One Foot - Another Multiverse SI

[Ars Poetica]

Poe gives Uryu the talk.

-x-

Oh my god. Just… oh my god… How the hell did Uryu have the necessary power to fire that many arrows? How was he able to muster the level of strength necessary to blast a tidal wave of death in my general direction? Did it really matter?

I reached around myself, not unraveling the work apron that covered my front but tearing the straps. The power of the Rider soared into the cloth as it wrapped around my body, turning it to blackened leather and flaming steel. In seconds, the first wave of power hit me.

The makeshift shield shook with incredible force as I felt the soles of my feet drag against the floor of the training area. Before I could poke my head out to look, another wave of force crashed into me… And another struck right after.

When waves of force did little but push me back several inches, Uryu started peppering my shield with all that he could. Arrow after arrow after arrow – in the shadow of my barely functioning dome, I weathered a storm of death, a hail of incoming fire that would turn night into day with its prevalence…

Forgive me, I was feeling poetic because one of the arrows penetrated my shield and went straight between my legs. If that shot was an inch higher, I would be short a testicle.

When an explosion of energy finally broke my apron, shattered it to pieces, I drew back the Rider's power away from torn pieces of burnt and scorched cloth to cover my sword and block another arrow.

Uryu leapt back. Was this what he was like when he was running on fumes? He should have been exhausted, but he was putting out an absurd amount of power… He reached up his hand and made another arrow. This time, when he fired it, I could see the projectile. This time, I could track the arrow's progress.

His shots were slowing down.

This was it, I thought, this was the endgame. I charged my shoes, and with black boots shattered the floor. A path burned between where I once stood to right behind Uryu. I might not have been able to turn, but by plunging my sword into the floor and shifting the focus of the Rider's power…

A dead stop let me put my palm on the back of Uryu's head. I focused the power of the Rider into my wristwatch. He prepared to step forward, to pivot and fire on me – How about no?

I pushed forward and slammed down, hitting him into the floor and holding him there. His bow vanished as he fell, striking the floor and snapping his glasses. "You lose." I was panting, I was sweating, my chest hurt, my legs hurt, oh my god everything hurt… but I won that fight. And Uryu lost.

Uryu lost in a straight fight, in a wide-open space with no cover, to me. Even as he glared at me with defiance and what might well have been blind hatred, I felt cheated.

"…Kill me…" he growled, "Go on…! Do it!"

"…wow. You suck." I said with a look of astonishment, "I mean, you're really pathetic." I let go of him and got up, stepping back from his collapsed body. "You should have won that fight." He stared at me, "You… You should've killed me, you should've beaten me, you should've crippled me… there's a lot of things you should have done, but didn't." I looked at Ryuken, but he stood silent, inhaling and exhaling smoke.

"You're sparing me… because I'm weak?"

"I'm sparing you because I was never here to kill you." I gave him a flat look, "I don't know what my spirit ribbon's color means, and I don't really care." Actually, I did care. I cared a lot. But now just wasn't the time. I could have Ichigo look at it later… or Urahara. "You… If you had some sleep, I'd be dead right now. If you ate better, washed up, I'd be bleeding out all over the floor. But I'm not. And do you know why?"

"…"

"No, I bet you don't." I wasn't very good at this. I was terrible at motivating people and worse at monologues. "Okay, look, a few days ago, a bunch of Hollows ravaged Karakura Town. They were attracted here because some retard, who couldn't look past his pride or whatever, decided to try one-upping another kid who was greener to his powers than a fresh blade of grass on a spring morning." I rubbed the back of my head, "A week."

"…A week?"

"That's how long Ichigo had his powers before you pulled that shit on him. He lost more fights than he won, but he was trying, and you fucked that up. What was your solution to accidentally killing hundreds of people, by the way? Oh, right, training. You trained. You decided, "I'll get so strong, that nobody will be hurt!" Is that about right?" I didn't give him a chance to answer, "Well, look how well that went. You trained so hard, that some shmuck off the streets was able to walk in and beat the shit out of you in an area where you should have kicked his ass."

"…So what? Are you telling me to give up?"

Was he not listening to me, or was I just not being clear? "I killed innocent people, too."

