- Location
- My happy place
How has she not killed him yet? How long is she gonna put up with his shit?
A Wandering Soul [Multicross OC] [Currently in: RWBY]
- Thread starter Azura
- Start date
- Crossover
Maybe because being annoying isn`t a capital crime? I actually like him as a character - he kinda fits the universe, all powerful souls are a bit odd and so far all he has done is talking and propositioning her. In the original Manga he`d be the overconfident comedy relief you`d laugh about.
- Location
- My happy place
But he is neither powerful or funny. He is what, 10th seat level? And his character is only sexual harassment and lazyness. Like Mineta from My Hero Acaemia, I don't see a reason for him to exist.
Spirit 3.6
- Location
- USA
Spirit 3.6
-Back in the town of Koifushi, South Rukongai District 49. Two days after Alexandria departed-
A shadowed figure silently slipped into an empty office.
Night had fallen over the Soul Society and perhaps fitting for a town in the mid-Rukongai the local guard was not particularly vigilant for people sneaking into governmental buildings.
The figure quickly moved from the door and made its way to the records cabinet and expertly started shifting through them. A small handheld device occasionally flashing as the intruder copied each page before it was returned to its original place.
Barely ten minutes later, all the files had been copied and the figure snuck back out the door.
The next day, Natsumi was looking over the analysis of all the records she had copied and sent back to the support members in Squads Two and Twelve to look over while she slowly finished off a cup of tea.
While she hadn't needed to do these types of missions for close to 30 years, most of her job after promotion to third seat consisted of managing the Squad and the occasional hunt of especially crafty Hollows, it was nice to know that her skills were still sharp.
It was also rather relaxing to not be the one responsible for paperwork for a change.
'If the squad wouldn't fall apart with Omaeda in charge I would think about making this a regular thing.' Natsumi mused. It was rather fun blending into the crowds here. While the standards of living were far from what she was used to, there were enough goods moving through the area that the bars were well stocked and by extension enough drunks in position that Natsumi was learning all kinds of things even without getting involved in the flow of conversation. Not that she said nothing, a well timed comment could easily guide the people around her into talking more about any topic they knew about.
For instance, the town had recently replaced its mayor for the third time in as many years because the two major criminal groups in the area had clashed before being subsumed by a third group.
It was a little tidbit Natsumi had relayed back to one of the Onmitsukidō to investigate. If the group was tolerable enough perhaps a deal could be struck for how they handled the area. If not they could always infiltrate and direct the group or eliminate them if they were too disruptive.
She also learned the general opinion on the local Shinigami garrison and their members. Like most places the local garrison kept the 'peace' in town. Meaning they would step in for obvious criminal activity or threats, but would remain largely uninvolved with anything underground or outside of town.
According to many of the bar patrons, many more people had been vanishing around the Red Leaves Forest than had been reported. It was simply that most people didn't care to file a report if nothing would come of it.
Natsumi was glad that Alexandria was off in that area. If the issue was local, she could handle it. If it wasn't and they were lucky, it might give them a lead to where the Senkaimon and lab were located.
She was distracted from her thoughts when she heard a door slide open and another Shinigami walk in.
"Oh, hello Hanakage-san. I didn't realise you were up already." the newcomer said.
Natsumi looked up to see the second-in-command of the local garrison walk into the rest area she was in. She had briefly talked to him during the process of sorting out her and Alexandria's sleeping arrangements, but she hadn't run into him in the days following. Not surprising, considering Natsumi was enjoying ordering Alexandria around as revenge for the overly familiar mannerisms the blonde tended to subject her too. The former-Ryoka could be alarmingly similar to Lieutenant Matsumoto at times, and Natsumi was rather glad the similarities ended with just the overly friendly personality and not the laziness and drinking habits of the Squad Ten Lieutenant.
"I wouldn't call 10 o'clock early Kiba-san." Natsumi replied.
Yuuto Kiba did not look like what you would expect of a Shinigami this far out in the Rukongai. Most local Shinigami tended to look taller and more muscular than the souls surrounding them. Something about Reiryoku helping push a Shinigami's body toward its peak. It was why being an overweight Shinigami was only possible in the center districts, where resources were plentiful and threats were rare.
But Yuuto Kiba? He looked like he would fit in as a member of one of the minor noble families in the Seireitei. His soft slightly androgynus features looked slightly out of place compared to the harder features of everyone else, making him look even less like someone in command. Between the blond hair, grey-blue eyes, and gentle smile Natsumi had heard several women in town mention they wished to catch the eye of the Shinigami.
"W-well most of the garrison tends to stay out at night, so they usually aren't up until noon." Kiba laughed nervously while rubbing the back of his head.
Natsumi simply hummed and turned back to her reports. She had enough to do in Squad Two and she would not ruin this little break from those duties sorting out discipline issues for an outpost unit.
"So what do you have there? It looks like you are really interested in it." Kiba asked, joining Natsumi at the table she was using with his own cup of tea.
"Just some poetry a friend in my squad gave me." Natsumi lied easily. The Onmitsukidō had used poetry to code messages for years. It helped that the Gotei 13 encouraged an interest in poetry during the years spent at the Academy, so it wasn't unusual for Shinigami to be seen reading it in their time off.
'Well, as long as they weren't in Squad Eleven.' Natsumi thought.
"You have an interest in poetry?"
"For reading purposes only. I'm not very good at composing unfortunately."
The two of them sat in silence. Natsumi continued through her reports while they both sipped at their tea.
When Natsumi finished, she began collecting her sheets and prepared to leave.
"Ah, one second Hanakage-san." Kiba called out. "I was hoping to talk to you more about your time here, since you are on a mission to investigate the disappearances in the area."
Natsumi raised an eyebrow but settled back into her seat. "Certainly, but what about? I don't believe I nor my assistant have done anything outside a standard investigation though so I am unsure what you want to discuss."
"Well there is the fact you are investigating according to standards." Kiba said with a gentle smile. "Normally a Shinigami from the Gotei just puts in a token effort before going back to the Seireitei. If there is something else going on, I would be happy to offer my and my garrison's assistance."
"Well normally those assigned to these kinds of missions are for disciplinary reasons, but both myself and my assistant were assigned as a graduation test of sorts for her. Our squad officers want to see how she conducts herself away from the Seireitei." Natsumi smiled back, keeping to the fiction of their cover story. "This mission was just the next to be assigned. I don't expect to find anything more than the ordinary issues that are unfortunately common in the Rukongai."
"I hope that you don't take any actions of hers while she is with the squad leader against her then." Kiba's smile turned pained.
"Why's that?"
"Squad Leader Kimura is definitely one of the most powerful Shinigami in the district, but he is also rather… direct about his desires with women that he does not spend much time with. It doesn't help that his methods are actually successful in some cases."
"Are you saying he might force himself on my assistant?" Natsumi worried. She was unsure how she would explain the leader of a garrison being slaughtered by an Academy student and it would certainly make completing their real mission harder as well.
Misunderstanding the source of her worry, Kiba shook his head. "No, the squad leader is never physical, but his mannerisms have caused several… incidents… with other female Shinigami. So if she performs unprofessionally, please don't hold it against her."
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Natsumi said.
'And pray Alexandria doesn't do anything rash.' She thought.
"Is there anything else?"
"Perhaps you could let me know what you are working on in the meantime while your assistant is away? Squad Leader Kimura doesn't assign us many things outside of keeping public order so I would be happy to assist you while you are here." The smile was back on Yuuto Kiba's face.
"Nothing much." Natsumi replied. "I've been going over a lot of reports your subordinates handed over looking for any patterns that stood out. I'm not sure anything will stand out but it doesn't hurt to try."
What she didn't say was that she was augmenting her search by raiding both the local government and criminal headquarters when she managed to locate one. No need to rile up the locals with her investigation since they always had their own skeletons to hide.
Kiba nodded at her words. "Yes, we've done that a bit in the past. I can get you some of the previous maps we made with the positions of the disappearances marked."
"That would be helpful, thank you."
A short time later the second-in-command returned with an armful of maps with color coded dots with a number that matched to a missing persons report. The majority were a yellow color signifying the case as unresolved, but there were a few greens where a person had been found, red where the report turned out to be fake, and some black where a body had been discovered.
Immediately Natsumi noticed something odd about the maps since one area remained largely the same across all the maps.
"Why is this area always covered in red? It seems unlikely there were that many fake reports consistently."
Kiba looked at the section Natsumi pointed out and blushed. Not the reaction Natsumi was expecting.
"Ah, that area is the red light area in town. Most of those reports are men and women trying to reconnect with the 'special friend' from the night before."
That...seemed unlikely to Natsumi. She would need to check the situation closer before Alexandria returned.
"I see... Thank you for the maps, but I think I will stop here for today. This is more a task for my assistant afterall." Natsumi was sure that there was something else going on in the red light area. But she would investigate on her own. Yuuto Kiba was too well known locally to walk through such an area without drawing attention and seemed determined to assist if he knew what she would be doing.
Best he think she would wait for Alexandria before he offered to help again.
A few days later, practically the minute Alexandria returned to town, Natsumi quickly pulled the blonde aside.
"I hope you're happy sticking me with that idiot. Cause I am sooo getting you back-" "I think I found where our lab is getting its research subjects." Natsumi interrupted. "And the number might be far higher than we initially assumed."
Blue eyes searched Natsumi's face for any signs she wasn't serious before Alexandria slumped, the previous annoyance pushed aside for the moment.
"Okay, what did you find?"
-Back in the town of Koifushi, South Rukongai District 49. Two days after Alexandria departed-
A shadowed figure silently slipped into an empty office.
Night had fallen over the Soul Society and perhaps fitting for a town in the mid-Rukongai the local guard was not particularly vigilant for people sneaking into governmental buildings.
The figure quickly moved from the door and made its way to the records cabinet and expertly started shifting through them. A small handheld device occasionally flashing as the intruder copied each page before it was returned to its original place.
Barely ten minutes later, all the files had been copied and the figure snuck back out the door.
-o-
The next day, Natsumi was looking over the analysis of all the records she had copied and sent back to the support members in Squads Two and Twelve to look over while she slowly finished off a cup of tea.
While she hadn't needed to do these types of missions for close to 30 years, most of her job after promotion to third seat consisted of managing the Squad and the occasional hunt of especially crafty Hollows, it was nice to know that her skills were still sharp.
It was also rather relaxing to not be the one responsible for paperwork for a change.
'If the squad wouldn't fall apart with Omaeda in charge I would think about making this a regular thing.' Natsumi mused. It was rather fun blending into the crowds here. While the standards of living were far from what she was used to, there were enough goods moving through the area that the bars were well stocked and by extension enough drunks in position that Natsumi was learning all kinds of things even without getting involved in the flow of conversation. Not that she said nothing, a well timed comment could easily guide the people around her into talking more about any topic they knew about.
For instance, the town had recently replaced its mayor for the third time in as many years because the two major criminal groups in the area had clashed before being subsumed by a third group.
It was a little tidbit Natsumi had relayed back to one of the Onmitsukidō to investigate. If the group was tolerable enough perhaps a deal could be struck for how they handled the area. If not they could always infiltrate and direct the group or eliminate them if they were too disruptive.
She also learned the general opinion on the local Shinigami garrison and their members. Like most places the local garrison kept the 'peace' in town. Meaning they would step in for obvious criminal activity or threats, but would remain largely uninvolved with anything underground or outside of town.
According to many of the bar patrons, many more people had been vanishing around the Red Leaves Forest than had been reported. It was simply that most people didn't care to file a report if nothing would come of it.
Natsumi was glad that Alexandria was off in that area. If the issue was local, she could handle it. If it wasn't and they were lucky, it might give them a lead to where the Senkaimon and lab were located.
She was distracted from her thoughts when she heard a door slide open and another Shinigami walk in.
"Oh, hello Hanakage-san. I didn't realise you were up already." the newcomer said.
Natsumi looked up to see the second-in-command of the local garrison walk into the rest area she was in. She had briefly talked to him during the process of sorting out her and Alexandria's sleeping arrangements, but she hadn't run into him in the days following. Not surprising, considering Natsumi was enjoying ordering Alexandria around as revenge for the overly familiar mannerisms the blonde tended to subject her too. The former-Ryoka could be alarmingly similar to Lieutenant Matsumoto at times, and Natsumi was rather glad the similarities ended with just the overly friendly personality and not the laziness and drinking habits of the Squad Ten Lieutenant.
"I wouldn't call 10 o'clock early Kiba-san." Natsumi replied.
Yuuto Kiba did not look like what you would expect of a Shinigami this far out in the Rukongai. Most local Shinigami tended to look taller and more muscular than the souls surrounding them. Something about Reiryoku helping push a Shinigami's body toward its peak. It was why being an overweight Shinigami was only possible in the center districts, where resources were plentiful and threats were rare.
But Yuuto Kiba? He looked like he would fit in as a member of one of the minor noble families in the Seireitei. His soft slightly androgynus features looked slightly out of place compared to the harder features of everyone else, making him look even less like someone in command. Between the blond hair, grey-blue eyes, and gentle smile Natsumi had heard several women in town mention they wished to catch the eye of the Shinigami.
"W-well most of the garrison tends to stay out at night, so they usually aren't up until noon." Kiba laughed nervously while rubbing the back of his head.
Natsumi simply hummed and turned back to her reports. She had enough to do in Squad Two and she would not ruin this little break from those duties sorting out discipline issues for an outpost unit.
"So what do you have there? It looks like you are really interested in it." Kiba asked, joining Natsumi at the table she was using with his own cup of tea.
"Just some poetry a friend in my squad gave me." Natsumi lied easily. The Onmitsukidō had used poetry to code messages for years. It helped that the Gotei 13 encouraged an interest in poetry during the years spent at the Academy, so it wasn't unusual for Shinigami to be seen reading it in their time off.
'Well, as long as they weren't in Squad Eleven.' Natsumi thought.
"You have an interest in poetry?"
"For reading purposes only. I'm not very good at composing unfortunately."
The two of them sat in silence. Natsumi continued through her reports while they both sipped at their tea.
When Natsumi finished, she began collecting her sheets and prepared to leave.
"Ah, one second Hanakage-san." Kiba called out. "I was hoping to talk to you more about your time here, since you are on a mission to investigate the disappearances in the area."
Natsumi raised an eyebrow but settled back into her seat. "Certainly, but what about? I don't believe I nor my assistant have done anything outside a standard investigation though so I am unsure what you want to discuss."
"Well there is the fact you are investigating according to standards." Kiba said with a gentle smile. "Normally a Shinigami from the Gotei just puts in a token effort before going back to the Seireitei. If there is something else going on, I would be happy to offer my and my garrison's assistance."
"Well normally those assigned to these kinds of missions are for disciplinary reasons, but both myself and my assistant were assigned as a graduation test of sorts for her. Our squad officers want to see how she conducts herself away from the Seireitei." Natsumi smiled back, keeping to the fiction of their cover story. "This mission was just the next to be assigned. I don't expect to find anything more than the ordinary issues that are unfortunately common in the Rukongai."
"I hope that you don't take any actions of hers while she is with the squad leader against her then." Kiba's smile turned pained.
"Why's that?"
"Squad Leader Kimura is definitely one of the most powerful Shinigami in the district, but he is also rather… direct about his desires with women that he does not spend much time with. It doesn't help that his methods are actually successful in some cases."
"Are you saying he might force himself on my assistant?" Natsumi worried. She was unsure how she would explain the leader of a garrison being slaughtered by an Academy student and it would certainly make completing their real mission harder as well.
Misunderstanding the source of her worry, Kiba shook his head. "No, the squad leader is never physical, but his mannerisms have caused several… incidents… with other female Shinigami. So if she performs unprofessionally, please don't hold it against her."
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Natsumi said.
'And pray Alexandria doesn't do anything rash.' She thought.
"Is there anything else?"
"Perhaps you could let me know what you are working on in the meantime while your assistant is away? Squad Leader Kimura doesn't assign us many things outside of keeping public order so I would be happy to assist you while you are here." The smile was back on Yuuto Kiba's face.
"Nothing much." Natsumi replied. "I've been going over a lot of reports your subordinates handed over looking for any patterns that stood out. I'm not sure anything will stand out but it doesn't hurt to try."
What she didn't say was that she was augmenting her search by raiding both the local government and criminal headquarters when she managed to locate one. No need to rile up the locals with her investigation since they always had their own skeletons to hide.
Kiba nodded at her words. "Yes, we've done that a bit in the past. I can get you some of the previous maps we made with the positions of the disappearances marked."
"That would be helpful, thank you."
A short time later the second-in-command returned with an armful of maps with color coded dots with a number that matched to a missing persons report. The majority were a yellow color signifying the case as unresolved, but there were a few greens where a person had been found, red where the report turned out to be fake, and some black where a body had been discovered.
Immediately Natsumi noticed something odd about the maps since one area remained largely the same across all the maps.
"Why is this area always covered in red? It seems unlikely there were that many fake reports consistently."
Kiba looked at the section Natsumi pointed out and blushed. Not the reaction Natsumi was expecting.
"Ah, that area is the red light area in town. Most of those reports are men and women trying to reconnect with the 'special friend' from the night before."
That...seemed unlikely to Natsumi. She would need to check the situation closer before Alexandria returned.
"I see... Thank you for the maps, but I think I will stop here for today. This is more a task for my assistant afterall." Natsumi was sure that there was something else going on in the red light area. But she would investigate on her own. Yuuto Kiba was too well known locally to walk through such an area without drawing attention and seemed determined to assist if he knew what she would be doing.
Best he think she would wait for Alexandria before he offered to help again.
-o-
A few days later, practically the minute Alexandria returned to town, Natsumi quickly pulled the blonde aside.
"I hope you're happy sticking me with that idiot. Cause I am sooo getting you back-" "I think I found where our lab is getting its research subjects." Natsumi interrupted. "And the number might be far higher than we initially assumed."
Blue eyes searched Natsumi's face for any signs she wasn't serious before Alexandria slumped, the previous annoyance pushed aside for the moment.
"Okay, what did you find?"
C4d
Has approximate knowledge of many things.
