaching at least. Bring Mai with you, since she's the one with actual connections to Soul Society.
[] You'll hunt the Hollow with them, but it's going to have to wait until tomorrow night. That way you won't have to use the Mod Soul, you can break off from your friends or pretend you have homework to do right after dinner, and you can do it without oversight from Mai.
[] No way, you have your hands full with the Hollows you already have to hunt. You're not even a representative from Soul Society, so it doesn't make sense for you to do it. Maybe join them on a hunt some other time, but you're not going to commit now.
[] Write-in (Yes or no, do you have any conditions, anything else you want to say to them?)
A/N: I'm enjoying writing mundane Living World stuff more than I thought I would. Luckily, there's no WSJ editor breathing down my neck trying to rush me into Soul Society. I had to hold myself back from referencing that Berserk panel that's been memed at one point, as well as a pretty infamous Aizen quote. 