"And you look so broken up about it…" Snark was not something that became him, but by god did Uryu pull it off well. I wanted to smack him.

I looked again at Ryuken, "Dude." I said to him, "Discipline your son. He's being an asshole."

The man took a long drag of his cigarette before tossing it to the ground and stamping it out. He exhaled a sigh, "If he's dumb enough to insult the man who could have snapped his neck at any time but didn't… then until your therapy session is over, he is not my son." When he looked directly at me, it felt like I was standing on a razorblade, "I will object, however, if you try to kill him. This is a hospital. We don't kill people in hospitals." A withering glare was sent to Uryu, "No matter how foolish they are."

"…Right." Ryuken was a man with priorities. I could respect that. Looking back down at Uryu, I spoke to him. "I fucked up. I killed people and I didn't mean to. But did I let that rule my life?" Yes. Every day, I was becoming stronger to prevent a similar fuck up in the future. "No! Shit happens! Did I exhaust myself trying to make up for it?" Yes. I was losing sleep over this, and now I was running between places to recruit a bunch of kids to fight a war against a monster that wanted to be a god. "Hell no! I got up on my own two feet and moved on with my life." I would never move on, would I? I would wish I could, but in the end, I'd just…

"Do you remember any of them?" he asked me, "The faces of the people you killed?"

An office worker burning alive under his desk, screaming for help that would come too late, a secretary who jumped out a window trying to escape the flames, a janitor cooked alive in his closet, "Not a single one. I can't bother myself with them. I fucked up, yeah, but if I let those bodies drag me down, I'll never move on with my life."

He just looked at me. "You… You really are a monster, aren't you?" He growled, "You don't care, you just… you just keep moving on like nothing happened!"

"…What else can I do?" it was an honest question. Urahara's answer of 'get better' worked in the short term, but thinking about it left me with nothing. "I can't apologize for what I've done, not to the people I've hurt or the people who care about them. I can't live in their memory – I don't even know what that fucking means. Getting strong enough to prevent that from happening again… it's unrealistic. Nobody is that powerful. If God is omnipotent, he could save everyone. But if some are not saved, is God not omnipotent? Hardly. God could be the most omnipotent thing in every existence imaginable, and even he, or she, wouldn't be able to save everyone – let alone stop fucking up." I kneeled down to him, "Every solution imaginable has been tried for what you're going through right now, and none of them work. I just picked the solution with the least effort." Don't think about it too much. Keep going, don't stop.

"…And it hasn't worked at all, has it?"

No. Oh my god no it hasn't. "…" I sighed, "This endless training stuff? It's destroying you. Sleep soundly, eat well, clean yourself up, and live a better life. If you can't forget, make better memories to think of." I shrugged, "What else can I say? You've heard this shit by now, haven't you?"

He took a deep breath, "I have."

"But your father didn't beat you into the ground, did he?"

"…No. He did not."

"Ah." I nodded, "Well. I guess that makes sense. Should I, uh, keep going? I've never really done this kind of thing before, so… yeah."

"You've said enough." Uryu closed his eyes.

I clapped my hands and stood again, "Oh, cool. Did anything I say get through to you? At all?"

He took a deep breath. "A lot of what you just told me was garbage. You don't believe half of it, for one, and I can tell you're lying about the rest. It's a miracle you're still functioning as a… whatever you are."

"I like to think I'm human."

"No." He opened his eyes to look at me, "You're not. And it stuns me that you're coherent and haven't just shut down by now." Uryu took another breath as he shut his eyes again, "But you have a point… I should not have lost. I was so exhausted, that I couldn't even win when I felt my life was on the line. Your solution to this… this guilt, if it even counts, is awful. But you were right. My solution is hardly better. And if I keep doing this to myself… it should be obvious what will happen."

"So… My talk did work?"

Uryu wasn't sure how to respond to that. He opened his mouth to reply, but shut it. He tried again, "Yes… Yes it did."

"Okay, then! Good talk." I turned to leave. "So, Ryuken, uh, Urahara's assembling a team to fight a bunch of bad guys. And we're leaving in, I think, a week? Something arbitrary like that, I don't know. He really just doesn't tell me anything. Anyway, yeah, Urahara wants that kid ready to punch a deity in the face by then. Think you can…"

"You realize I want him to be a doctor and actively discourage him from being a Quincy, right?" He asked me.