- Location
- Germany
I like how the first thing the thinks about is how inconvenient it would be having to explain why the local bigwig Shinigami had to be scraped off several trees in the forest because he got liberally spread by a supposed academy student.
- Location
- Belfast
"We're supposed to be members of the sneaky squad... do I really need to spell out the idea of an 'undercover mission' to you!?"
Ooh, what are you doing in the Soul Society, Kiba? This isn't demon territory. And, by any chance is his ability is some variation on Sword Birth?
- Location
- USA
Having a good time in running a garrison apparently! And no his ability will be a bit different than Sword Birth.
Glad you like it! But nope Aizen is off in Hueco Mundo being the smug bastard he is.
Spirit 3.7
- Location
- USA
Spirit 3.7
I was starting to wonder if this entire mission was just one long prank by the Soul Reapers to relieve their frustrations of how badly we showed them up trying to get at Rukia.
It started off simple enough. Oh, you don't have the personnel to investigate this issue? Sure I can help. Of course they don't mention the place they need help in is a medieval town in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, I need to blend in despite being several inches taller than most people in Soul Society? I guess I can wear something else. I chose a slightly modified student uniform? Well you can just be an assistant and handle going through the paperwork first! Not that I minded that much. For all my complaining, I was used to the role from dealing with Urahara.
Oh, we need you to investigate a forest where people mysteriously vanish. Cool, done. But you have to do it with someone even more direct and perverted than Kon. And considering the first thing the mod-soul did with practically every female he met was throw himself at their chest, I was reluctantly impressed Kimura never made a move physically and still annoyed me as much as he did.
And then finally, just when I think I'm done with being harassed after more than a week with a stuck up Soul Reaper who thinks almost exclusively with his small head… Natsumi tells me we are heading into the red light district to get a closer look at something she found.
It's just...it's just not fair.
"So let me get this straight. You managed to investigate your lead, create a complete picture of the area's criminal landscape, get blackmail material on all the local leaders, and then find another lead in the time it took me to find a Hollow nest and clear it out?!"
"No of course not. The data analysts back in the Seireitei handled the local politics, I simply sent them the files I found."
Files that you managed to steal from safehouses and government buildings completely undetected. Safehouses that you also managed to find in under a week. Freaking stupidly talented samurai-ghost-ninja.
"Of course, silly me." I dragged a hand down my face in frustration before shifting it to knead at my temple. The beginnings of a headache were starting to get to me.
"And you want me traipsing around the red light district, why?"
Natsumi pulled out several pages of paper and handed them over. Looking through I started seeing references to case numbers, locations, dates, and witnesses statements. It was a lot.
"Okay, so what's different about these than the other files we looked through?" I asked. If these were just the summaries then Natsumi had clearly found a pattern somewhere for there to be so many different cases called out.
"After my initial lead proved unhelpful, I took the time to map out where missing persons reports were laid out in the area. I discovered that most of these incidents revolved around the pleasure district." Not terribly surprising, those kinds of areas usually had ties with the criminal element at some level.
"The issue was that the amount of incidents was an order of magnitude more than the rest of the town, and many of the missing persons matched the names of people who had submitted their own reports earlier on." Natsumi continued.
"Wait, so people were disappearing and when even more people reported it they disappeared too? How did no one notice this before now?"
Natsumi looked grim, "It was waived off by the local Shinigami as unimportant. What's worse is that this has been going on for years now. And that not only are the people reporting these disappearances missing, many of the people that might report the issue elsewhere seem to be vanishing as well."
I was starting to get a bad feeling.
"So how many?"
Natsumi stared directly at me. "Twelve thousand a year. Probably more since we don't have a way to track the ones no one reported. And the trend became noticeable as far back as fifty years ago."
I did some mental math and froze.
"Over half a million souls?!" I breathed.
That was insane. Even if people were going missing after reporting things, that many people vanishing should have been noticed by someone! There should have been rumors, theories where people went, something!
So why was this considered such a small thing that the number two of the local Soul Reaper garrison looked at the situation and basically shrugged and said it wasn't a big deal.
"How could this never come up? No one else passed this along?"
There was a dark look in Natsumi's eyes. "I believe the severity of the situation is being suppressed by someone. Missing cases are common but not enough that this many can be hidden like this. The incident maps supplied by the second-in-charge Yuuto Kiba proves that they have the numbers, but no one is tasked to look into anything. And because no one is looking, then there is no reason for a report to be sent to the Seireitei."
Unbelievable.
"Okay, so what do you need me to do." Personal feelings could take a backseat for now. With how big an issue this became, getting to the bottom of where these people are being taken is the most important thing.
"From the few people I managed to get to talk, there is a certain building that people have a tendency to enter and then they never leave. We are going to inspect as best we can to discover the cause. I will be giving instructions back to Squad Two for support, but this is what you need to know..."
For the next few hours the two of us discussed exactly how we would investigate the issue.
Contrary to my expectations, the red light district was not some den of debauchery where prost- *ahem* escorts tried their best to entice people off the streets.
There certainly were a few trying such a thing, but for the most part the shops and buildings actually seemed better constructed than the rest of the town. Several tasteful wooden buildings lined the streets with signs promoting the shows within or services offered.
I would be more comfortable if every other male escort didn't keep promoting their services to me, but it wasn't like I could tell them to not do their job.
"I don't know why I couldn't wear a disguise also." I hissed to Natsumi.
The Soul Reaper had removed her easily recognizable uniform and through a mix of new clothes and makeup, had transformed herself into someone completely different. I, on the other hand, had been made to stay in the same uniform for some reason.
Natsumi rolled her eyes. "The same reasons you left to investigate the forest while I remained here. You stand out too much, and I can play the role of a guide far easier than trying to find a way to pass you off as someone else."
"And why would I need a guide?" I huffed, "You could have just come with me normally."
"How would you explain going directly to the building we are interested in?" she questioned. "I doubt you spend much time in such places but someone so obviously uncomfortable with her surroundings going further into the district will only attract more attention. But with myself serving as a guide it will simply be reasoned off that I have an agreement with the facility in question to bring potential customers to them."
"You just didn't want the attention from walking through here." I accused.
She shrugged. "Believe that if you wish."
I could feel my eye twitch at the negligent answer. She wasn't the one being eyed like a piece of meat by a dozen starving wolves. At least this was the worst it would get.
"Well look who it is! Sweetheart if you wanted some action in town you just had to ask!"
By everything holy, please no.
A hand landed on my shoulder and I turned to face the source of my headaches for days, Aoyama Kimura.
The black haired pretty boy of a Soul Reaper was standing there with the biggest grin on his face and it immediately gave me urges to punch him in the face, but being mindful of my surroundings I pushed it aside.
"Kimura." I acknowledged him with a nod before stepping out of his reach. "Not exactly looking for the type of action you could provide."
He looked lost for a bit before looking at Natsumi. I had no idea what was going through his mind but I'm sure it was only vaguely attached to reality.
"Oh I see! A ladies girl then? No wonder you kept turning me down. Not sure where she's taking you, but if you tell me I can let you know if it's worth your time. I've been all over this part of town and know all the best places around. Or if you want to try the other team again I'm sure I can change your mind."
Natsumi was giggling off to the side while I just blankly stared at the idiot in front of me. Why did I agree to help the Soul Reapers again? Ever since I got here my dignity has been taking a beating.
So you know what? Screw it.
I threw an arm around Natsumi and pulled her into a tight hug with her head pressed into my chest. Ignoring the startled squeak, I looked back at Kimura.
"Well, not exactly the reason I turned you down. But this cutie here offered to show me a good place to relax. I heard that some of these shops have shows that you absolutely need to see if you are in the area."
"So where you headed?"
"A place called the Moonlit Garden, apparently it comes recommended to people from out of the area."
Natsumi covertly jabbed me with an elbow, her eyes screaming 'what are you doing?'
Mine, sparkling with sadistic enjoyment at her predicament, simply responded with 'revenge!'
"Ah, I know the place!" Kimura said excitedly, evidently not noticing the looks we were giving each other. "Not a bad place to unwind, but not really much for the 'personal touch' if you catch my meaning." He gave me a lecherous wink. "Not much more I can say about it though. I tend to hang out where the girls are a little friendlier. But hey, I'll tag along! I figure you deserve a drink on me for taking out a real Hollow nest. Not even out of the Academy and racking up a score!"
He gave both Natsumi and me a very… thorough… look over. I was suddenly very aware of how her head pressed against my shirt, making my assets more noticable.
"Plus if the two of you put on a show I'm sure I can grease some wheels when you get into the actual squads. Heck, if it's good enough I might give you a better deal than if you got with me!"
"Not on your life." I wasted no time refusing him.
He shrugged, more than used to my rejections. "And what about you 'cutie'? I'm sure I can help such a lovely girl like you with something in town?"
Natsumi tensed up and for a second looked like she was going to be ill, before she put on a pleasant mask and replied, "I'm sure that we will be able to find something to satisfy your desires, sir." She wiggled out of my grip and took my hand, and began walking down the street. "If you would follow me? We are almost there."
She gave me a look that promised pain, but I took the whole thing as a minor win. If I was going to be saddled with the asshole again, Natsumi was going to deal with him too.
Annoyingly enough Kimura was much better behaved with other people around.
Make no mistake, he still tried to convince both Natsumi and me to sleep with him, or together, or have a threesome. Basically just trying any combination he could think of to get us out of our clothes. But he was much less blunt about it than when I was alone with him.
Still watching Natsumi twitch every now and then from all the comments was enough to make up for that.
Too bad that once we actually arrived at the place Natsumi had a pretty easy time ditching the both of us. With her role as a guide complete, she would change her disguise and poke around for a bit before meeting up with me when she found something. Until then I had planned to just keep a low profile and wait, but Kimura decided to make good on his offer for a drink so I was once again left in his company.
Fortunately, there were several girls here that were paid to deal with people like him so besides answering the odd question I had no reason to interact with him.
So I was enjoying the short ravenette lounging in my arms as she occasionally topped off my drink (I was making sure to inspect that nothing fishy was going into it with a handy Analysis spell since I wasn't going to risk anything being slipped in) and just waiting for Natsumi. I'd never been to a place like this before, but I could see the appeal of finding someone soft to cuddle with like this.
It was nice.
"Another bottle miss?"
A waitress stood nearby with a tray holding several bottles of alcohol. I was about to refuse when Kimura spoke up from the other side of the room.
"Leave three of them on me. Newblood there helped take out a Hollow nest before she even graduated! She'll go far if she ever takes the stick out her ass, but whatever. You girls know a way to get her to unwind?"
Jackass, I was plenty relaxed. Just because I didn't have three girls crawling over me didn't mean I needed help.
"Uhm, we have an incense service that some customers use to help relax but it can be a bit debilitating. It tends to numb some of the senses if you breathe too much of it."
"That sounds perfect! Might actually convince her to stop just petting the girl she has there and get to business! What do you say ladies, want to get a little loose with me?" he said looking at the girls beside him.
"Ah, if you are looking to get more intimate with our staff you will need to go to a different room. This one is not equipped for that kind of service." the waitress said.
"It's alright. I'm not planning going any further than this. You don't need to do anything for me." I interjected trying to stop her before I ended up somewhere else in the building. Last thing I wanted was to miss a signal because I wasn't where Natsumi thought I was.
Kimura scoffed and waved at me. "See what I mean? Stick up her ass." He got up and started walking towards the door with a girl in each arm. "Well I'm gonna get to know these lovely ladies a little better. Feel free to enjoy the cuddle session and the incense, it's on me." He stopped right at the door frame, "Oh and if you want to replace the stick with something a little more fun, you just have to ask. I'd be happy to help." He said with a wink before disappearing down the hall.
The waitress gave me an awkward smile before removing a panel on the wall revealing an incense container hidden within. I did manage to convince her to change to just a nice smelling one rather than whatever drug laced thing Kimura requested, but I still wasn't convinced nothing was up. So using more wind spells I created an air channel between my face and the window, making sure I was getting the freshest air I could and trying my best not to breathe in the scent filling the room.
The next half hour was spent drinking and listening to a story narrated by the girl I was holding. Even with the precautions I had taken with the dinking and incense, I was beginning to get drowsy. The warm room and soothing conversation was starting to break down my guard and I needed to do something about that.
Gently pushing the girl away I made the excuse I needed to visit the restroom, only to be startled when the warm smile on her face morphed into an emotionless mask.
"Method one: unsuccessful. Activate method two." She droned tonelessly.
Before I could even attempt to decipher that, the lounge chair exploded into needles that struck the both of us.
I ripped them out as quickly as possible, but I could feel the drugs start taking effect already. My thoughts slowed down, my eyesight became blurry, and moving felt like I had weights strapped to my body.
Some kind of sedative, at least.
Fighting the effects as best I could, I lurched to the door. If I made it to the open Natsumi might spot me.
"Well you are a tough one." A voice said somewhere behind me.
I turned to face it, but all I could see was a blurry form of a person dressed in black.
"Let's not make a scene." the figure said before something hit me in the stomach and I knew no more.
I was starting to wonder if this entire mission was just one long prank by the Soul Reapers to relieve their frustrations of how badly we showed them up trying to get at Rukia.
It started off simple enough. Oh, you don't have the personnel to investigate this issue? Sure I can help. Of course they don't mention the place they need help in is a medieval town in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, I need to blend in despite being several inches taller than most people in Soul Society? I guess I can wear something else. I chose a slightly modified student uniform? Well you can just be an assistant and handle going through the paperwork first! Not that I minded that much. For all my complaining, I was used to the role from dealing with Urahara.
Oh, we need you to investigate a forest where people mysteriously vanish. Cool, done. But you have to do it with someone even more direct and perverted than Kon. And considering the first thing the mod-soul did with practically every female he met was throw himself at their chest, I was reluctantly impressed Kimura never made a move physically and still annoyed me as much as he did.
And then finally, just when I think I'm done with being harassed after more than a week with a stuck up Soul Reaper who thinks almost exclusively with his small head… Natsumi tells me we are heading into the red light district to get a closer look at something she found.
It's just...it's just not fair.
"So let me get this straight. You managed to investigate your lead, create a complete picture of the area's criminal landscape, get blackmail material on all the local leaders, and then find another lead in the time it took me to find a Hollow nest and clear it out?!"
"No of course not. The data analysts back in the Seireitei handled the local politics, I simply sent them the files I found."
Files that you managed to steal from safehouses and government buildings completely undetected. Safehouses that you also managed to find in under a week. Freaking stupidly talented samurai-ghost-ninja.
"Of course, silly me." I dragged a hand down my face in frustration before shifting it to knead at my temple. The beginnings of a headache were starting to get to me.
"And you want me traipsing around the red light district, why?"
Natsumi pulled out several pages of paper and handed them over. Looking through I started seeing references to case numbers, locations, dates, and witnesses statements. It was a lot.
"Okay, so what's different about these than the other files we looked through?" I asked. If these were just the summaries then Natsumi had clearly found a pattern somewhere for there to be so many different cases called out.
"After my initial lead proved unhelpful, I took the time to map out where missing persons reports were laid out in the area. I discovered that most of these incidents revolved around the pleasure district." Not terribly surprising, those kinds of areas usually had ties with the criminal element at some level.
"The issue was that the amount of incidents was an order of magnitude more than the rest of the town, and many of the missing persons matched the names of people who had submitted their own reports earlier on." Natsumi continued.
"Wait, so people were disappearing and when even more people reported it they disappeared too? How did no one notice this before now?"
Natsumi looked grim, "It was waived off by the local Shinigami as unimportant. What's worse is that this has been going on for years now. And that not only are the people reporting these disappearances missing, many of the people that might report the issue elsewhere seem to be vanishing as well."
I was starting to get a bad feeling.
"So how many?"
Natsumi stared directly at me. "Twelve thousand a year. Probably more since we don't have a way to track the ones no one reported. And the trend became noticeable as far back as fifty years ago."
I did some mental math and froze.
"Over half a million souls?!" I breathed.
That was insane. Even if people were going missing after reporting things, that many people vanishing should have been noticed by someone! There should have been rumors, theories where people went, something!
So why was this considered such a small thing that the number two of the local Soul Reaper garrison looked at the situation and basically shrugged and said it wasn't a big deal.
"How could this never come up? No one else passed this along?"
There was a dark look in Natsumi's eyes. "I believe the severity of the situation is being suppressed by someone. Missing cases are common but not enough that this many can be hidden like this. The incident maps supplied by the second-in-charge Yuuto Kiba proves that they have the numbers, but no one is tasked to look into anything. And because no one is looking, then there is no reason for a report to be sent to the Seireitei."
Unbelievable.
"Okay, so what do you need me to do." Personal feelings could take a backseat for now. With how big an issue this became, getting to the bottom of where these people are being taken is the most important thing.
"From the few people I managed to get to talk, there is a certain building that people have a tendency to enter and then they never leave. We are going to inspect as best we can to discover the cause. I will be giving instructions back to Squad Two for support, but this is what you need to know..."
For the next few hours the two of us discussed exactly how we would investigate the issue.
-o-
Contrary to my expectations, the red light district was not some den of debauchery where prost- *ahem* escorts tried their best to entice people off the streets.
There certainly were a few trying such a thing, but for the most part the shops and buildings actually seemed better constructed than the rest of the town. Several tasteful wooden buildings lined the streets with signs promoting the shows within or services offered.
I would be more comfortable if every other male escort didn't keep promoting their services to me, but it wasn't like I could tell them to not do their job.
"I don't know why I couldn't wear a disguise also." I hissed to Natsumi.
The Soul Reaper had removed her easily recognizable uniform and through a mix of new clothes and makeup, had transformed herself into someone completely different. I, on the other hand, had been made to stay in the same uniform for some reason.
Natsumi rolled her eyes. "The same reasons you left to investigate the forest while I remained here. You stand out too much, and I can play the role of a guide far easier than trying to find a way to pass you off as someone else."
"And why would I need a guide?" I huffed, "You could have just come with me normally."
"How would you explain going directly to the building we are interested in?" she questioned. "I doubt you spend much time in such places but someone so obviously uncomfortable with her surroundings going further into the district will only attract more attention. But with myself serving as a guide it will simply be reasoned off that I have an agreement with the facility in question to bring potential customers to them."
"You just didn't want the attention from walking through here." I accused.
She shrugged. "Believe that if you wish."
I could feel my eye twitch at the negligent answer. She wasn't the one being eyed like a piece of meat by a dozen starving wolves. At least this was the worst it would get.
"Well look who it is! Sweetheart if you wanted some action in town you just had to ask!"
By everything holy, please no.
A hand landed on my shoulder and I turned to face the source of my headaches for days, Aoyama Kimura.
The black haired pretty boy of a Soul Reaper was standing there with the biggest grin on his face and it immediately gave me urges to punch him in the face, but being mindful of my surroundings I pushed it aside.
"Kimura." I acknowledged him with a nod before stepping out of his reach. "Not exactly looking for the type of action you could provide."
He looked lost for a bit before looking at Natsumi. I had no idea what was going through his mind but I'm sure it was only vaguely attached to reality.
"Oh I see! A ladies girl then? No wonder you kept turning me down. Not sure where she's taking you, but if you tell me I can let you know if it's worth your time. I've been all over this part of town and know all the best places around. Or if you want to try the other team again I'm sure I can change your mind."
Natsumi was giggling off to the side while I just blankly stared at the idiot in front of me. Why did I agree to help the Soul Reapers again? Ever since I got here my dignity has been taking a beating.
So you know what? Screw it.
I threw an arm around Natsumi and pulled her into a tight hug with her head pressed into my chest. Ignoring the startled squeak, I looked back at Kimura.
"Well, not exactly the reason I turned you down. But this cutie here offered to show me a good place to relax. I heard that some of these shops have shows that you absolutely need to see if you are in the area."
"So where you headed?"
"A place called the Moonlit Garden, apparently it comes recommended to people from out of the area."
Natsumi covertly jabbed me with an elbow, her eyes screaming 'what are you doing?'
Mine, sparkling with sadistic enjoyment at her predicament, simply responded with 'revenge!'
"Ah, I know the place!" Kimura said excitedly, evidently not noticing the looks we were giving each other. "Not a bad place to unwind, but not really much for the 'personal touch' if you catch my meaning." He gave me a lecherous wink. "Not much more I can say about it though. I tend to hang out where the girls are a little friendlier. But hey, I'll tag along! I figure you deserve a drink on me for taking out a real Hollow nest. Not even out of the Academy and racking up a score!"
He gave both Natsumi and me a very… thorough… look over. I was suddenly very aware of how her head pressed against my shirt, making my assets more noticable.
"Plus if the two of you put on a show I'm sure I can grease some wheels when you get into the actual squads. Heck, if it's good enough I might give you a better deal than if you got with me!"
"Not on your life." I wasted no time refusing him.
He shrugged, more than used to my rejections. "And what about you 'cutie'? I'm sure I can help such a lovely girl like you with something in town?"
Natsumi tensed up and for a second looked like she was going to be ill, before she put on a pleasant mask and replied, "I'm sure that we will be able to find something to satisfy your desires, sir." She wiggled out of my grip and took my hand, and began walking down the street. "If you would follow me? We are almost there."
She gave me a look that promised pain, but I took the whole thing as a minor win. If I was going to be saddled with the asshole again, Natsumi was going to deal with him too.
-o-
Annoyingly enough Kimura was much better behaved with other people around.
Make no mistake, he still tried to convince both Natsumi and me to sleep with him, or together, or have a threesome. Basically just trying any combination he could think of to get us out of our clothes. But he was much less blunt about it than when I was alone with him.
Still watching Natsumi twitch every now and then from all the comments was enough to make up for that.
Too bad that once we actually arrived at the place Natsumi had a pretty easy time ditching the both of us. With her role as a guide complete, she would change her disguise and poke around for a bit before meeting up with me when she found something. Until then I had planned to just keep a low profile and wait, but Kimura decided to make good on his offer for a drink so I was once again left in his company.
Fortunately, there were several girls here that were paid to deal with people like him so besides answering the odd question I had no reason to interact with him.
So I was enjoying the short ravenette lounging in my arms as she occasionally topped off my drink (I was making sure to inspect that nothing fishy was going into it with a handy Analysis spell since I wasn't going to risk anything being slipped in) and just waiting for Natsumi. I'd never been to a place like this before, but I could see the appeal of finding someone soft to cuddle with like this.
It was nice.
"Another bottle miss?"
A waitress stood nearby with a tray holding several bottles of alcohol. I was about to refuse when Kimura spoke up from the other side of the room.
"Leave three of them on me. Newblood there helped take out a Hollow nest before she even graduated! She'll go far if she ever takes the stick out her ass, but whatever. You girls know a way to get her to unwind?"
Jackass, I was plenty relaxed. Just because I didn't have three girls crawling over me didn't mean I needed help.
"Uhm, we have an incense service that some customers use to help relax but it can be a bit debilitating. It tends to numb some of the senses if you breathe too much of it."
"That sounds perfect! Might actually convince her to stop just petting the girl she has there and get to business! What do you say ladies, want to get a little loose with me?" he said looking at the girls beside him.
"Ah, if you are looking to get more intimate with our staff you will need to go to a different room. This one is not equipped for that kind of service." the waitress said.
"It's alright. I'm not planning going any further than this. You don't need to do anything for me." I interjected trying to stop her before I ended up somewhere else in the building. Last thing I wanted was to miss a signal because I wasn't where Natsumi thought I was.
Kimura scoffed and waved at me. "See what I mean? Stick up her ass." He got up and started walking towards the door with a girl in each arm. "Well I'm gonna get to know these lovely ladies a little better. Feel free to enjoy the cuddle session and the incense, it's on me." He stopped right at the door frame, "Oh and if you want to replace the stick with something a little more fun, you just have to ask. I'd be happy to help." He said with a wink before disappearing down the hall.
The waitress gave me an awkward smile before removing a panel on the wall revealing an incense container hidden within. I did manage to convince her to change to just a nice smelling one rather than whatever drug laced thing Kimura requested, but I still wasn't convinced nothing was up. So using more wind spells I created an air channel between my face and the window, making sure I was getting the freshest air I could and trying my best not to breathe in the scent filling the room.
The next half hour was spent drinking and listening to a story narrated by the girl I was holding. Even with the precautions I had taken with the dinking and incense, I was beginning to get drowsy. The warm room and soothing conversation was starting to break down my guard and I needed to do something about that.
Gently pushing the girl away I made the excuse I needed to visit the restroom, only to be startled when the warm smile on her face morphed into an emotionless mask.
"Method one: unsuccessful. Activate method two." She droned tonelessly.
Before I could even attempt to decipher that, the lounge chair exploded into needles that struck the both of us.
I ripped them out as quickly as possible, but I could feel the drugs start taking effect already. My thoughts slowed down, my eyesight became blurry, and moving felt like I had weights strapped to my body.
Some kind of sedative, at least.
Fighting the effects as best I could, I lurched to the door. If I made it to the open Natsumi might spot me.
"Well you are a tough one." A voice said somewhere behind me.
I turned to face it, but all I could see was a blurry form of a person dressed in black.
"Let's not make a scene." the figure said before something hit me in the stomach and I knew no more.
- Location
- Belfast
... Yeah, this is why some sort of silent (or even noisy) alarm system would have been a great idea.
I mean, something controlled by a spell that can be triggered without any physical motion would be perfect, but even a basic trigger would probably be good.
I mean, something controlled by a spell that can be triggered without any physical motion would be perfect, but even a basic trigger would probably be good.
Interlude YS
- Location
- USA
Interlude YS
'How is it that, that buffoon can remember the spirit fluctuations of every single person he's met, yet can't remember where he left the notebook he was using yesterday?' Yoruichi complained in her mind while she shifted through piles of books looking for the one they needed.
Somehow in the few weeks since they had left for the Soul Society, Kisuke had managed to not only undo the efforts Alexandria made to organize his notes last time but also start losing things in areas completely unrelated to the topic they contained.
Yoruichi had actually found an explosives manual in the kitchen. She had no idea why it ended up there, but she was glad Ururu noticed and brought it to her before Ginta found it and started making his own supply of fireworks. She was fond of the kid, but she also didn't want the neighborhood burning down around them.
'Found it, finally!' Returning to the lab Kisuke was in, she saw he was fully absorbed in yet another notebook.
Walking behind him Yoruichi smacked him across the head with the recovered book. "Kisuke, focus. You know we need to finish the details for the Karakura Replacement Plan. No getting distracted." she scolded, snatching the notebook out of his hands.
"Hey! Be careful with that!" Kisuke protested. "It's one of Alex-chan's books, she will kill me if it gets damaged."
Yoruichi blinked in surprise. "She gave you one of her notebooks? I thought she threatened to castrate you if you went digging through her things."
"Ah, hahaha. Well you see, I kinda found it when I was looking for a reference book I leant her and might have borrowed it without asking? But as long as she doesn't find out it's fine!"
Kisuke and his thrice damned curiosity. Alexandria was very relaxed about people wandering into her workshop. She would even explain what she was working on if asked (Not that Yoruichi bothered beyond the basics since she didn't understand that stuff) but she was insanely territorial about her notebooks.
The last time Kisuke 'borrowed' one of her notebooks, Alexandria chased him around for seven hours bombarding him with every Kido she knew and a couple Yoruichi was sure she had never used before.
It took the combined efforts of Tessei, Ururu, Ginta, and herself working together to stop the two of them from destroying the Urahara shop. From then on messing with Alexandria's notebooks was added to the unofficial forbidden things list, right along with giving the kids too much caffeine, letting Kisuke experiment unsupervised after being awake for 72 hours, letting Tessai shop for tea unescorted, or letting Yoruichi have catnip (it wasn't a habit. She could stop whenever she wanted).
And here was Kisuke, ignoring that warning.
"Please tell me it's at least one of her research books and not a project one." Yoruichi sighed covering her eyes with a hand.
"This is one of her research books." her infuriating childhood friend dutifully parroted.
She sighed again. Of course Kisuke would keep going after Alexandria's book. He had always been too curious for his own good and telling him that he was forbidden from knowing something only tended to make him poke his nose into it.
"So what project of hers could possibly make you risk your manhood after last time?" In addition to the damage to the surroundings Alexandria had come up with an interesting lightning based Kido that seemed to solely target the groin of whoever she used it on.
Kisuke had been hit by several and power distance aside, getting electrocuted in that... 'region'... was far from pleasant, given how he had been whining several hours afterwards. And that was before Alexandria had been able to copy Zanpakuto and fight on an even level with two captains for even a little bit.
Now Yoruichi thought they might need to actively restrain their mysterious friend before she leveled the entire town.
"A ship." Kisuke responded, still entranced by what he was reading. Incidentally knocking Yoruichi out of her thoughts of seeing if Soifon would lend her some of her militia to help restrain a furious captain level opponent.
"A what?"
"It's a ship! Alex-chan wants to make a ship and it's one of the greatest things I've ever seen!" Kisuke said, getting more excited now that his attention was pulled away from the book. "From what I've seen in this, this ship could work in the depths of space to the bottom of the ocean if it needed to and there are so many ideas that I never thought of! Sensor arrays, life support systems, power generators, and more. It's all in this" he declares flourishing the book overhead like it was some holy treasure rather than an academic notebook picked up at the 100-yen store.
"And she somehow has perfect designs to a ship that has things you've never heard of before?" Yoruichi asked skeptically. She had long accepted that Alexandria would probably never come completely clean about her past. It was fine. She had also fully accepted that she wasn't working against them.
Still, she would like some idea of Alexandria's past if only to know where she got so many ideas from. And one thing she knew for certain about Alexandria's ideas was that they never worked immediately.
There was a reason no one besides Kisuke was crazy enough to be anywhere near Alexandria's experiments while she was testing them. They had a high tendency of exploding.
Kisuke waved her off "No, the designs here are almost terrible. If she actually tried to make this it would go critical and explode into a million pieces the first time she turned it on."
'Called it.' Yoruichi thought.
"No," Kisuke declared with the same crazy gleam he got when he went through the giant robot building phase a while back. "I'm going to take these designs and make them perfect!" He pulled out another notebook and began scribbling away, lost in his own little world.
Yoruichi sighed yet again as any hope of getting any actual work done today went out the window.
Maybe Alexandria would forgive them going through her books if they presented it as a gift?
'How is it that, that buffoon can remember the spirit fluctuations of every single person he's met, yet can't remember where he left the notebook he was using yesterday?' Yoruichi complained in her mind while she shifted through piles of books looking for the one they needed.
Somehow in the few weeks since they had left for the Soul Society, Kisuke had managed to not only undo the efforts Alexandria made to organize his notes last time but also start losing things in areas completely unrelated to the topic they contained.
Yoruichi had actually found an explosives manual in the kitchen. She had no idea why it ended up there, but she was glad Ururu noticed and brought it to her before Ginta found it and started making his own supply of fireworks. She was fond of the kid, but she also didn't want the neighborhood burning down around them.
'Found it, finally!' Returning to the lab Kisuke was in, she saw he was fully absorbed in yet another notebook.
Walking behind him Yoruichi smacked him across the head with the recovered book. "Kisuke, focus. You know we need to finish the details for the Karakura Replacement Plan. No getting distracted." she scolded, snatching the notebook out of his hands.
"Hey! Be careful with that!" Kisuke protested. "It's one of Alex-chan's books, she will kill me if it gets damaged."
Yoruichi blinked in surprise. "She gave you one of her notebooks? I thought she threatened to castrate you if you went digging through her things."
"Ah, hahaha. Well you see, I kinda found it when I was looking for a reference book I leant her and might have borrowed it without asking? But as long as she doesn't find out it's fine!"
Kisuke and his thrice damned curiosity. Alexandria was very relaxed about people wandering into her workshop. She would even explain what she was working on if asked (Not that Yoruichi bothered beyond the basics since she didn't understand that stuff) but she was insanely territorial about her notebooks.
The last time Kisuke 'borrowed' one of her notebooks, Alexandria chased him around for seven hours bombarding him with every Kido she knew and a couple Yoruichi was sure she had never used before.
It took the combined efforts of Tessei, Ururu, Ginta, and herself working together to stop the two of them from destroying the Urahara shop. From then on messing with Alexandria's notebooks was added to the unofficial forbidden things list, right along with giving the kids too much caffeine, letting Kisuke experiment unsupervised after being awake for 72 hours, letting Tessai shop for tea unescorted, or letting Yoruichi have catnip (it wasn't a habit. She could stop whenever she wanted).
And here was Kisuke, ignoring that warning.
"Please tell me it's at least one of her research books and not a project one." Yoruichi sighed covering her eyes with a hand.
"This is one of her research books." her infuriating childhood friend dutifully parroted.
She sighed again. Of course Kisuke would keep going after Alexandria's book. He had always been too curious for his own good and telling him that he was forbidden from knowing something only tended to make him poke his nose into it.
"So what project of hers could possibly make you risk your manhood after last time?" In addition to the damage to the surroundings Alexandria had come up with an interesting lightning based Kido that seemed to solely target the groin of whoever she used it on.
Kisuke had been hit by several and power distance aside, getting electrocuted in that... 'region'... was far from pleasant, given how he had been whining several hours afterwards. And that was before Alexandria had been able to copy Zanpakuto and fight on an even level with two captains for even a little bit.
Now Yoruichi thought they might need to actively restrain their mysterious friend before she leveled the entire town.
"A ship." Kisuke responded, still entranced by what he was reading. Incidentally knocking Yoruichi out of her thoughts of seeing if Soifon would lend her some of her militia to help restrain a furious captain level opponent.
"A what?"
"It's a ship! Alex-chan wants to make a ship and it's one of the greatest things I've ever seen!" Kisuke said, getting more excited now that his attention was pulled away from the book. "From what I've seen in this, this ship could work in the depths of space to the bottom of the ocean if it needed to and there are so many ideas that I never thought of! Sensor arrays, life support systems, power generators, and more. It's all in this" he declares flourishing the book overhead like it was some holy treasure rather than an academic notebook picked up at the 100-yen store.
"And she somehow has perfect designs to a ship that has things you've never heard of before?" Yoruichi asked skeptically. She had long accepted that Alexandria would probably never come completely clean about her past. It was fine. She had also fully accepted that she wasn't working against them.
Still, she would like some idea of Alexandria's past if only to know where she got so many ideas from. And one thing she knew for certain about Alexandria's ideas was that they never worked immediately.
There was a reason no one besides Kisuke was crazy enough to be anywhere near Alexandria's experiments while she was testing them. They had a high tendency of exploding.
Kisuke waved her off "No, the designs here are almost terrible. If she actually tried to make this it would go critical and explode into a million pieces the first time she turned it on."
'Called it.' Yoruichi thought.
"No," Kisuke declared with the same crazy gleam he got when he went through the giant robot building phase a while back. "I'm going to take these designs and make them perfect!" He pulled out another notebook and began scribbling away, lost in his own little world.
Yoruichi sighed yet again as any hope of getting any actual work done today went out the window.
Maybe Alexandria would forgive them going through her books if they presented it as a gift?
Spirit 3.8
- Location
- USA
Spirit 3.8
I awoke to the soft whir of machinery and a dark room.
For a minute I had no idea where I was or what happened before the memories rushed back.
I was ambushed!
Adrenalin surged through me, banishing the last bit of drowsiness as I tried to leap to my feet but I ran into two issues. One, I was already standing. Two, I was held in place by some seriously heavy duty restraints that covered everything up to my wrists and ankles so the only thing my reaction did was make me flail against them helplessly.
My awakening must have triggered something since a bright light suddenly flooded the room, forcing me to tightly close my eyes.
Blinking away the spots caused by the bright flash I got my first proper look at the room.
I don't know what I was expecting to see, but a sci-fi lab out of the 80's was not in my top ten guesses. Large banks of monitors hung on one side of the room while giant machines dominated the other. Aside from the center of the floor and a path to the middle of the monitors, practically the whole floor was covered with thick bundles of wires.