I nodded, "Oh, yeah, I do. I just don't give a fuck. So, when's your son going to be ready?"

He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You need him in a week?"

"Yup."

"He'll be ready by then."

"Great! Always a pleasure," I turned and walked to the elevator. "Uh, before I go," I called over my shoulder, "What button do I–"

"Just hit "1". I don't need a special combination to leave this room, I just need one to get here."

"Got it!" I stepped in the elevator, I hit the number "1", and the doors shut in front of me. This time, while the elevator slowly made its way up to the first floor, it wasn't silent. "…Mozart. Ryuken likes Mozart." The sound of the Magic Flute resonated throughout the inside of the elevator as it slowly drifted up.

Today, I'd learned something about myself. Specifically, I learned about the power of the Ghost Rider. Before now, I'd only ever applied that power to vehicles. I'd learned that I could animate vehicles that I wasn't even driving, but I'd never thought to apply that power directly to myself.

While the Ghost Rider's abilities didn't seem to work on my body, they did work on my clothes and my Asauchi. I could only use the Ghost Rider's power on one object at a time, while it was being utilized at least, and any other time it would just be dormant.

And, at the cost of an apron that I would need to get replaced, I learned that what was infused with the Ghost Rider's power was, in fact, incredibly durable and capable of withstanding astonishing amounts of force and power.

When I stepped out of the elevator after five minutes of opera, I saw that the skies had cleared… and it was nighttime. It was mucky, misty, and dark. But it wasn't raining!

Knowing that the Ghost Rider's power could be used in such a flexible manner would help me, I was sure. And with the successful recruiting of Uryu Ishida – at least, I hoped it was successful. It would suck if I went to all that effort and he just decided to not show up when he was needed – with the successful recruiting of Uryu Ishida, things were looking up!

It started to rain again.

…Goddamnit.

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-20

 

[Ars Poetica]

Training begins... Now!

-x-

As with any disagreement in the Urahara Shoten, it could be traced back to Urahara. His tendency to go behind the backs of others for their benefit was, while bizarrely effective against Aizen, surprisingly counterintuitive in the work environment.

For example, when the man asks you to move some crates and, while you're doing this, he decides to redecorate your room. When he changed my walls pink, I sincerely believed there was something wrong with my eyes until I was informed that Urahara, through careful character analysis, had determined my favorite color was pink.

He was not right. My favorite color was light red. There was a difference. And after much insistence on my part, he repainted my room a second time. Now it was blue. I knew that this would not be the last occasion Urahara would mess with me, or try to make the shop more comfortable… I'm not sure which he was trying to accomplish.

But I learned a very important lesson that day. I could not trust Urahara not to mess with my things. Or, at least, I thought I learned that lesson. Because when I made it back, what I found was… interesting… "What did you do to my van?"

Urahara's grin made my skin quiver, "Well," he began, "I made it better!"

"…You certainly made something."

The van, once a plain, ordinary, late third generation Mazda Bongo – don't ask why I knew this. Just… just blame Top Gear… The van had been turned into a monstrous looking thing. At first, what I noticed were the wheels. The front wheels were mostly the same, but the back wheels had been made a little… different. "Six-wheel drive," Urahara informed me, "For when four wheels aren't enough."

That was all fine and good, but the engine of the van wouldn't be able to handle running three sets of wheels simultaneously without overheating. Urahara would have to – "I took the liberty of adding an extra pair of engines."

…What. "A pair of engines?" I croaked, "So, that's… that's three engines, one for each pair of wheels, and… how does that even make sense structurally, it must take so much gas…"

He laughed at that. Urahara just fucking laughed at me. "Nah. No gas, no petrol, no diesel… This truck is powered by you."

…Again, what. "Explain."

"I noticed that you had a problem in your fight with Omaeda. While you could channel your power into various vehicles without even driving them, the vehicles themselves weren't made very much stronger. But your van, out of all those vehicles, was able to repair its damages and drive back to the shop. That's a pretty amazing thing, when you think about it."

"…Your point being?"