The disturbing part was that most of those cables were plugged into the scaffold that was holding me up. The cylindrical metal restraints on my ankles connected to machines I had no idea what their purpose was but I doubted I would enjoy it.
...
Right. Time to leave.
I didn't want to set off an alarm by just destroying the restraints. They certainly looked like they did something other than just hold me in place, so an alarm set to go off if they get broken doesn't seem unreasonable.
I focused on the shackle covering my right hand and used Structural Analysis to get an idea of what I was dealing with. And oh man, I did not like what I found. Needles, electrodes, heating elements, and a variety of sensors. All signs pointed to either torture equipment, experimental procedures, or both. Now then, while I don't use the Alteration branch of my magecraft often outside my workshop, this would be the easiest way to get out since it works exactly how it sounds. It's a bunch of spells that physically alter the state of its target. Simply project my mana outward, encase the locking mechanism, use a spell to shift the mechanism to unlocked and-
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
-and get electrocuted for my trouble. I hung limply from my wrists as I tried to stay conscious. Obviously, whoever captured me was very paranoid about escapes if they had a way to monitor the locks being moved without the right command.
O-okay… finesse didn't work. Brute force would have to do.
Reinforcing my body to the limit I prepared to yank my hands out of the metal coverings. Just had to not think about how much that first time hurt. Or how much trouble I'm in if I can't pull out of them…
…
Fuck, why am I breathing so hard?! It was just a bit of electricity!
I've been cut several times and even stabbed through the chest, so this shouldn't be getting to me this badly!
Forcibly calming my now heavy breathing I tensed against the restraints and prepared to break them…
…
…
Okay, just….do it then.
3, 2, 1--
*Thunk* "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!
Rather than restrain me until they snapped, the shackles held in place for a little bit before clamps hidden further up the scaffold released and the electricity kicked in. This time, it was not a single blast of electricity but two. The second one being powerful enough that I absolutely blacked out for a second.
When my senses came back to me I saw the final inches of a thick cable receding back into the scaffold while my arms were lifted back to their original position.
So clamps on the restraints that release before they break, and cables to pull the prisoner back into place once they were shocked into a helpless state? Someone had a lot of experience keeping people with special abilities restrained.
Before I could come up with another way to escape I felt a needle jab my wrist and something cold enter my body. A few seconds later my eyes felt heavy and it went dark again.
"I believe you've slept long enough."
Something hard jammed into my ribs and I jolted back into awareness.
Groaning, I tried to loosen up my muscles which were screaming in protest from both the shocks and from me hanging by my wrists for who knows how long.
"Hurry up. You are wasting my valuable time."
Another blow to the ribs made me open my eyes.
Standing in front of me was an old man with short slicked back silver hair. He wore a white collared shirt with a red tie covered by a lab coat. Considering the bias towards classical japanese clothing it looked rather shocking. But something else about his appearance was causing chills to go down my spine, but nothing seemed to jump out as to why.
Even if I couldn't nail down what was bothering me, the man matched the pictures I was provided of Akihiro Kanou. Guess he was alive after all.
"You're awake. Good. Now report, tell me the details of your construction."
What the hell is this guy asking?
"I see. Command: Me o samashite watashi no nyūsatsu o okonaimasu. Now again, tell me the details of your construction."
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. What is he talking about? What construction?
Another jab to the ribs made me groan. "Answer him, if you would."
Looking in the direction of the new voice I saw a blond haired Soul Reaper with a pleasant, but fake, looking smile on his face.
"H-huh.. Guess we w-were wrong. I had money on Kimura being the traitor." I gasped out.
Yuuto Kiba made no change to his expression. "How unfortunate for you. Now please answer Doctor Kanou." He proceeded to jab the end of his sheathed Zanpakuto into my ribs again.
I hissed as my abused ribs took another hit.
"I have no idea w-what you are talking about..."
The old man sighed heavily, which brought my attention back to him. "It seems this one dates before the backup as well. What a shame. Reverse engineering takes so long."
"W-what backup?"
Ignoring me, the doctor sent a look to Kiba, who pulled out a small remote and pressed a button.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!"
"You will not question me unless I permit it. Remember that." The asshole in a lab coat said mildly, paying no attention that I was hanging limply in the restraints with gray dots swimming in my vision. "Still it would be remiss of me to leave a question unanswered."
"Some years ago, a brilliant scientist earned the jealousy of his peers. They could not match his genius nor his ambition so they sought to lower him to their level.
They pulled back resources, declared his work failures, and tried to suborn him to their own petty desires. And when that didn't work, they tried to kill him.
But you see, this scientist was greater than them. He knew they would try to kill him to ease their fragile egos, so he created a plan. A backup. In the case of his death he created a copy of himself. Identical to him in every way using the very best techniques available to him. Only even fate tried to turn against the brilliant man in the end.
When the lapdogs of the Central 46 came for him they destroyed his laboratory. A place of science years ahead of anything they had seen in an attempt to deny the man his destiny, and in their folly damaged the memory banks that contained the later years of his work. The last century of his hard won discoveries… lost to time.
Yet even then, they failed to stop his glorious work. Even with destruction of years worth of memories, the copy survived."
Kanou started getting more and more animated the longer he talked, he paced in front of me getting more heated when he spoke of the Soul Reapers. Then he spun back to me, jabbing a thumb into his chest.
"I survived.
It has taken me over a hundred and fifty years to return to even half the heights my first iteration pioneered. I have spent a considerable amount of effort reclaiming what was lost to me when the dogs interfered. Unfortunately it seems you also follow what I must now consider the rule for my creations during that lost century. Either the commands only recognize that physical body or the phrases themselves changed for some reason." He mused.
He paused lost in his thoughts before shaking his head and turning his attention back to me.
"A matter for another time. Let us return to you." he pulled out a clipboard and started flipping through the papers on it. "You are very likely my last creation before my first death." Not at all, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "Even as weak as you are, you are an almost stable merging of souls. It frustrates me that my first death came before I truly managed a perfect merge and now I must take care not to break you and accelerate the degradation-"
"W-what!? What degradation?" I demanded. Kanou calmly glanced back up at me before sliding his gaze over to Kiba. Instantly I was screaming again as electricity coursed through my body. When the pain finally stopped I could taste copper.
"I believe I told you not to question me. But yes, the degradigation. A flaw that exists in all my creations to date unfortunately. You are by far the closest to a complete merge I have managed, yet the ambient Reishi is still grinding away at the connections. Likely you will fall apart within fifty years and perish within a fraction of that, but that should be plenty of time for me to reverse engineer you. Unfortunately, that will still have to wait until the completion of my current project."
I said nothing as this new information shook me to my core. I was dying just by being in this universe. Kisuke had suspected something was wrong with me just by the limited data he could observe with his own equipment, but he could never narrow down a reason.
But Kanou specialized in this.
It was his sole focus from what I'd been told. There was little chance of him being wrong. Especially when I thought about my arrival to the Soul Society and when I used the hot spring in Yoruichi's training ground.
The Dangai was a forced corridor through the different realms of existence here. The inside was full of unrestrained Reishi that caused feelings of unease for anyone traveling it without one of the Soul Reapers Hell Butterflies stabilizing it and protecting the user.
The reason I felt so sick going through it wasn't because some outside energy affected me. It was because without that protection I was almost literally sand-blasting my own soul!
I started feeling nauseous and the rest of my focus went to trying to avoid being ill.
Kanou seemed to notice I was no longer paying attention to him as he started towards the door.
"It seems this is as far as we will get for today. Yuuto, be sure to clean up then meet me in Lab 5. And remember to activate the drainers. No point letting the damage get worse..."
Kiba bowed as the doctor left the room. "Of course, sir." then walked in front of me.
"You wouldn't happen to know where your friend ran off to would you? It would save us a lot of trouble." Even after all that, he still had that plastic smile on his face.
"B-bite me." I hissed hatefully.
He shrugged. "Worth a try." He brought up the remote again and pressed a button.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
"Ah, wrong button. My mistake." he said mildly. "Let's try this one."
Another button push, but this time a...a not cold feeling washed over me, but at the same time it felt like something had removed a weight from me. Leaving me feeling detached and floaty.
"Reiatsu drainers." Kiba explained. "They remove all Reiryoku from a person except the bare minimum needed to survive. Can't have you damaging the equipment with Kido now, can we?"
He made his way to a table and placed the remote next to a white sword. My eyes widening at the sight of it.
"Ah, you noticed. A shame you were captured so easily. I would have liked to see what a spirit tool like this would be like to fight against. Quality ones are so rare compared to all the Zanpakuto we see around here." He said picking up and waving Kanshou around like it was a toy sword. "But I guess you wouldn't have put up much of a fight anyway."
He tossed Kanshou back on the table, making me narrow my eyes at the disrespect shown to one of my swords.
"Well then, have a nice day."
With that he walked out of the room, leaving me electrocuted, drained, and alone.
-------------
A/N
So yeah….
Easily the darkest part I've written, but when I thought about what would happen if you were a unique person captured by an amoral scientist, 'good things' was surprisingly not on the list.
Still not as messed up as what Kurotsuchi does though, so… yay?
I awoke to the soft whir of machinery and a dark room.
For a minute I had no idea where I was or what happened before the memories rushed back.
I was ambushed!
Adrenalin surged through me, banishing the last bit of drowsiness as I tried to leap to my feet but I ran into two issues. One, I was already standing. Two, I was held in place by some seriously heavy duty restraints that covered everything up to my wrists and ankles so the only thing my reaction did was make me flail against them helplessly.
My awakening must have triggered something since a bright light suddenly flooded the room, forcing me to tightly close my eyes.
Blinking away the spots caused by the bright flash I got my first proper look at the room.
I don't know what I was expecting to see, but a sci-fi lab out of the 80's was not in my top ten guesses. Large banks of monitors hung on one side of the room while giant machines dominated the other. Aside from the center of the floor and a path to the middle of the monitors, practically the whole floor was covered with thick bundles of wires.
The disturbing part was that most of those cables were plugged into the scaffold that was holding me up. The cylindrical metal restraints on my ankles connected to machines I had no idea what their purpose was but I doubted I would enjoy it.
...
Right. Time to leave.
I didn't want to set off an alarm by just destroying the restraints. They certainly looked like they did something other than just hold me in place, so an alarm set to go off if they get broken doesn't seem unreasonable.
I focused on the shackle covering my right hand and used Structural Analysis to get an idea of what I was dealing with. And oh man, I did not like what I found. Needles, electrodes, heating elements, and a variety of sensors. All signs pointed to either torture equipment, experimental procedures, or both. Now then, while I don't use the Alteration branch of my magecraft often outside my workshop, this would be the easiest way to get out since it works exactly how it sounds. It's a bunch of spells that physically alter the state of its target. Simply project my mana outward, encase the locking mechanism, use a spell to shift the mechanism to unlocked and-
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
-and get electrocuted for my trouble. I hung limply from my wrists as I tried to stay conscious. Obviously, whoever captured me was very paranoid about escapes if they had a way to monitor the locks being moved without the right command.
O-okay… finesse didn't work. Brute force would have to do.
Reinforcing my body to the limit I prepared to yank my hands out of the metal coverings. Just had to not think about how much that first time hurt. Or how much trouble I'm in if I can't pull out of them…
…
Fuck, why am I breathing so hard?! It was just a bit of electricity!
I've been cut several times and even stabbed through the chest, so this shouldn't be getting to me this badly!
Forcibly calming my now heavy breathing I tensed against the restraints and prepared to break them…
…
…
Okay, just….do it then.
3, 2, 1--
*Thunk* "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!
Rather than restrain me until they snapped, the shackles held in place for a little bit before clamps hidden further up the scaffold released and the electricity kicked in. This time, it was not a single blast of electricity but two. The second one being powerful enough that I absolutely blacked out for a second.
When my senses came back to me I saw the final inches of a thick cable receding back into the scaffold while my arms were lifted back to their original position.
So clamps on the restraints that release before they break, and cables to pull the prisoner back into place once they were shocked into a helpless state? Someone had a lot of experience keeping people with special abilities restrained.
Before I could come up with another way to escape I felt a needle jab my wrist and something cold enter my body. A few seconds later my eyes felt heavy and it went dark again.
-o-
"I believe you've slept long enough."
Something hard jammed into my ribs and I jolted back into awareness.
Groaning, I tried to loosen up my muscles which were screaming in protest from both the shocks and from me hanging by my wrists for who knows how long.
"Hurry up. You are wasting my valuable time."
Another blow to the ribs made me open my eyes.
Standing in front of me was an old man with short slicked back silver hair. He wore a white collared shirt with a red tie covered by a lab coat. Considering the bias towards classical japanese clothing it looked rather shocking. But something else about his appearance was causing chills to go down my spine, but nothing seemed to jump out as to why.
Even if I couldn't nail down what was bothering me, the man matched the pictures I was provided of Akihiro Kanou. Guess he was alive after all.
"You're awake. Good. Now report, tell me the details of your construction."
What the hell is this guy asking?
"I see. Command: Me o samashite watashi no nyūsatsu o okonaimasu. Now again, tell me the details of your construction."
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. What is he talking about? What construction?
Another jab to the ribs made me groan. "Answer him, if you would."
Looking in the direction of the new voice I saw a blond haired Soul Reaper with a pleasant, but fake, looking smile on his face.
"H-huh.. Guess we w-were wrong. I had money on Kimura being the traitor." I gasped out.
Yuuto Kiba made no change to his expression. "How unfortunate for you. Now please answer Doctor Kanou." He proceeded to jab the end of his sheathed Zanpakuto into my ribs again.
I hissed as my abused ribs took another hit.
"I have no idea w-what you are talking about..."
The old man sighed heavily, which brought my attention back to him. "It seems this one dates before the backup as well. What a shame. Reverse engineering takes so long."
"W-what backup?"
Ignoring me, the doctor sent a look to Kiba, who pulled out a small remote and pressed a button.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!"
"You will not question me unless I permit it. Remember that." The asshole in a lab coat said mildly, paying no attention that I was hanging limply in the restraints with gray dots swimming in my vision. "Still it would be remiss of me to leave a question unanswered."
"Some years ago, a brilliant scientist earned the jealousy of his peers. They could not match his genius nor his ambition so they sought to lower him to their level.
They pulled back resources, declared his work failures, and tried to suborn him to their own petty desires. And when that didn't work, they tried to kill him.
But you see, this scientist was greater than them. He knew they would try to kill him to ease their fragile egos, so he created a plan. A backup. In the case of his death he created a copy of himself. Identical to him in every way using the very best techniques available to him. Only even fate tried to turn against the brilliant man in the end.
When the lapdogs of the Central 46 came for him they destroyed his laboratory. A place of science years ahead of anything they had seen in an attempt to deny the man his destiny, and in their folly damaged the memory banks that contained the later years of his work. The last century of his hard won discoveries… lost to time.
Yet even then, they failed to stop his glorious work. Even with destruction of years worth of memories, the copy survived."
Kanou started getting more and more animated the longer he talked, he paced in front of me getting more heated when he spoke of the Soul Reapers. Then he spun back to me, jabbing a thumb into his chest.
"I survived.
It has taken me over a hundred and fifty years to return to even half the heights my first iteration pioneered. I have spent a considerable amount of effort reclaiming what was lost to me when the dogs interfered. Unfortunately it seems you also follow what I must now consider the rule for my creations during that lost century. Either the commands only recognize that physical body or the phrases themselves changed for some reason." He mused.
He paused lost in his thoughts before shaking his head and turning his attention back to me.
"A matter for another time. Let us return to you." he pulled out a clipboard and started flipping through the papers on it. "You are very likely my last creation before my first death." Not at all, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "Even as weak as you are, you are an almost stable merging of souls. It frustrates me that my first death came before I truly managed a perfect merge and now I must take care not to break you and accelerate the degradation-"
"W-what!? What degradation?" I demanded. Kanou calmly glanced back up at me before sliding his gaze over to Kiba. Instantly I was screaming again as electricity coursed through my body. When the pain finally stopped I could taste copper.
"I believe I told you not to question me. But yes, the degradigation. A flaw that exists in all my creations to date unfortunately. You are by far the closest to a complete merge I have managed, yet the ambient Reishi is still grinding away at the connections. Likely you will fall apart within fifty years and perish within a fraction of that, but that should be plenty of time for me to reverse engineer you. Unfortunately, that will still have to wait until the completion of my current project."
I said nothing as this new information shook me to my core. I was dying just by being in this universe. Kisuke had suspected something was wrong with me just by the limited data he could observe with his own equipment, but he could never narrow down a reason.
But Kanou specialized in this.
It was his sole focus from what I'd been told. There was little chance of him being wrong. Especially when I thought about my arrival to the Soul Society and when I used the hot spring in Yoruichi's training ground.
The Dangai was a forced corridor through the different realms of existence here. The inside was full of unrestrained Reishi that caused feelings of unease for anyone traveling it without one of the Soul Reapers Hell Butterflies stabilizing it and protecting the user.
The reason I felt so sick going through it wasn't because some outside energy affected me. It was because without that protection I was almost literally sand-blasting my own soul!
I started feeling nauseous and the rest of my focus went to trying to avoid being ill.
Kanou seemed to notice I was no longer paying attention to him as he started towards the door.
"It seems this is as far as we will get for today. Yuuto, be sure to clean up then meet me in Lab 5. And remember to activate the drainers. No point letting the damage get worse..."
Kiba bowed as the doctor left the room. "Of course, sir." then walked in front of me.
"You wouldn't happen to know where your friend ran off to would you? It would save us a lot of trouble." Even after all that, he still had that plastic smile on his face.
"B-bite me." I hissed hatefully.
He shrugged. "Worth a try." He brought up the remote again and pressed a button.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
"Ah, wrong button. My mistake." he said mildly. "Let's try this one."
Another button push, but this time a...a not cold feeling washed over me, but at the same time it felt like something had removed a weight from me. Leaving me feeling detached and floaty.
"Reiatsu drainers." Kiba explained. "They remove all Reiryoku from a person except the bare minimum needed to survive. Can't have you damaging the equipment with Kido now, can we?"
He made his way to a table and placed the remote next to a white sword. My eyes widening at the sight of it.
"Ah, you noticed. A shame you were captured so easily. I would have liked to see what a spirit tool like this would be like to fight against. Quality ones are so rare compared to all the Zanpakuto we see around here." He said picking up and waving Kanshou around like it was a toy sword. "But I guess you wouldn't have put up much of a fight anyway."
He tossed Kanshou back on the table, making me narrow my eyes at the disrespect shown to one of my swords.
"Well then, have a nice day."
With that he walked out of the room, leaving me electrocuted, drained, and alone.
-------------
A/N
So yeah….
Easily the darkest part I've written, but when I thought about what would happen if you were a unique person captured by an amoral scientist, 'good things' was surprisingly not on the list.
Still not as messed up as what Kurotsuchi does though, so… yay?
- Location
- Belfast
... Does she actually run entirely on reiatsu, or is there another source she can draw on? I mean, that is the sort of oversight that your typical mad scientist tends to make when they become so enamoured with their intelligence that they totally ignore things that don't fit their world view.
I'm also noting that they left her conscious... this is probably one of the biggest mistakes they could make, simply because it leaves her time to think and while she's currently horribly out of it after what they did it still gives her time and options. Still, no point in lamenting over your enemies making mistakes is there?
Edit - Third note... they left her a sword... one of her aspects is an Emiya... he can effectively move swords with his mind when he feels like it... yeah, I think that we're going to be seeing an entertaining jailbreak next time, hopefully with some catharsis and maybe with some confirmation as to what she actually is for the locals, since she's fairly clearly not exactly what they are thinking.
I'm also noting that they left her conscious... this is probably one of the biggest mistakes they could make, simply because it leaves her time to think and while she's currently horribly out of it after what they did it still gives her time and options. Still, no point in lamenting over your enemies making mistakes is there?
Edit - Third note... they left her a sword... one of her aspects is an Emiya... he can effectively move swords with his mind when he feels like it... yeah, I think that we're going to be seeing an entertaining jailbreak next time, hopefully with some catharsis and maybe with some confirmation as to what she actually is for the locals, since she's fairly clearly not exactly what they are thinking.
Last edited:
- Location
- USA
Fun fact: Alex uses zero Reiatsu for her abilities. But don't tell Kanou, he will electrocute you.... Does she actually run entirely on reiatsu, or is there another source she can draw on? I mean, that is the sort of oversight that your typical mad scientist tends to make when they become so enamoured with their intelligence that they totally ignore things that don't fit their world view.
I'm also noting that they left her conscious... this is probably one of the biggest mistakes they could make, simply because it leaves her time to think and while she's currently horribly out of it after what they did it still gives her time and options. Still, no point in lamenting over your enemies making mistakes is there?
Edit - Third note... they left her a sword... one of her aspects is an Emiya... he can effectively move swords with his mind when he feels like it... yeah, I think that we're going to be seeing an entertaining jailbreak next time, hopefully with some catharsis and maybe with some confirmation as to what she actually is for the locals, since she's fairly clearly not exactly what they are thinking.
As for her sword, there is actually a fun property about Kanshou and Bakuya that I haven't seen used anywhere else that will play a roll here. And it isn't telepathy.
- Location
- Center Of The Universe
Is it the magnetic pull? The good doctor threw the sword out of her reach but didn't secure it. With a bit of luck and skill, she could potentially break the restraints.
- Location
- USA
Close. I will say you are half right.
slenderman1942
Jungle Tyrant
- Location
- Home
I'm going to guess its that when wielding both swords, the wielder's Magic Resistance and physical resistance improve
Spirit 3.9
- Location
- USA
Spirit 3.9
"Find her! Don't let the other one get away!"
A group of five shinigami ran down the street before coming to an intersection.
"You two, check that way. The others, with me. Remember the vice-garrison leader wants her alive." the leader of the group ordered. Two of the Shinigami split off to the right, while the remaining three went left. Unseen by all of them another Shinigami peered over the side of a roof.
Seeing the coast was clear, Natsumi dropped off the roof and looked to where the Shinigami had run off.
Apparently the local forces either were being used by the person behind the lab or the group that just passed, along with the vice-leader and who knows how many others, were acting on their own to attack Natsumi and Alexandria.
Unlikely.
Something had happened to alert their enemy, but she wasn't sure what it could be. Did they get too close to the lab? Did their cover get blown? Were they going to try eliminating her and Alexandria no matter what? Too many questions and not enough answers.
Speaking of Alexandria, Natsumi would have to find a way to rendezvous with the strange human. She had missed walking into a trap by sheer luck when she had gone to swap disguises. Another escort who looked fairly similar to her disguise had been on the way to the same changing room and Natsumi simply let her go first. When she heard the sound of gas releasing inside, Natsumi had hidden nearby and eventually saw the now unconscious girl being dragged into a side corridor.
Natsumi had contemplated following, but had pulled back to regroup with her partner. While this was a great lead to their goal, if whoever was behind the trap had made a move on Natsumi, they had certainly moved against Alexandria as well.
Instead, Natsumi had retreated back to the room they were given by the local Shinigami. She had planned to wait for Alexandria there, but a pair of guards had burst into the room, swords drawn, and attacked her.
They clearly didn't know how powerful Natsumi truly was if they thought two town guards were enough to capture her. She quickly knocked the both of them out with a few strikes with the back of her own blade and fled the area. Now she was dodging through town trying to find a safe place to plan her next move and avoid fighting the local guards until she had a better understanding of what was going on.
Sounds up ahead made Natsumi slow down and press up against a wall. She sidled down the wall and peaked around the corner. Down the road a group of five Shinigami were locked in a heated argument. And surprisingly four of them were surrounding the remaining one, and it seemed like they were getting more aggressive.
"-telling you, I don't know where they are!" Natsumi recognized the Shinigami being surrounded as the leader of the local garrison. "I don't care what Yuuto thinks, but I'm not going to cut into my day off to answer a million questions about where two chicks ran off too. I'm not friends with them, I don't know where they would have run off to. Interview over."
He tried to push past the Shinigami in front of him, only for all four of the others to place a hand on their swords.
"Garrison Leader, you will come with us. Even if we need to use force."
The cornered Garrison Leader -Kimura! That was his name!- scoffed at the show of force from his four mutinous subordinates. "Please, you guys think you can take me out? It would take way more than just you four!" He made a grab at his side for his own Zanpakuto. Only to realise there was nothing there. He had left his sword at his quarters since he was spending his time playing around in the pleasure district.
"Uh, so I don't suppose you guys would wait for a minute?" Sweat started beading on Kimura's forehead as he backed away from the other Shinigami, all of whom now had drawn their swords and started advancing on him. "C'mon guys! This isn't fair!"
Back in an alleyway, Natsumi let out a heavy sigh. Looks like she would need to save the idiot if she wanted to know what happened to Alexandria when they split up. With a flex of her reiryoku Natsumi disappeared in s Shunpo, appearing behind the four Shinigami and knocking them out with a quick blow to the back of the neck.
Her sudden appearance shocked Kimura, making him shriek and cringe in surprise. "Ah! Who are you?!"
Natsumi simply grabbed him by the front of his uniform and started dragging him behind her into the alley so they weren't standing in the middle of a road. "You are going to tell me exactly what is going on since I left you with Alexandria. Then you are going to help me deal with this mess."
"Look lady, I don't even know who you are! And like I just finished telling the other guys, I don't know what's going on!"
Natsumi threw him to the ground. "'What's going on' is that your subordinates attacked me and Alexandria is missing. Now they are running all over the town hunting for me and seem to be trying to remove you as well. So like I said, you are going to help me get to the bottom of this mess."
Kimura jumped to his feet and quickly walked up to Natsumi, shoving a finger under her nose. "You're that guide that took us to the Moonlit Garden! If you think I'm going to listen to anything you say, you're insane! I'm the leader of this garrison, if anyone is going to be ordered around here, it's you!"
"Is that right?" Natsumi said quietly. She quickly removed the last traces of her disguise and Kimura's eyes widened with recognition. "Maybe I should properly introduce myself then." She continued. "I am Squad Two, Third Seat Natsumi Hanakage. As a Seated Officer of the Goteijūsantai I am taking command of all loyal members of this garrison. Are there any objections?"
Kimura could only stare at her in horror, his face entirely white.
"...you're...an officer?"
"That is correct."
"...of Squad Two?"
"Yes."
"...oh."
-o-
Some time later the two Shinigami were standing in the shadows observing the garrison headquarters.
"It seems the rest of the garrison is following Yuuto Kiba's orders." Natsumi stated as they watched a group of guards halt, then inspect every person walking past. "Where is your room? I will retrieve your Zanpakuto and we can search for Alexandria."
Kimura grimaces, "It's in the center room on the second floor. It was the best way to soundproof the room…"
Natsumi rolled her eyes. From what she had learned from the garrison leader's personality, it was probably so he could recover from hangovers in peace. It also meant that she would have to infiltrate the heart of the building just to get a single sword and get out unnoticed. Well, it was nothing she hadn't done before.
"Okay, let's pull back a bit so I can get a better picture of the layout. Then I will retrieve your sword."
"Don't worry, I got this."
The action was so sudden and foolish that Natsumi, to her shame, failed to react. With a simple pat on the shoulder, Kimura walked out from their concealed location and boldly walked straight at the guard building. By the time she came to her senses the imbecile was already halfway across the street, looking like he didn't have a care in the world.
Whatever he expected to happen, the guards sounding the alarm and rushing at him swords drawn clearly wasn't it.
Kimura squacked as one of them swung at his head, causing him to trip over his feet when he backpedaled away and fell to the ground. Another was set to attack him on the ground, but suddenly the guards eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed. An instant later the others jerked slightly and fell over as well.
Natsumi blurred into existence as her Shunpo ended and she stared at the fallen Shinigami.
"And what the hell was that supposed to accomplish?"
Kimura sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "I thought that if I acted like everything was normal I could just walk in? I am the leader after all." He looked at the unconscious guards all around him, clearly concerned. "But they just attacked me right away. I don't think they even recognised they were really attacking me."
"Clearly they did. It didn't look like they hesitated much."
Kimura shook his head. "No no, I mean I don't think they were aware. Their eyes just looked so dull. It's like they all got drugged up, but they didn't move like it."
Natsumi looked at the bodies pensively. Were the guards controlled somehow? It was a frightening thought, but now was not the time to consider it.
"This is turning into such a mess." she sighed.
-o-
Retrieving Kimura's Zanpakuto was hardly worth mentioning after the idiot blew their cover. Natsumi simply knocked out every Shinigami that she came across until she reached Kimura's room, grabbed the sword off its stand, and strode out the way she came. From there, she grabbed Kimura and Shunpo'd away before more guards showed up.
Now the two of them were waiting in the safehouse Natsumi and Alexandria had decided on as a fallback location if they were ever separated while investigating the Moonlit Garden for some reason.
The two Shinigami sat in the dimly lit main room. Natsumi reading a report and Kimura appearing to be asleep.
"I can't take it anymore!"
Kimura kicked out of his chair and slapped the papers out of Natsumi's hand.
"It's been hours since we've been here, and we've done nothing! We have no idea what's going on with my men and I refuse to sit around with a thumb up my ass any longer!"
Natsumi looked bemusedly at the fallen papers before shifting her gaze to the irate Shinigami.
He certainly got over his fear of her being an officer quickly.
"So you plan to go against my orders then?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Uh…"
"You think I've been sitting here doing nothing?"
"...um...haven't you?" Kimura asked in a shaking voice, sweat beading on his forehead as he realised exactly what he had just done. "I-I mean as an o-officer you of course know what you're doing! It's j-just..."
Natsumi smiled slightly and went to pick up the fallen papers. When she looked back Kimura was now completely white and shaking like a leaf.
"Well you would be mostly correct."
"......hah?"
"If we ran off without waiting for my partner and she was here awaiting our arrival we would be limiting our strength for no reason. Now that she has failed to rendezvous with us we know she is either unable to join us or was captured somehow."
"Oh, I see. So what do we do now though?"
Walking over to a plain wooden box, Natsumi opened the lid to reveal a black sword with a red hexagonal pattern on it. She gently removed the sword from its container and placed it on the table.
"What's that? Some kind of spirit weapon?" Kimura asked.
"Something like that." she answered. "This is a special sword that belongs to Alexandria, and it is going to lead us right to her."
"Woah, how's it going to do that? Is it going to teleport us to her or something?"
Natsumi gave him a look. What kind of sword teleports? "No, from what she told me, this sword is part of a pair that has the ability to always return to its owner. She should have the other with her so all we need to do is let this one guide us to her."
Kimura looked at the blade appreciatively, "Wow that sounds really useful, no more accidentally leaving my Zanpakuto at a brothel. Wish my sword could do that." he mused, running a hand over it's handle.
Ignoring that distasteful comment, Natsumi picked up Alexandria's sword and shut her eyes. If anyone in her squad had made such a remark, she would have pitied the poor sword and the Zanpakuto spirit inside. But considering Kimura had achieved Shikai despite his treatment of the blade, it seemed his sword shared at least some of his lecherous attitude.
Brushing those thoughts aside she concentrated on her hand. Very soon, she felt a ghostly tugging sensation in her mind urging her in one direction. She and Alexandria had practiced this method before, so Natsumi recognised the feeling of the twin swords being drawn together.
"Okay, let's go."
-o-
"In there huh?"
In front of them was a nondescript building no different than the ones surrounding it. In fact the only reason Natsumi singled it out was the poorly concealed Shinigami watching from the windows. She also knew that this particular building had an entrance into some old smuggling tunnels that were used by criminals from some of the criminal hideouts she raided earlier. There was no reason for a guard here otherwise.
"In where? That empty building?" Kimura asked.
Apparently the guards were better hidden than she thought.
"Look at the window there. See the silhouette? That's a guard. There is another on the floor above him. Two more cycle through the building at semi-random intervals." Natsumi said, pointing each of them out in turn.
"Wow, I didn't even see them. As expected of an officer!" Kimura exclaimed.
Natsumi gave him a sideways glance, curious about the comment. 'When we meet up with Alexandria, I'll need to ask why he keeps praising my ability as an officer. I wonder if he said something to her. she mused.
Shaking her head, she moved on. "Okay, I'll clear out the house. You go around the back and watch to make sure no one runs out when I do. When I'm done I will let you in to deal with the bodies, tie them up and meet me in the basement. Clear?"
"Clear!" Kimura said with a nod.
"Then get moving. I will give you thirty seconds to get into position."
At the end of the countdown Natsumi vanished with a Shunpo and reappeared in the second floor window of the guarded building. With another burst of movement she entered and found herself directly in front of the previously hidden guard. A quick rabbit punch to the throat prevented him from calling out and alerting the others. Despite the sudden inability to breath the guard's eyes showed no signs of panic or any other type of emotion, and he still attempted to attack Natsumi but was quickly knocked out with another light blow to the temple.
Natsumi caught the body before it could hit the floor and listened carefully for signs that the brief struggle was noticed by anyone else in the building. Hearing nothing, she gently placed the unconscious guard on the floor and prepared to move to the next room.
The other three guards proved little challenge to the 3rd Seat Shinigami, and Natsumi and Kimura found themselves wandering the subterranean tunnels that ran under the town. Alexandria's sword was invaluable for navigating the labyrinth since they had no map of the twisting paths. Whenever they started moving in the wrong direction, Natsumi felt a subtle tug in the back of her mind pointing her in the right direction.
She would really need to ask Alexandria where she came across such weapons. This was tracking on the same scale as high level Bakudo spells and was infinitely easier. If the science division could recreate the ability the sword had to return it's owner, or even just the attraction between the two blades, in a different object it could mean another way of locating Shinigami who disappeared on assignments that didn't rely on high level Kido experts.
"A deadend?"
The two Shinigami came to a halt in front of an unassuming stone wall. They had passed several deadends on the way, but this was the first time that following the guidance of the black sword had led them to one.
"What now? Is our magic sword broken? We obviously can't go thatta way." Kimura said, leaning on one of the side walls and thrusting a thumb at the end of the tunnel.
"No, I'm still feeling a pull in that direction." Natsumi replied. "We might be looking at a hidden passage. It would explain why we did not find any trace of the kidnapped souls in town."
"Right, the secret lab that's supposed to be hidden here." Kimura huffed disdainfully, before straightening up at Natsumi's glare. "I-I mean of course! This could be the lead we were looking for!"
Natsumi continued to let him sweat for a bit before rolling her eyes and inspecting the wall for any hidden mechanisms. After a few minutes, she sighed, shook her head, and retreated a few paced back down the tunnel.
"No luck finding a way in?"
"There is one more thing I can try. Though I am not very thrilled to do so."
Kimura furrowed his eyebrows, "Why not?"
"It reminds me of something Squad Eleven would do in this situation." Natsumi replied before extending a palm out at the rock, supporting her arm with her other hand. "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hado number 31: Shakkaho!"
An orb of crimson fire formed on her palm before slamming into the wall, causing an explosion that shook the tunnel and caused a cloud of dust to come rushing back at her.
"...please don't do that again." Kimura squeaked from where he had fallen on the floor. He slowly lowered his arms from covering his head and looked back where Natsumi had blown up the wall. "...so Squad Eleven throws Kido around like that?"
"No, they actually look down on using Kido at all. I just find the brute force method similar to their normal actions. Though in this case I can't fault its usefulness." Natsumi stated as she continued past the destroyed wall into the now polished floor of the hallway.
It appears they had found their lab.
"Find her! Don't let the other one get away!"
A group of five shinigami ran down the street before coming to an intersection.
"You two, check that way. The others, with me. Remember the vice-garrison leader wants her alive." the leader of the group ordered. Two of the Shinigami split off to the right, while the remaining three went left. Unseen by all of them another Shinigami peered over the side of a roof.
Seeing the coast was clear, Natsumi dropped off the roof and looked to where the Shinigami had run off.
Apparently the local forces either were being used by the person behind the lab or the group that just passed, along with the vice-leader and who knows how many others, were acting on their own to attack Natsumi and Alexandria.
Unlikely.