"My point being, if this thing will repair itself, if this van will follow you around, why not make it a little better or a little more durable? You're not from this world, I understand that. But if I do find you a way back, there's little likelihood that you'll be in exactly the right world. It's a crapshoot. And what do you suppose the chances are that the world you end up in will be as nice as this one?"

Oh… That was his point. This, was he doing this to protect me? Did he try making the van better to save my life in the future? Was this some kind of reward for what I'd done? "That's… Thank you… boss."

"Don't thank me yet," he waved me off, "We haven't even reached the good part." He knocked on the side of the van, "I armored this thing with Sekkiseki…" he looked at me, "Do you know what that is?"

The word was translated as Spirit Reducing Stone to me. And yes, I knew what it was. Sekkiseki was the substance that covered the walls of the main part of the Soul Society – "Doesn't that stuff repel spirit particles or something?" I asked, "It, uh, makes a field of power, and if any of those particles try to pass through, they get stopped?"

"That's right," Urahara nodded, "Sekkiseki is almost omnipresent in the Soul Society, there's just so much of the stuff… but here in the living world, it can be incredibly scarce. Coating your van in the stuff was no easy task, but… it was worth it, I think. Even without your powers, this van should be able to withstand an incredible amount of punishment."

So he'd made it faster, more durable, and capable of preventing anyone I didn't want in my van from getting inside the van. The spare tire in a cover on the hood of the van brought a small smile to my face. "I see you remembered to–"

"Of course," Urahara nodded, "You're lucky that I'm so good at keeping certain things in this town, well, unknown. If you needed to use the Rider's power every time you got a flat, there's no way you'd be able to avoid attention from the Soul Society." Or groups similar to them, he didn't say.

He was right, and we both knew it. So far, I'd made no effort to keep the afterlife a secret. My powers weren't meant for that, though. My powers were almost designed to be overt and blatant. I mean, really, how much more blatant and overt could you get than making any vehicle you operate burst into flames?

"…Okay, then," I stepped around behind the van, "And there's a tire hanging from the back door, too…"

"And four more are under the van. What do you take me for, an idiot? Of course you're going to pop all the tires. Somehow. It only makes sense I'd get you no less than six spares."

Wow. When he put it like that, he made it sound like I was some kind of reckless driver. But I was not a reckless driver. I was the greatest driver in the world. And Urahara, in all his wisdom, had made my van into a military-grade, anti-spiritual vehicle of death.

…I would use this machine for the power of good.

-x-

I was doing wheelies in the underground cavern that was Urahara's training area. "OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME!" the sound of three engines powered by my own, budding spiritual energy gave a sound not unlike the roaring of lions. "WE'RE GOING INTO EIGHTH GEAR!"

"MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE! OH GOD! MAKE IT STOP!" Kon was hanging onto the dashboard with little hula arms. It was adorable. "I DON'T WANNA DIE!"

I made a sharp turn and rolled the mega van of amazingness. It was at that moment I discovered the thing had a reinforced roll cage built in, "I CAN TUMBLE AS MUCH AS I WANT! UPSIDE-DOWN DRIVING! LET'S DO THIS!" I shifted into ninth gear as soon as the car righted itself; "ALL THE GEARS! MORE SPEED!"

My van of mayhem sped past a gaping Urahara as he carefully adjusted his cane. I wasn't sure what he was murmuring to himself, probably something like "My god what have I done".

Shortly after, my cellphone began to ring. "Kon," I said to the mod soul as the van of how fast are we going approached an increasingly high velocity, "Answer the phone, please."

"WHAT?!"

"I am a responsible driver and cannot answer the phone. You'll have to do it for me."

"I DON'T WANNA LET GO!"

Kon was gripping the dashboard rather tightly, I saw. I hit the brakes and listened to the sound of six tires skidding across the ground until we hit a dead stop. "Okay. Now can you answer my phone?"

"…yeah…"

-x-

Yoruichi wanted to speak to me. Specifically, it was now time for my training from hell. Is that what it was called? So far, Ichigo had been going through that madness. Orihime was, presumably, being trained as well for the coming conflict… Shishigawara was getting prepped to kick ass, and Uryu was probably learning to master the Sanrei Glove.