Something had happened to alert their enemy, but she wasn't sure what it could be. Did they get too close to the lab? Did their cover get blown? Were they going to try eliminating her and Alexandria no matter what? Too many questions and not enough answers.
Speaking of Alexandria, Natsumi would have to find a way to rendezvous with the strange human. She had missed walking into a trap by sheer luck when she had gone to swap disguises. Another escort who looked fairly similar to her disguise had been on the way to the same changing room and Natsumi simply let her go first. When she heard the sound of gas releasing inside, Natsumi had hidden nearby and eventually saw the now unconscious girl being dragged into a side corridor.
Natsumi had contemplated following, but had pulled back to regroup with her partner. While this was a great lead to their goal, if whoever was behind the trap had made a move on Natsumi, they had certainly moved against Alexandria as well.
Instead, Natsumi had retreated back to the room they were given by the local Shinigami. She had planned to wait for Alexandria there, but a pair of guards had burst into the room, swords drawn, and attacked her.
They clearly didn't know how powerful Natsumi truly was if they thought two town guards were enough to capture her. She quickly knocked the both of them out with a few strikes with the back of her own blade and fled the area. Now she was dodging through town trying to find a safe place to plan her next move and avoid fighting the local guards until she had a better understanding of what was going on.
Sounds up ahead made Natsumi slow down and press up against a wall. She sidled down the wall and peaked around the corner. Down the road a group of five Shinigami were locked in a heated argument. And surprisingly four of them were surrounding the remaining one, and it seemed like they were getting more aggressive.
"-telling you, I don't know where they are!" Natsumi recognized the Shinigami being surrounded as the leader of the local garrison. "I don't care what Yuuto thinks, but I'm not going to cut into my day off to answer a million questions about where two chicks ran off too. I'm not friends with them, I don't know where they would have run off to. Interview over."
He tried to push past the Shinigami in front of him, only for all four of the others to place a hand on their swords.
"Garrison Leader, you will come with us. Even if we need to use force."
The cornered Garrison Leader -Kimura! That was his name!- scoffed at the show of force from his four mutinous subordinates. "Please, you guys think you can take me out? It would take way more than just you four!" He made a grab at his side for his own Zanpakuto. Only to realise there was nothing there. He had left his sword at his quarters since he was spending his time playing around in the pleasure district.
"Uh, so I don't suppose you guys would wait for a minute?" Sweat started beading on Kimura's forehead as he backed away from the other Shinigami, all of whom now had drawn their swords and started advancing on him. "C'mon guys! This isn't fair!"
Back in an alleyway, Natsumi let out a heavy sigh. Looks like she would need to save the idiot if she wanted to know what happened to Alexandria when they split up. With a flex of her reiryoku Natsumi disappeared in s Shunpo, appearing behind the four Shinigami and knocking them out with a quick blow to the back of the neck.
Her sudden appearance shocked Kimura, making him shriek and cringe in surprise. "Ah! Who are you?!"
Natsumi simply grabbed him by the front of his uniform and started dragging him behind her into the alley so they weren't standing in the middle of a road. "You are going to tell me exactly what is going on since I left you with Alexandria. Then you are going to help me deal with this mess."
"Look lady, I don't even know who you are! And like I just finished telling the other guys, I don't know what's going on!"
Natsumi threw him to the ground. "'What's going on' is that your subordinates attacked me and Alexandria is missing. Now they are running all over the town hunting for me and seem to be trying to remove you as well. So like I said, you are going to help me get to the bottom of this mess."
Kimura jumped to his feet and quickly walked up to Natsumi, shoving a finger under her nose. "You're that guide that took us to the Moonlit Garden! If you think I'm going to listen to anything you say, you're insane! I'm the leader of this garrison, if anyone is going to be ordered around here, it's you!"
"Is that right?" Natsumi said quietly. She quickly removed the last traces of her disguise and Kimura's eyes widened with recognition. "Maybe I should properly introduce myself then." She continued. "I am Squad Two, Third Seat Natsumi Hanakage. As a Seated Officer of the Goteijūsantai I am taking command of all loyal members of this garrison. Are there any objections?"
Kimura could only stare at her in horror, his face entirely white.
"...you're...an officer?"
"That is correct."
"...of Squad Two?"
"Yes."
"...oh."
-o-
Some time later the two Shinigami were standing in the shadows observing the garrison headquarters.
"It seems the rest of the garrison is following Yuuto Kiba's orders." Natsumi stated as they watched a group of guards halt, then inspect every person walking past. "Where is your room? I will retrieve your Zanpakuto and we can search for Alexandria."
Kimura grimaces, "It's in the center room on the second floor. It was the best way to soundproof the room…"
Natsumi rolled her eyes. From what she had learned from the garrison leader's personality, it was probably so he could recover from hangovers in peace. It also meant that she would have to infiltrate the heart of the building just to get a single sword and get out unnoticed. Well, it was nothing she hadn't done before.
"Okay, let's pull back a bit so I can get a better picture of the layout. Then I will retrieve your sword."
"Don't worry, I got this."
The action was so sudden and foolish that Natsumi, to her shame, failed to react. With a simple pat on the shoulder, Kimura walked out from their concealed location and boldly walked straight at the guard building. By the time she came to her senses the imbecile was already halfway across the street, looking like he didn't have a care in the world.
Whatever he expected to happen, the guards sounding the alarm and rushing at him swords drawn clearly wasn't it.
Kimura squacked as one of them swung at his head, causing him to trip over his feet when he backpedaled away and fell to the ground. Another was set to attack him on the ground, but suddenly the guards eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed. An instant later the others jerked slightly and fell over as well.
Natsumi blurred into existence as her Shunpo ended and she stared at the fallen Shinigami.
"And what the hell was that supposed to accomplish?"
Kimura sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "I thought that if I acted like everything was normal I could just walk in? I am the leader after all." He looked at the unconscious guards all around him, clearly concerned. "But they just attacked me right away. I don't think they even recognised they were really attacking me."
"Clearly they did. It didn't look like they hesitated much."
Kimura shook his head. "No no, I mean I don't think they were aware. Their eyes just looked so dull. It's like they all got drugged up, but they didn't move like it."
Natsumi looked at the bodies pensively. Were the guards controlled somehow? It was a frightening thought, but now was not the time to consider it.
"This is turning into such a mess." she sighed.
-o-
Retrieving Kimura's Zanpakuto was hardly worth mentioning after the idiot blew their cover. Natsumi simply knocked out every Shinigami that she came across until she reached Kimura's room, grabbed the sword off its stand, and strode out the way she came. From there, she grabbed Kimura and Shunpo'd away before more guards showed up.
Now the two of them were waiting in the safehouse Natsumi and Alexandria had decided on as a fallback location if they were ever separated while investigating the Moonlit Garden for some reason.
The two Shinigami sat in the dimly lit main room. Natsumi reading a report and Kimura appearing to be asleep.
"I can't take it anymore!"
Kimura kicked out of his chair and slapped the papers out of Natsumi's hand.
"It's been hours since we've been here, and we've done nothing! We have no idea what's going on with my men and I refuse to sit around with a thumb up my ass any longer!"
Natsumi looked bemusedly at the fallen papers before shifting her gaze to the irate Shinigami.
He certainly got over his fear of her being an officer quickly.
"So you plan to go against my orders then?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Uh…"
"You think I've been sitting here doing nothing?"
"...um...haven't you?" Kimura asked in a shaking voice, sweat beading on his forehead as he realised exactly what he had just done. "I-I mean as an o-officer you of course know what you're doing! It's j-just..."
Natsumi smiled slightly and went to pick up the fallen papers. When she looked back Kimura was now completely white and shaking like a leaf.
"Well you would be mostly correct."
"......hah?"
"If we ran off without waiting for my partner and she was here awaiting our arrival we would be limiting our strength for no reason. Now that she has failed to rendezvous with us we know she is either unable to join us or was captured somehow."
"Oh, I see. So what do we do now though?"
Walking over to a plain wooden box, Natsumi opened the lid to reveal a black sword with a red hexagonal pattern on it. She gently removed the sword from its container and placed it on the table.
"What's that? Some kind of spirit weapon?" Kimura asked.
"Something like that." she answered. "This is a special sword that belongs to Alexandria, and it is going to lead us right to her."
"Woah, how's it going to do that? Is it going to teleport us to her or something?"
Natsumi gave him a look. What kind of sword teleports? "No, from what she told me, this sword is part of a pair that has the ability to always return to its owner. She should have the other with her so all we need to do is let this one guide us to her."
Kimura looked at the blade appreciatively, "Wow that sounds really useful, no more accidentally leaving my Zanpakuto at a brothel. Wish my sword could do that." he mused, running a hand over it's handle.
Ignoring that distasteful comment, Natsumi picked up Alexandria's sword and shut her eyes. If anyone in her squad had made such a remark, she would have pitied the poor sword and the Zanpakuto spirit inside. But considering Kimura had achieved Shikai despite his treatment of the blade, it seemed his sword shared at least some of his lecherous attitude.
Brushing those thoughts aside she concentrated on her hand. Very soon, she felt a ghostly tugging sensation in her mind urging her in one direction. She and Alexandria had practiced this method before, so Natsumi recognised the feeling of the twin swords being drawn together.
"Okay, let's go."
-o-
"In there huh?"
In front of them was a nondescript building no different than the ones surrounding it. In fact the only reason Natsumi singled it out was the poorly concealed Shinigami watching from the windows. She also knew that this particular building had an entrance into some old smuggling tunnels that were used by criminals from some of the criminal hideouts she raided earlier. There was no reason for a guard here otherwise.
"In where? That empty building?" Kimura asked.
Apparently the guards were better hidden than she thought.
"Look at the window there. See the silhouette? That's a guard. There is another on the floor above him. Two more cycle through the building at semi-random intervals." Natsumi said, pointing each of them out in turn.
"Wow, I didn't even see them. As expected of an officer!" Kimura exclaimed.
Natsumi gave him a sideways glance, curious about the comment. 'When we meet up with Alexandria, I'll need to ask why he keeps praising my ability as an officer. I wonder if he said something to her. she mused.
Shaking her head, she moved on. "Okay, I'll clear out the house. You go around the back and watch to make sure no one runs out when I do. When I'm done I will let you in to deal with the bodies, tie them up and meet me in the basement. Clear?"
"Clear!" Kimura said with a nod.
"Then get moving. I will give you thirty seconds to get into position."
At the end of the countdown Natsumi vanished with a Shunpo and reappeared in the second floor window of the guarded building. With another burst of movement she entered and found herself directly in front of the previously hidden guard. A quick rabbit punch to the throat prevented him from calling out and alerting the others. Despite the sudden inability to breath the guard's eyes showed no signs of panic or any other type of emotion, and he still attempted to attack Natsumi but was quickly knocked out with another light blow to the temple.
Natsumi caught the body before it could hit the floor and listened carefully for signs that the brief struggle was noticed by anyone else in the building. Hearing nothing, she gently placed the unconscious guard on the floor and prepared to move to the next room.
The other three guards proved little challenge to the 3rd Seat Shinigami, and Natsumi and Kimura found themselves wandering the subterranean tunnels that ran under the town. Alexandria's sword was invaluable for navigating the labyrinth since they had no map of the twisting paths. Whenever they started moving in the wrong direction, Natsumi felt a subtle tug in the back of her mind pointing her in the right direction.
She would really need to ask Alexandria where she came across such weapons. This was tracking on the same scale as high level Bakudo spells and was infinitely easier. If the science division could recreate the ability the sword had to return it's owner, or even just the attraction between the two blades, in a different object it could mean another way of locating Shinigami who disappeared on assignments that didn't rely on high level Kido experts.
"A deadend?"
The two Shinigami came to a halt in front of an unassuming stone wall. They had passed several deadends on the way, but this was the first time that following the guidance of the black sword had led them to one.
"What now? Is our magic sword broken? We obviously can't go thatta way." Kimura said, leaning on one of the side walls and thrusting a thumb at the end of the tunnel.
"No, I'm still feeling a pull in that direction." Natsumi replied. "We might be looking at a hidden passage. It would explain why we did not find any trace of the kidnapped souls in town."
"Right, the secret lab that's supposed to be hidden here." Kimura huffed disdainfully, before straightening up at Natsumi's glare. "I-I mean of course! This could be the lead we were looking for!"
Natsumi continued to let him sweat for a bit before rolling her eyes and inspecting the wall for any hidden mechanisms. After a few minutes, she sighed, shook her head, and retreated a few paced back down the tunnel.
"No luck finding a way in?"
"There is one more thing I can try. Though I am not very thrilled to do so."
Kimura furrowed his eyebrows, "Why not?"
"It reminds me of something Squad Eleven would do in this situation." Natsumi replied before extending a palm out at the rock, supporting her arm with her other hand. "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hado number 31: Shakkaho!"
An orb of crimson fire formed on her palm before slamming into the wall, causing an explosion that shook the tunnel and caused a cloud of dust to come rushing back at her.
"...please don't do that again." Kimura squeaked from where he had fallen on the floor. He slowly lowered his arms from covering his head and looked back where Natsumi had blown up the wall. "...so Squad Eleven throws Kido around like that?"
"No, they actually look down on using Kido at all. I just find the brute force method similar to their normal actions. Though in this case I can't fault its usefulness." Natsumi stated as she continued past the destroyed wall into the now polished floor of the hallway.
It appears they had found their lab.
Spirit 3.10
- Location
- USA
Spirit 3.10
In retrospect this wasn't the best idea on how to escape.
Personally, I blame the drugs, electrical tourture, and what I am beginning to think were physiological issues that seem to pop up when being trapped or cornered. But when I finally pulled myself together after coming face to face with the mad scientist responsible for this place, clever escape plans were not on my things to do list.
The first thi- okay the second thing I did, the first being me shouting a moderately impressive amount of curses at Akihiro Kanou and Yuuto Kiba, was to project four copies of one of my favorite scimitars. The reason for that was the incredibly helpful enchantment on the blade to cut through metal like clay.
Then I messed with the velocity parameter on the projections to send them shooting a few hundred miles an hour towards me to cut through the restraints on my hands and feet with little issue.
The reason this was a problem?
Just because I cut the restraints free didn't mean my hands and feet weren't wrapped in metal. And apparently the electroshocks had left my muscles with the structural integrity of jello, so the second I was free from the scaffold I collapsed rather painfully onto the floor.
"Hello floor, my old friend." I murmured quietly. Not because I was worried about making noise, the klaxon alarm going off made plenty of that, but more because there was this weird pressure all around me that showed up when I cut myself free.
It wasn't much. If anything it felt like going from walking in a dry room to walking through mist, but it was just... there now. And sudden changes like that after being trapped in an evil science lab tended to make people concerned.
But I couldn't focus on that now. I had to get out of these restraints, shoot/stab the bad guy in charge until he stopped being an issue, and then meet up with Natsumi. Not necessarily in that order.
First thing first though. I had to get out of the metal gloves on my hands and feet, which was simple to do with Alteration and the cuffs being disconnected from the machine that monitored them for changes. A quick application of mana, and the four cuffs popped open leaving me free and ready to get revenge.
I got to my feet, wobbled badly, and fell onto the table where Bakuya laid.
Okay, mostly ready for revenge.
So instead of rush out and probably get captured again, let's take another few seconds to recover and think of what I need to do here.
Priority one should be stopping Akihiro Kanou. Even if we shut down his operation here, it's only delaying things if he can set up shop somewhere else and do this all over again a few years later.
Priority two should be recovering any information Kanou had about my condition. He clearly had a better idea about what sort of state my soul was in, and I definitely didn't want any of that information getting back to Squad Twelve. I have no interest in being hunted by their insane Captain looking to experiment on me.
And finally, priority three will be to make sure that anything dangerous is contained or destroyed until Natsumi can get someone over here to secure the lab. The last time the Court Guard Squads went up against the good Doctor Kanou, he flooded the streets with mindless, monstrous experiments that killed everyone around them. I would need to make sure the same thing didn't happen here.
With my goals kinda-sorta laid out and now that I could stand up without my legs folding like a house of cards, I grabbed Bakuya and peeked out into the hallway. Surprisingly, there was no sign of anyone coming to deal with an escaped prisoner despite the alarms going off in the background.
I wasn't complaining.
Ducking back inside the room, I took another second to pull my hair into some semblance of order and tie it back with a black chord that manifested when I shifted my clothes to the default combat uniform. The flowy red pants and white shirt tightened into a close fitting black outfit, almost instantly afterwards my red mantle/skirt combo shimmered into existence.
I had to admit, even if it still felt like I was cosplaying EMIYA at times, the outfit had grown on me and I was starting to think of it as my own uniform.
Fashion break done, I stepped out into the hallway. Left seemed like a good direction to go. So I headed left at a brisk walk checking doors as I passed.
Most of them were similar setups to the room I was trapped in, except empty. The others were filled with filing cabinets filled with tools I had no name for or idea what they did, either that or paper copies of test data. Well, I assume test data. From the brief glance I got in one of the cabinets the papers had very scientific terms, graphs, and charts that made no sense to me but looked like something Urahara would understand.
After I realised poking through all the files there was both pointless and a waste of time I started moving down the hallway much quicker, now only poking a head in to see if anyone was in there.
They were all empty.
That was not as reassuring as it should be. The only reason to have multiple rooms like the one I was in was if you had multiple people needing to be restrained at the same time. Where did they go? And why build such a large facility if there was no one in it? The alarms hadn't stopped, so someone should have at least gone out into the hallway to check what was going on.
I had to stop my musing when I ended up in front of a staircase. Luckily I could only go up from here, so Kunou was unlikely to be on this level if no one had responded by now and I could continue without missing him somewhere in an unexplored area of this floor. So up the stairs I went.
What I found was horrifying.
Rows upon rows of mutilated creatures peered out from inside cages that lined the room. Most of them seemed like patchwork hunks of flesh that just stared blankly into the distance. The ones further away seemed more human, but I couldn't tell if that was on purpose or if it was just a temporary state. Angry red lines crossed their bodies where they had been stitched together, some weeping blood from how recent the attachment was.
"Hello my troublesome little experiment, it took you longer to reach this area than I thought it would." Kunou's voice crackled from a loudspeaker somewhere in the ceiling. "I am curious how you managed to escape when your Reiatsu was drained so much. You should have been barely able to move, let alone break those bindings."
"Guess I'm just that special." I muttered sarcastically.
I wasn't expecting an answer so I was a bit startled when he replied back. "I suppose you are. Clearly my past self managed a significant breakthrough if you are this much more advanced than my current efforts."
Great, so he could hear me even without anything obvious nearby. That was creepy.
"In an effort to avoid damaging such a valuable specimen, I will give you a chance to surrender. Resist and I will ensure that you feel every moment as I tear the secrets of its creation from your soul."
"So give up and be experimented on, resist and be vivisected? Lovely options, Doc." I mocked, heading further into the floor. "Counter offer, you surrender and I won't immediately kill you for what you've done to these poor people."
There was a rush of static that I guessed was Kunou scoffing, "What I've done to them? They are just the leftovers from my experiments. It doesn't matter what they think. In fact they should be grateful I keep them around despite being failures. The only use they have left is following my orders." The doors on the cages creaked open. "Why don't I show you. Subjects, capture the intruder at all costs!"
The 'failed experiments' shambled forward out of their cages. When they caught sight of me, that shambling changed to a disorganized rush as they scrambled over each other in an effort to get to me first.
One of them, a middle aged looking man with grotesque looking muscled limbs, jumped clear of the group and tired slamming his hands into me. He missed as I dodged backwards and the floor cracked under the force of his attack.
"So much for not damaging the valuable specimen." I snarked. Bakuya flashed out and severed the tendons at his knees and elbows. I didn't know if the damage Kunou did was reversible, so I would avoid killing would be a last resort.
"It matters little as long as you live." Kunou's voice responded. "All that changes is the time before I can resume my experiments. Of course that doesn't extend to the trash."
The disabled creature in front of me let out one of the most horrifying screams of pain I ever heard while its skin started bubbling and oozing off its body. Within seconds the poor creature was nothing more than a skeleton covered in a viscous purple slime.
I had seen a fair bit of violent deaths dealing with hollows since I started working with Urahara. People melting alive was not one of them. Only the rest of the experiments catching up to us stopped me from freezing up as the body vanished under the feet of the slavering horde trying to take a piece out of me. I gave ground as I ducked under flailing limbs and various other body parts.
A distant part of my mind noted that Kunou hadn't stopped at just humanoid experiments as I dodged a giant scorpion tail that had replaced the arm of a younger looking boy. The rest of me was far more concerned about how to deal with the mob in front of me if disabling them meant they were liquidized. The only way I could think of was to trace Kanshou into my off hand and press forward.
I danced through the crowd of experiments, the heavy shortswords in my hands smashing into the deformed heads of several of them. I was careful to control my strikes to ensure they would only be knocked unconscious and as uninjured as possible. If they weren't hurt then whatever mechanism Kunou installed to keep his creations out of Soul Reaper hands shouldn't activate, right?
The problem with using minimal force on a practically mindless mob? They do not care if they hit their friends as long as they can attack you. If I pulled this maneuver with a bunch of Soul Reapers, they would stop attacks when they saw it would hit the person next to them. The experiments would sometimes attack through one another if I was close enough.
So I was able to knock out the majority of the group, but I took several glancing hits in return. Nothing major, some scrapes and bruises definitely, but none of them melted so my strategy seemed to be working if nothing else.
"And that's the last of them." I panted as the final experiment fell over, unconscious. "What now Kunou? You're all out of experiments to hide behind, wanna give up?"
"Haha, out of subjects? This was just one batch. You may wish to observe your surroundings before making such bold statements."
What is he talking about? There is nothing else around- no wait. I could see more shapes moving in the shadows. Quite a few shapes actually.
Oh.
Those are all experiments aren't they?
It turns out the room I was in was actually connected to several others by dividers instead of walls. While I was dealing with the first group of Kunou's creations, those dividers were quietly being pulled back and the other groups had gathered in the dark. With surprise no longer necessary more lights flickered on revealing the full size of the horde.
It looked like someone had taken a zombie film, replaced the rotting corpses with monsters, and had every single one of them stare blankly at one single person. Me.
I felt a shiver run down my spine at the sight of hundreds of mutilated people waiting for the order to attack. Dealing with a few dozen was hard enough. This many? I would eventually be overrun or be forced to start cutting them down. There was only one thing to do.
I turned tail and fled towards the hallway as fast as I could.
It was time to admit I needed help. Concentrating, I started following the tiny pull Kansho and Bakuya felt from the single sword I had left for Natsumi to follow after me if we were split up. It didn't help that the ability to return was mostly centered on the owner, me, so the pull was tiny. Still, it was better than nothing.
The hallway was exactly the same as the floor below, but it was quickly changing into a scene out of the House of the Dead as more of Kunou's subjects filtered into the hall through other doors. Thankfully they were not that coordinated about it so several doorways were clogged as too many bodies tried pushing through them all at once. For the ones that made it through, they were either knocked out or dodged around as I ran by. Despite the ridiculous numbers, the individuals weren't that strong. Well, for someone at my level. Individually they were about the same as an unranked Soul Reaper. If they got out, then the surrounding districts were history.
Bakuya twitched in my hand and I turned right at an intersection.
So new plan. Find Natsumi, get a bunch of reinforcements to keep the monster minions contained, then find and stop Kunou.
More experiments are coming at me from down the hall, but some of them split off at another intersection? Before I can think of a reason they would run down another hallway when I am right in front of him, there is a flash of red and the hallway explodes. Smoke poured back out into the main hallway as I quickly knocked out the remaining experiments that had kept coming towards me. I heard footsteps echoing out from the smoke. My swords came up just in time to meet… Natsumi?... um okay.
I ended up catching Natsumi's katana as she leaped out of the smoke and brought it down on my head. Both of us were surprised at the other's sudden appearance but we smoothly disengaged.
"Well I guess you missed me then?" I snarked, happy to see a friendly face.
"I should have the Twelfth Division put a tracker on you. First Aizen, now Kunou? You seem to have a knack for finding yourself being taken to evil masterminds."
"Me being at Central 46 was your fault, and it's not my fault the doctor wants to vivisect me to find out how I was put together." I reminded her. "I think you just might be a bad luck charm."
Another person walks out of the smoke, who I unfortunately recognize as Kimura. Couldn't Natsumi have found someone else to follow her around?
"That the last of them, ma'am?" he asked before spotting me. "Oh hey, it's the newbl-" he suddenly cut off and paled dramatically. "Uh you aren't secretly an officer too, are you?"
I snorted. "Nope. I'm not even a Soul Reaper."
"Oh that's good." he breathed before walking past me.
I just rolled my eyes and turned back to Natsumi.
"How were things back in town? Cause we are going to need a lot of reinforcements to take care of all the experiments Kunou has here. I've been knocking them out as I go, but there are a couple hundred back that way we will need…" I turned to point back the way I came just in time to see Kimura plunge his sword into the unconscious form of one of the experiments I had knocked out. Then with barely any hesitation, he repeated the action on the one next to it.
I saw red.
In retrospect this wasn't the best idea on how to escape.
Personally, I blame the drugs, electrical tourture, and what I am beginning to think were physiological issues that seem to pop up when being trapped or cornered. But when I finally pulled myself together after coming face to face with the mad scientist responsible for this place, clever escape plans were not on my things to do list.
The first thi- okay the second thing I did, the first being me shouting a moderately impressive amount of curses at Akihiro Kanou and Yuuto Kiba, was to project four copies of one of my favorite scimitars. The reason for that was the incredibly helpful enchantment on the blade to cut through metal like clay.
Then I messed with the velocity parameter on the projections to send them shooting a few hundred miles an hour towards me to cut through the restraints on my hands and feet with little issue.
The reason this was a problem?
Just because I cut the restraints free didn't mean my hands and feet weren't wrapped in metal. And apparently the electroshocks had left my muscles with the structural integrity of jello, so the second I was free from the scaffold I collapsed rather painfully onto the floor.
"Hello floor, my old friend." I murmured quietly. Not because I was worried about making noise, the klaxon alarm going off made plenty of that, but more because there was this weird pressure all around me that showed up when I cut myself free.
It wasn't much. If anything it felt like going from walking in a dry room to walking through mist, but it was just... there now. And sudden changes like that after being trapped in an evil science lab tended to make people concerned.
But I couldn't focus on that now. I had to get out of these restraints, shoot/stab the bad guy in charge until he stopped being an issue, and then meet up with Natsumi. Not necessarily in that order.
First thing first though. I had to get out of the metal gloves on my hands and feet, which was simple to do with Alteration and the cuffs being disconnected from the machine that monitored them for changes. A quick application of mana, and the four cuffs popped open leaving me free and ready to get revenge.
I got to my feet, wobbled badly, and fell onto the table where Bakuya laid.
Okay, mostly ready for revenge.
So instead of rush out and probably get captured again, let's take another few seconds to recover and think of what I need to do here.
Priority one should be stopping Akihiro Kanou. Even if we shut down his operation here, it's only delaying things if he can set up shop somewhere else and do this all over again a few years later.
Priority two should be recovering any information Kanou had about my condition. He clearly had a better idea about what sort of state my soul was in, and I definitely didn't want any of that information getting back to Squad Twelve. I have no interest in being hunted by their insane Captain looking to experiment on me.
And finally, priority three will be to make sure that anything dangerous is contained or destroyed until Natsumi can get someone over here to secure the lab. The last time the Court Guard Squads went up against the good Doctor Kanou, he flooded the streets with mindless, monstrous experiments that killed everyone around them. I would need to make sure the same thing didn't happen here.
With my goals kinda-sorta laid out and now that I could stand up without my legs folding like a house of cards, I grabbed Bakuya and peeked out into the hallway. Surprisingly, there was no sign of anyone coming to deal with an escaped prisoner despite the alarms going off in the background.
I wasn't complaining.
Ducking back inside the room, I took another second to pull my hair into some semblance of order and tie it back with a black chord that manifested when I shifted my clothes to the default combat uniform. The flowy red pants and white shirt tightened into a close fitting black outfit, almost instantly afterwards my red mantle/skirt combo shimmered into existence.
I had to admit, even if it still felt like I was cosplaying EMIYA at times, the outfit had grown on me and I was starting to think of it as my own uniform.
Fashion break done, I stepped out into the hallway. Left seemed like a good direction to go. So I headed left at a brisk walk checking doors as I passed.
Most of them were similar setups to the room I was trapped in, except empty. The others were filled with filing cabinets filled with tools I had no name for or idea what they did, either that or paper copies of test data. Well, I assume test data. From the brief glance I got in one of the cabinets the papers had very scientific terms, graphs, and charts that made no sense to me but looked like something Urahara would understand.
After I realised poking through all the files there was both pointless and a waste of time I started moving down the hallway much quicker, now only poking a head in to see if anyone was in there.
They were all empty.
That was not as reassuring as it should be. The only reason to have multiple rooms like the one I was in was if you had multiple people needing to be restrained at the same time. Where did they go? And why build such a large facility if there was no one in it? The alarms hadn't stopped, so someone should have at least gone out into the hallway to check what was going on.
I had to stop my musing when I ended up in front of a staircase. Luckily I could only go up from here, so Kunou was unlikely to be on this level if no one had responded by now and I could continue without missing him somewhere in an unexplored area of this floor. So up the stairs I went.
What I found was horrifying.
Rows upon rows of mutilated creatures peered out from inside cages that lined the room. Most of them seemed like patchwork hunks of flesh that just stared blankly into the distance. The ones further away seemed more human, but I couldn't tell if that was on purpose or if it was just a temporary state. Angry red lines crossed their bodies where they had been stitched together, some weeping blood from how recent the attachment was.
"Hello my troublesome little experiment, it took you longer to reach this area than I thought it would." Kunou's voice crackled from a loudspeaker somewhere in the ceiling. "I am curious how you managed to escape when your Reiatsu was drained so much. You should have been barely able to move, let alone break those bindings."
"Guess I'm just that special." I muttered sarcastically.
I wasn't expecting an answer so I was a bit startled when he replied back. "I suppose you are. Clearly my past self managed a significant breakthrough if you are this much more advanced than my current efforts."
Great, so he could hear me even without anything obvious nearby. That was creepy.
"In an effort to avoid damaging such a valuable specimen, I will give you a chance to surrender. Resist and I will ensure that you feel every moment as I tear the secrets of its creation from your soul."
"So give up and be experimented on, resist and be vivisected? Lovely options, Doc." I mocked, heading further into the floor. "Counter offer, you surrender and I won't immediately kill you for what you've done to these poor people."
There was a rush of static that I guessed was Kunou scoffing, "What I've done to them? They are just the leftovers from my experiments. It doesn't matter what they think. In fact they should be grateful I keep them around despite being failures. The only use they have left is following my orders." The doors on the cages creaked open. "Why don't I show you. Subjects, capture the intruder at all costs!"
The 'failed experiments' shambled forward out of their cages. When they caught sight of me, that shambling changed to a disorganized rush as they scrambled over each other in an effort to get to me first.
One of them, a middle aged looking man with grotesque looking muscled limbs, jumped clear of the group and tired slamming his hands into me. He missed as I dodged backwards and the floor cracked under the force of his attack.
"So much for not damaging the valuable specimen." I snarked. Bakuya flashed out and severed the tendons at his knees and elbows. I didn't know if the damage Kunou did was reversible, so I would avoid killing would be a last resort.
"It matters little as long as you live." Kunou's voice responded. "All that changes is the time before I can resume my experiments. Of course that doesn't extend to the trash."
The disabled creature in front of me let out one of the most horrifying screams of pain I ever heard while its skin started bubbling and oozing off its body. Within seconds the poor creature was nothing more than a skeleton covered in a viscous purple slime.
I had seen a fair bit of violent deaths dealing with hollows since I started working with Urahara. People melting alive was not one of them. Only the rest of the experiments catching up to us stopped me from freezing up as the body vanished under the feet of the slavering horde trying to take a piece out of me. I gave ground as I ducked under flailing limbs and various other body parts.
A distant part of my mind noted that Kunou hadn't stopped at just humanoid experiments as I dodged a giant scorpion tail that had replaced the arm of a younger looking boy. The rest of me was far more concerned about how to deal with the mob in front of me if disabling them meant they were liquidized. The only way I could think of was to trace Kanshou into my off hand and press forward.
I danced through the crowd of experiments, the heavy shortswords in my hands smashing into the deformed heads of several of them. I was careful to control my strikes to ensure they would only be knocked unconscious and as uninjured as possible. If they weren't hurt then whatever mechanism Kunou installed to keep his creations out of Soul Reaper hands shouldn't activate, right?
The problem with using minimal force on a practically mindless mob? They do not care if they hit their friends as long as they can attack you. If I pulled this maneuver with a bunch of Soul Reapers, they would stop attacks when they saw it would hit the person next to them. The experiments would sometimes attack through one another if I was close enough.
So I was able to knock out the majority of the group, but I took several glancing hits in return. Nothing major, some scrapes and bruises definitely, but none of them melted so my strategy seemed to be working if nothing else.
"And that's the last of them." I panted as the final experiment fell over, unconscious. "What now Kunou? You're all out of experiments to hide behind, wanna give up?"
"Haha, out of subjects? This was just one batch. You may wish to observe your surroundings before making such bold statements."
What is he talking about? There is nothing else around- no wait. I could see more shapes moving in the shadows. Quite a few shapes actually.
Oh.
Those are all experiments aren't they?
It turns out the room I was in was actually connected to several others by dividers instead of walls. While I was dealing with the first group of Kunou's creations, those dividers were quietly being pulled back and the other groups had gathered in the dark. With surprise no longer necessary more lights flickered on revealing the full size of the horde.
It looked like someone had taken a zombie film, replaced the rotting corpses with monsters, and had every single one of them stare blankly at one single person. Me.
I felt a shiver run down my spine at the sight of hundreds of mutilated people waiting for the order to attack. Dealing with a few dozen was hard enough. This many? I would eventually be overrun or be forced to start cutting them down. There was only one thing to do.
I turned tail and fled towards the hallway as fast as I could.
It was time to admit I needed help. Concentrating, I started following the tiny pull Kansho and Bakuya felt from the single sword I had left for Natsumi to follow after me if we were split up. It didn't help that the ability to return was mostly centered on the owner, me, so the pull was tiny. Still, it was better than nothing.
The hallway was exactly the same as the floor below, but it was quickly changing into a scene out of the House of the Dead as more of Kunou's subjects filtered into the hall through other doors. Thankfully they were not that coordinated about it so several doorways were clogged as too many bodies tried pushing through them all at once. For the ones that made it through, they were either knocked out or dodged around as I ran by. Despite the ridiculous numbers, the individuals weren't that strong. Well, for someone at my level. Individually they were about the same as an unranked Soul Reaper. If they got out, then the surrounding districts were history.
Bakuya twitched in my hand and I turned right at an intersection.
So new plan. Find Natsumi, get a bunch of reinforcements to keep the monster minions contained, then find and stop Kunou.
More experiments are coming at me from down the hall, but some of them split off at another intersection? Before I can think of a reason they would run down another hallway when I am right in front of him, there is a flash of red and the hallway explodes. Smoke poured back out into the main hallway as I quickly knocked out the remaining experiments that had kept coming towards me. I heard footsteps echoing out from the smoke. My swords came up just in time to meet… Natsumi?... um okay.
I ended up catching Natsumi's katana as she leaped out of the smoke and brought it down on my head. Both of us were surprised at the other's sudden appearance but we smoothly disengaged.
"Well I guess you missed me then?" I snarked, happy to see a friendly face.
"I should have the Twelfth Division put a tracker on you. First Aizen, now Kunou? You seem to have a knack for finding yourself being taken to evil masterminds."
"Me being at Central 46 was your fault, and it's not my fault the doctor wants to vivisect me to find out how I was put together." I reminded her. "I think you just might be a bad luck charm."
Another person walks out of the smoke, who I unfortunately recognize as Kimura. Couldn't Natsumi have found someone else to follow her around?