So, that left me. That left little old me to just… faff about, really. I'd been discovering my powers faster than I was strengthening the older ones, so a talk with Yoruichi might well have been exactly what I needed.

"And he said your ribbon was black?" she inquired.

I nodded. "Is that unusual?"

"Typically, normal humans have white ribbons. Shinigami have red ribbons. If I had to guess, black ribbons could be anything from representing Hollows to representing Togabito. I have no idea, really."

"Do the ribbons hold any greater significance? Can you, uh, determine how long someone can live based on their ribbon?" I had to admit, it made me curious. Uryu and Ichigo used this ribbon ability maybe twice each in canon and, after that, never used it again. It was a high-level ability, so it had to have some level of utilization slightly outside the norm.

"Not… really," Yoruichi shrugged, "Theoretically, they could. But you'd have to look into the Kido Corps for something like that. Maybe a few unusual humans and Shinigami out there can do it, but I don't imagine they would last very long – seeing the amount of time others have before they die, it would drive them insane."

"Ah…"

"Outside of tracking key individuals, spirit ribbons range from being an anomaly to just being relatively useless. You don't normally find anything strange about people based on the color or shade or state of their ribbon. It's pretty straightforward. So a black ribbon must have set Uryu off because he'd never seen it before."

"And you haven't either, then?"

"Does it sound like I have?" she countered, "Look, Poe, if I knew what it meant, I'd tell you. But I don't know."

…It was frightening, wasn't it?

The world I was in could be very straightforward at times, especially in how the world operated. For Yoruichi, one of the characters largely in the know not to understand what it meant, it left me feeling more than slightly bothered. "Well, maybe it's a good thing?"

"I doubt it," way to kill the mood, Yoruichi, "In my experience, the darker the spiritual power, the darker the purpose. If your spirit ribbon is black, there might be something very wrong with you. This is what I would normally say, but your Spirit of Vengeance makes that very hard to determine for sure. A being of Hell designed with the express purpose of damning the sinned and preserving the innocent… it might sound corny, but there are Shinigami who operate on similar principles. It's very… human."

"The Ghost Rider is not human." I shook my head, "He's… He's a god, Yoruichi. He's an effective vengeance machine. Sometimes, he's a weapon. Sometimes, he's an angry, bitter phantom… but make no mistake, no matter how human he might seem, he isn't."

I knew the Ghost Rider from my comics. My father, he was a huge fan of the Ghost Rider back when he first came out… I read all the comics about him, the chronicles of Johnny Blaze after he took the cursed deal with Mephistopheles. He was one of my heroes growing up.

He was a man who took a deal, thinking it would help him and only realizing when it was too late that he'd gotten the short end of the stick. The Ghost Rider, his host, always held a place in my heart as someone to feel pain for, as someone to learn from in the saddest way possible.

No matter how amazing the Ghost Rider was, his host was only human. The Spirit of Vengeance's human host was a lot like an ant wielding a magnifying glass against its own kind. With a power not originally its own, it could use a weapon designed to destroy its own kind, largely without fear of it being turned the opposite direction…

…If I recalled, the Ghost Rider had never destroyed its own host… had it…? I didn't remember.

"If that is what you say he is, I'll take your word for it," she stood from her crouched position, "Is that all you want to talk about before we start?" Yoruichi asked.

"Yeah. That's about it."

"Good. Let's get started with your speed. Recently, you've been using Shunpo. And, from what Kisuke has told me, you can increase your speed significantly. So, let's see how fast you can go without something to drive."

"That doesn't sound too bad…"

"You're going to block as many of my attacks as possible." She winked at me, "Don't worry. I'll try not to hurt you."

She disappeared. When the first punch hit my gut, I doubled over. I hadn't eaten that day so, thankfully, when I gagged I didn't vomit. But the next strike took me behind the knees and knocked me flat on my ass.

"…Ow…"

"You're not very good at this… but don't worry, we have almost a whole week to fix that! Up on your feet, get ready for round two!"

…This was going to suck balls, wasn't it? My question was answered with a kick that hooked around my shoulder and threw me to the ground again. It was going to be a long week…

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-21

 

[Ars Poetica]

Kobayashi Maru sounds like a sushi dish to me. I fucking hate sushi.