"That the last of them, ma'am?" he asked before spotting me. "Oh hey, it's the newbl-" he suddenly cut off and paled dramatically. "Uh you aren't secretly an officer too, are you?"
I snorted. "Nope. I'm not even a Soul Reaper."
"Oh that's good." he breathed before walking past me.
I just rolled my eyes and turned back to Natsumi.
"How were things back in town? Cause we are going to need a lot of reinforcements to take care of all the experiments Kunou has here. I've been knocking them out as I go, but there are a couple hundred back that way we will need…" I turned to point back the way I came just in time to see Kimura plunge his sword into the unconscious form of one of the experiments I had knocked out. Then with barely any hesitation, he repeated the action on the one next to it.
I saw red.
- Location
- France
Oh Kimura you dumb bastard. Not even hesitating about why they were still left alive, and you decide to kill them in cold blood.
Alex will go berserk.
Spirit 3.11
- Location
- USA
Spirit 3.11
My hand is around Kimura's throat in an instant, and I slam him into the closest wall. A spiderweb of cracks forms behind him but I take no notice. I'm too busy trying to shove this bastard through it to care.
"What. The. Hell. Do. You. Think. You're. Doing?" I snarl in his face.
Kimura ineffectually grasps at my wrist trying to pull me off. "M-monsters...can't let-" and that's as far as he gets before my hand tightens down again, cutting him and nearly crushing his windpipe in the process.
"They are not MONSTERS! They had no choice in what was done to them and you think that gives you the right to just end them?!" I couldn't believe the callousness of the 'protectors' of Soul Society. "You don't get to write them off like that!" I wasn't asking for a bloodless victory. That would be unrealistic given the numbers and strength of the experiments. But to murder them when they were helpless pissed me off so badly it felt like the walls were shaking with my anger.
A hand appeared on my forearm and I looked over to see a pale Natsumi pulling at my arm. She was covered in sweat and was shaking like she was being crushed by something incredibly heavy.
"Cross...calm down...you're going to...bring the ceiling down...on top of...us!" She panted out.
My first instinct was to lash out at her as well. Calm down? When the biggest victims of this disaster were being killed by the ones supposed to be helping them? It was only the cracking of the walls as the spiderweb surrounding Kimura widened that made me realise she was being literal about bringing the ceiling down and the walls really were shaking.
I took a step back. Kimura fell in a heap and started coughing roughly.
I ignored him.
Now that I wasn't in a blind rage, I was able to feel a huge sucking force from the inside of my body.
Something was being drawn into my core and… ignited for lack of a better term causing the pressure on the surroundings.
Was… was I burning Reishi?!
When I thought that I quickly tried to stop the pull coming from my core as fast as possible. Messing around with a fundamental building block of reality without any idea what it was doing to me was not something I was keen to do. I wasn't an idiot or a mad scientist, thank you very much.
I found the metaphorical valve pretty quickly and slammed it shut. Which was a good thing since in the maybe fifteen seconds since I flipped out whatever had happened to me had raised my temperature so much I was visibly steaming.
What the hell?
I took another few steps away from the other two because, no seriously, WHAT THE HELL?
"I thought... she said she wasn't... an officer!" Kimura gasped at Natsumi from the floor.
"She isn't." Natsumi herself had her hands on her knees in an effort to keep standing.
"She nearly brought down the building on top of us! Only Captains or Lieutenants have that kind of reiatsu!"
"She also said she was not a Shinigami."
"That's impossible…" Kimura groaned.
Natsumi let out a bitter laugh. "Impossible seems to sum her up quite well."
Kimura unsteadily got back to his feet using the wall for support. The motion caught my eye and pulled me out of my repeating thoughts of 'what the HELL just happened?' and I turned to face him.
Natsumi instantly stepped in front of him, hands out like she was trying to calm down a dangerous animal.
"Wait Cross. I understand you are upset. But we have to dispose of Kanou's experiments. We do not have a choice!"
That nearly set me off again.
"Explain." I practically growled.
She took a deep breath and started speaking rapidly. "Right, to start off you know this is not the first time we have dealt with the creations of Akihiro Kanou. The first time around, once we realised the monsters he released were denizens of the Rukongai we took great pains to capture the experiments to see if we could reverse the damage done to them."
I grit my teeth at the admittance the Soul Reapers had captured the experiments before yet they were killing them now. But I knew Natsumi wouldn't have brought it up without good reason.
"We had our top scientists in Squad Twelve pulled in to reverse everything. But even past the boobytraps and failsafes Kanou put in to make sure no one learned from his work we found out one more thing that caused Central 46 to declare all his experiments bioweapons to be destroyed immediately."
I had actually forgotten about that. When it was just my life being threatened because of it and nothing actually came of it, I had stopped thinking about that particular law.
Now I was shifting away from anger and more into uneasy dread. From the sound of it Soul Society did put effort into helping the victims only to find something that made it better to just kill them.
"The scientists found that every one of Kanou's experiments had the frontal lobes of the brain nearly liquified." Natsumi continued to my horror. "Even Kisuke Urahara, the head of the Science Division at the time was unable to find a way to restore their minds. So it was deemed more merciful to put them out of their misery."
My shoulders slumped.
Yeah, that would do it. If there was no person to help behind the creature Kanou created then why risk a capture. It was easier to just put it down.
"That was a hundred and fifty years ago. Could that have changed?" I honestly don't know which answer I wanted, but I needed to ask.
Natsumi shook her head. "Look at the temples. Just below the hairline." She pointed at one of the dead experiments.
I crouched besides the one she indicated and brushed the hair back, taking great care not to look at the twisted face at the same time. Right where she indicated was a small scar. Clearly some sort of surgery had clearly taken place. A quick check on another experiment showed a matching mark. I felt a temptation to check more just to hold out hope that not all of them had that mark, but I pushed it aside. Kanou would've done it to all of them. Deluding myself otherwise didn't help us at this point.
"So we all good now?" Kimura asked off to the side. I glanced at him and saw he was keeping Natsumi firmly in between us.
Natsumi cocked her head at me. "Are we, Cross?"
I took a second to consider it.
"We're good. I should be fine in a fight. Just don't expect me to help with the 'cleanup.' "
The two of them were still watching me warily.
With a huff, I crossed my arms. "I'll go stand over there." Indicating the intersection they had come from. "I won't try to stop you if there isn't a better way."
I stopped mid-step. "There isn't one right?"
Natsumi's face remained stern, but her eyes did soften slightly. "There is not. Trust me, we tried everything."
Of course not. That would be too easy.
With a sigh I continued on my way. I didn't need the nightmares from watching helpless victims murdered in their sleep. Combat was one thing, already beaten foes was something else entirely.
And just to make things even more awkward Natsumi followed me around the corner.
"Something else?" I just wanted to be alone for a bit and try and sort out my thoughts.
"There is another matter." Natsumi replied somewhat nervously.
"What? And I certainly hope you aren't going to say we need to take Kanou in alive." I demanded.
She shook her head. "No, he was declared a traitor over a century ago. We do not expect you to take him alive. This is something else." she pulled out a small vial of blue liquid.
"You need to drink this."
I raised an eyebrow. "I don't do random drugs. I was taught better than that." I snarked.
Natsumi shifted back and forth on her feet. Something that wasn't exactly encouraging me to drink a random vial because she said so.
"It's an antidote."
"An antidote? To wha-" I was cut off as the sucking force from before started again. This time I could feel the Reishi in the air being pulled in. It was entirely unpleasant, like trying to take a deep breath without actually letting any air in.
I shut it down as quickly as possible but even that took a few seconds and I could feel the heat building up again. Natsumi also was more pale and sweating from the pressure I emitted on the surroundings.
"F-for that." she gasped.
"You know what that is?"
"...it's a poison. Captain Kurotsuchi administered it in the case you attacked a Shinigami." Natsumi said. "It was supposed to overload your body with ambient reishi and knock you out but it seems to be reacting unexpectedly."
…
…
"You bastards POISONED me?!" I shouted. "When?! And why would you do that in the first place!"
"We couldn't take the chance with one of Kanou's creations!" Natsumi exclaimed. "We didn't know if there was some sort of sleeper agent trigger so a way to neutralize you in a peaceful manner was used. It never would have been an issue if you never needed to attack a Shinigami!"
"So like when I have to fight another traitorous Soul Reaper? What, was I supposed to hope that fainting aggressively at them would beat them?"
"That's why I am giving you the antidote! I did not know Kanou had subverted the local garrison, so I did not address it till now! Can you please just take the antidote? You can be as angry as you want afterward, but it's clearly not healthy for you!" She pleaded.
She was right. Whatever I was doing to the absorbed reishi, it was taking a toll on my body. Maybe even my soul.
"Fine, but don't think for a second we are done with this." I grabbed the vial, undid the top and swallowed the contents.
I didn't feel any different, but then I didn't feel anything before so who knows anymore.
"I did not expect otherwise. However it should wait until we've dealt with our current crisis."
I grit my teeth and stalked past her back towards the way I had come from.
"Hey guys, I finished with the experiments! Are we ready to go deal with this bastard?" Kimura called, turning the corner himself. I just pushed past him and continued on.
"Ah! What's your deal?"
I ignored him.
"What's up with her?" I heard him asking Natsumi.
"Nothing. Let's go. We need to finish dealing with Kanou."
I turned down the hall and continued past the growing puddles of blood. I couldn't afford to pay attention to them. I was pissed off at the Soul Reapers already, no reason to make myself angrier looking at all the victims Kanou created in his 'research.' So in that regard I fully agreed with Natsumi.
Stop Kanou.
I could deal with everything else afterward.
My hand is around Kimura's throat in an instant, and I slam him into the closest wall. A spiderweb of cracks forms behind him but I take no notice. I'm too busy trying to shove this bastard through it to care.
"What. The. Hell. Do. You. Think. You're. Doing?" I snarl in his face.
Kimura ineffectually grasps at my wrist trying to pull me off. "M-monsters...can't let-" and that's as far as he gets before my hand tightens down again, cutting him and nearly crushing his windpipe in the process.
"They are not MONSTERS! They had no choice in what was done to them and you think that gives you the right to just end them?!" I couldn't believe the callousness of the 'protectors' of Soul Society. "You don't get to write them off like that!" I wasn't asking for a bloodless victory. That would be unrealistic given the numbers and strength of the experiments. But to murder them when they were helpless pissed me off so badly it felt like the walls were shaking with my anger.
A hand appeared on my forearm and I looked over to see a pale Natsumi pulling at my arm. She was covered in sweat and was shaking like she was being crushed by something incredibly heavy.
"Cross...calm down...you're going to...bring the ceiling down...on top of...us!" She panted out.
My first instinct was to lash out at her as well. Calm down? When the biggest victims of this disaster were being killed by the ones supposed to be helping them? It was only the cracking of the walls as the spiderweb surrounding Kimura widened that made me realise she was being literal about bringing the ceiling down and the walls really were shaking.
I took a step back. Kimura fell in a heap and started coughing roughly.
I ignored him.
Now that I wasn't in a blind rage, I was able to feel a huge sucking force from the inside of my body.
Something was being drawn into my core and… ignited for lack of a better term causing the pressure on the surroundings.
Was… was I burning Reishi?!
When I thought that I quickly tried to stop the pull coming from my core as fast as possible. Messing around with a fundamental building block of reality without any idea what it was doing to me was not something I was keen to do. I wasn't an idiot or a mad scientist, thank you very much.
I found the metaphorical valve pretty quickly and slammed it shut. Which was a good thing since in the maybe fifteen seconds since I flipped out whatever had happened to me had raised my temperature so much I was visibly steaming.
What the hell?
I took another few steps away from the other two because, no seriously, WHAT THE HELL?
"I thought... she said she wasn't... an officer!" Kimura gasped at Natsumi from the floor.
"She isn't." Natsumi herself had her hands on her knees in an effort to keep standing.
"She nearly brought down the building on top of us! Only Captains or Lieutenants have that kind of reiatsu!"
"She also said she was not a Shinigami."
"That's impossible…" Kimura groaned.
Natsumi let out a bitter laugh. "Impossible seems to sum her up quite well."
Kimura unsteadily got back to his feet using the wall for support. The motion caught my eye and pulled me out of my repeating thoughts of 'what the HELL just happened?' and I turned to face him.
Natsumi instantly stepped in front of him, hands out like she was trying to calm down a dangerous animal.
"Wait Cross. I understand you are upset. But we have to dispose of Kanou's experiments. We do not have a choice!"
That nearly set me off again.
"Explain." I practically growled.
She took a deep breath and started speaking rapidly. "Right, to start off you know this is not the first time we have dealt with the creations of Akihiro Kanou. The first time around, once we realised the monsters he released were denizens of the Rukongai we took great pains to capture the experiments to see if we could reverse the damage done to them."
I grit my teeth at the admittance the Soul Reapers had captured the experiments before yet they were killing them now. But I knew Natsumi wouldn't have brought it up without good reason.
"We had our top scientists in Squad Twelve pulled in to reverse everything. But even past the boobytraps and failsafes Kanou put in to make sure no one learned from his work we found out one more thing that caused Central 46 to declare all his experiments bioweapons to be destroyed immediately."
I had actually forgotten about that. When it was just my life being threatened because of it and nothing actually came of it, I had stopped thinking about that particular law.
Now I was shifting away from anger and more into uneasy dread. From the sound of it Soul Society did put effort into helping the victims only to find something that made it better to just kill them.
"The scientists found that every one of Kanou's experiments had the frontal lobes of the brain nearly liquified." Natsumi continued to my horror. "Even Kisuke Urahara, the head of the Science Division at the time was unable to find a way to restore their minds. So it was deemed more merciful to put them out of their misery."
My shoulders slumped.
Yeah, that would do it. If there was no person to help behind the creature Kanou created then why risk a capture. It was easier to just put it down.
"That was a hundred and fifty years ago. Could that have changed?" I honestly don't know which answer I wanted, but I needed to ask.
Natsumi shook her head. "Look at the temples. Just below the hairline." She pointed at one of the dead experiments.
I crouched besides the one she indicated and brushed the hair back, taking great care not to look at the twisted face at the same time. Right where she indicated was a small scar. Clearly some sort of surgery had clearly taken place. A quick check on another experiment showed a matching mark. I felt a temptation to check more just to hold out hope that not all of them had that mark, but I pushed it aside. Kanou would've done it to all of them. Deluding myself otherwise didn't help us at this point.
"So we all good now?" Kimura asked off to the side. I glanced at him and saw he was keeping Natsumi firmly in between us.
Natsumi cocked her head at me. "Are we, Cross?"
I took a second to consider it.
"We're good. I should be fine in a fight. Just don't expect me to help with the 'cleanup.' "
The two of them were still watching me warily.
With a huff, I crossed my arms. "I'll go stand over there." Indicating the intersection they had come from. "I won't try to stop you if there isn't a better way."
I stopped mid-step. "There isn't one right?"
Natsumi's face remained stern, but her eyes did soften slightly. "There is not. Trust me, we tried everything."
Of course not. That would be too easy.
With a sigh I continued on my way. I didn't need the nightmares from watching helpless victims murdered in their sleep. Combat was one thing, already beaten foes was something else entirely.
And just to make things even more awkward Natsumi followed me around the corner.
"Something else?" I just wanted to be alone for a bit and try and sort out my thoughts.
"There is another matter." Natsumi replied somewhat nervously.
"What? And I certainly hope you aren't going to say we need to take Kanou in alive." I demanded.
She shook her head. "No, he was declared a traitor over a century ago. We do not expect you to take him alive. This is something else." she pulled out a small vial of blue liquid.
"You need to drink this."
I raised an eyebrow. "I don't do random drugs. I was taught better than that." I snarked.
Natsumi shifted back and forth on her feet. Something that wasn't exactly encouraging me to drink a random vial because she said so.
"It's an antidote."
"An antidote? To wha-" I was cut off as the sucking force from before started again. This time I could feel the Reishi in the air being pulled in. It was entirely unpleasant, like trying to take a deep breath without actually letting any air in.
I shut it down as quickly as possible but even that took a few seconds and I could feel the heat building up again. Natsumi also was more pale and sweating from the pressure I emitted on the surroundings.
"F-for that." she gasped.
"You know what that is?"
"...it's a poison. Captain Kurotsuchi administered it in the case you attacked a Shinigami." Natsumi said. "It was supposed to overload your body with ambient reishi and knock you out but it seems to be reacting unexpectedly."
…
…
"You bastards POISONED me?!" I shouted. "When?! And why would you do that in the first place!"
"We couldn't take the chance with one of Kanou's creations!" Natsumi exclaimed. "We didn't know if there was some sort of sleeper agent trigger so a way to neutralize you in a peaceful manner was used. It never would have been an issue if you never needed to attack a Shinigami!"
"So like when I have to fight another traitorous Soul Reaper? What, was I supposed to hope that fainting aggressively at them would beat them?"
"That's why I am giving you the antidote! I did not know Kanou had subverted the local garrison, so I did not address it till now! Can you please just take the antidote? You can be as angry as you want afterward, but it's clearly not healthy for you!" She pleaded.
She was right. Whatever I was doing to the absorbed reishi, it was taking a toll on my body. Maybe even my soul.
"Fine, but don't think for a second we are done with this." I grabbed the vial, undid the top and swallowed the contents.
I didn't feel any different, but then I didn't feel anything before so who knows anymore.
"I did not expect otherwise. However it should wait until we've dealt with our current crisis."
I grit my teeth and stalked past her back towards the way I had come from.
"Hey guys, I finished with the experiments! Are we ready to go deal with this bastard?" Kimura called, turning the corner himself. I just pushed past him and continued on.
"Ah! What's your deal?"
I ignored him.
"What's up with her?" I heard him asking Natsumi.
"Nothing. Let's go. We need to finish dealing with Kanou."
I turned down the hall and continued past the growing puddles of blood. I couldn't afford to pay attention to them. I was pissed off at the Soul Reapers already, no reason to make myself angrier looking at all the victims Kanou created in his 'research.' So in that regard I fully agreed with Natsumi.
Stop Kanou.
I could deal with everything else afterward.