-x-

My body striking the earth left what felt like a cartoonish indentation. This time, when I got up, I thought I was ready. It was a foolish thought to have, one that would never be vindicated – and it was the same thought that kept me going the last several hundreds of times Yoruichi knocked me down.

Every time, I got up. But every time I was knocked down, it hurt a little more. None of Yoruichi's strikes were meant to kill me. Maybe she intended to maim me with a kick, but I would heal from it eventually. Considering Orihime was on call, it surprised me how lenient Yoruichi was being.

When I boosted my shoes to increase the speed of my Shunpo, Yoruichi finally expressed surprise. I was less than an inch from touching her when reality slammed into me with… well she kicked me away and was suddenly standing no less than a dozen feet away.

In addition to distancing herself and dodging an incredibly fast attack, she had delivered a counterstrike that left my already aching side virtually numb with pain. This was not the kind of numbness that could be overcome with adrenaline; this was the numbness that screamed I was in agony and warned me not to move.

Yoruichi sighed in consternation, "It just doesn't make sense…"

I wheezed in reply. Feeling the slight warmth of the Ghost Rider's power running through me and healing my injured body was a small comfort to the many, many, many, many thrashings I had received so far. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's just very strange. Since you have shown up, you've learned how to manipulate spiritual particles enough to stand on air and have, somehow, taught yourself the Shunpo technique." There was a pause to let that sink in. "Not even Ichigo has developed as many powers in as little time. In a way, you both share problems, but yours is the opposite of his."

"The opposite?"

"You develop abilities when you need them, but when you have to train them, it takes much longer to work with you. The only reason Ichigo is able to learn so quickly is because he is a living soul, but even though you're a living soul you have the tendency to develop abilities that you need in seconds while taking almost as long as recruits in the Soul Society do train those abilities effectively."

"…So, basically, I'm a jack of all trades?"

"No." she shook her head, "You aren't like that. You're… You learned how to use Shunpo in moments. But if you maintained that kind of learning ability, you would be a master of the technique in a few days. From what I'm seeing of you, that isn't the case. You're developing abilities very quickly that help you in small increments, but it will take far too long to make you proficient in them."

"…Isn't there a shortcut method?" I proposed, "I get that it will take a long time to become good with what I have, but maybe there's a way to make me better faster."

"There is nothing that can help you like that."

That wasn't a very reasonable response. I'm sure there was– "But what about that secret Bankai training stuff?" Once again, my mouth stabbed me in the back.

Yoruichi blinked and, in what might have been shock, stared at me, "How do you know that? Wait," she held up one hand to pinch the bridge of her nose and the other to stop me, "Of course you know about that. Well, there are a few reasons that won't work, not the least of those reasons being that you don't even know the name of your sword." Oh, well, yeah, that was a problem. "Second, if a shortcut like that existed, who do you think it would work for?"

"People in the Soul Society?"

"Yes and no. If you want to learn faster, I'm sure there are methods to help you with that… assuming you don't like being alive. Do you like being alive, Poe?"

I very sincerely considered that. Did I like being alive? Did I want to get myself killed using one of several situational and risky training methods for a slight boost in time? "I like being alive," I answered, "But Orihime could just keep healing me if I get hurt, so bring it on!"

Yoruichi stared at me like I was a mentally retarded owl burrowing into the ground – unsure what to make of me, she hesitated in her reply. "I… That's not how it works…"

"Sure! I get hurt, she fixes me. Problem solved."

"Orihime," Yoruichi gently explained, "Reverses time in small, localized forcefields. These training methods you want would be the equivalent of willfully subjecting yourself to something resembling a disease."

"So Orihime reverses or rejects the disease out of existence, no problem."

"…If she reverses the damage done to you from a training method, you'll just be made as you were before you started that training method. Any progress you had the slightest chance of making would vanish and you'd be back to square one after wasting several days of time that we simply do not have."

"What? So, wait, if I stressed my muscles after a day of running and asked Orihime to reverse the pain–"

"All of your muscle development." She made a popping noise with her lips, "Gone. If you increase the power of your soul and it hurts, or damages you, asking Orihime for help would just reverse any progress you made. You'd feel better afterward, sure, but any benefits from the training would disappear."

That… explained a lot, when you thought about it. Orihime's abilities worked by rejecting and reversing time and space, so if you wanted to become strong really fast without resting, Orihime could use her ability to remove your exhaustion and any damage you received.

But because your injuries have been undone and your pain has been rejected, time has been summarily reversed and your progress is also reversed. So asking Orihime to heal me in the training sessions in the event Yoruichi accidentally killed me was – "My idea was stupid and I feel stupid for proposing it."

"Orihime is a mid-range combatant. You understand this. But you called her a… white mage. You were more right than you knew. Orihime can heal injuries and restore you to an earlier state, and in a fight that is invaluable. Outside a fight and in a training situation, that power's utility is significantly decreased."

"Okay, so super-fast training is out." I sighed, "But, even if I'm going slow; I have to be progressing at least somewhat, right?"

"…Barely." Yoruichi replied, "You're definitely improving, but the speed you're improving is terrible. When you use the power of the Ghost Rider, you're significantly faster. If you could find a way to turn while running at top speed, for example, then we would be able to start training you for high-speed combat."

"Except that way, you're setting up the Ghost Rider as a crutch. I can't rely on his power, not really."

"Which brings us back to this," Yoruichi nodded, "If you start learning faster, then maybe you'll start getting faster." She rolled her arms and looked at me, "Ready for another round?"

With false enthusiasm, I smiled and laughed, "Oh. Oh yeah… I'm ready…" This time, I'd hit her. I was sure.

-x-

I didn't get a single, solid hit in. It was just hours of me getting my ass kicked over and over again with no solution in sight. Two days of nothing but failure was wearing me down bit by bit and I didn't know what to do. Until we finished speed training, there was no progressing to strength training…

There was no way I would be ready for when we went to invade the Soul Society. We had a ninja army and I was terrified that we were going to fail – more than that, I was scared that I would be the cause of that failure.

A solution was needed, but there were too many problems to choose from. What was left for me to do?

I laid on my futon, waiting out the world around me. There were no methods for me to get stronger, faster. Fighting was the best option. But going against Yoruichi was like running into a brick wall repeatedly. Nothing was going to come of it except pain. Any progress made would be dwarfed by, well, everyone I knew in this world. If I didn't get better soon I'd die and most likely take a group of innocent people with me.

It was while searching for a solution to this conundrum that I realized something. Every time so far that I was about to die, I figured something amazing out. Wait, no, that sounds stupid. Let me explain.

When I was fighting against the Hollows, I discovered an innate understanding of my sword. Somehow, I'd learned how to use a blade properly. At the same time, I learned how to enhance my van of supremacy into a flaming monster on wheels. This was also the first time I used hellfire in combat, though not with much personal control.

When I was fighting Omaeda, I discovered the ability to stand on air. I learned how to animate vehicles without touching them – several vehicles at a time, no less! And I began figuring out how to enhance mundane objects with the power of the Ghost Rider. The nail gun was a good example of that…

When I fought against Uryu, I figured out how to effectively reinforce my clothing into a durable armor. I figured out how to make a ranged attack from my Asauchi without even knowing my Zanpakuto's name. More than that, I learned that there wasn't much of a limitation to what I could reinforce or the extent I could reinforce it to. By reinforcing my wrist watch with the power of the Ghost Rider, I got a badass gauntlet!

Perhaps, I thought, maybe my problem wasn't with the training. Maybe Yoruichi was just going too easy on me. Maybe if I could convince Yoruichi to come at me with the intent to kill, I'd become stronger!

If I could convince the former head of the Soul Society's leading group of assassins to try murdering me in combat, if I could convince the infamous Goddess of the Flash to hit me with everything she had, maybe I'd become strong enough not to be a burden on my teammates!

…Yes, I realize my realization was fucktarded, but in all fairness I was desperate and out of options. As I shut my eyes and laid my weary head to rest, I did so with what I hoped was a plan that would pan out positively in the immediate future. I had five days left before the plan began. And when it did, I would be ready.

-x-

"Hit me with everything you've got." I said to her the next morning, "Don't hold back. Come at me like you're trying to kill me."

Yoruichi looked at me for a moment, "…Are you sure about this?"

"Absolutely positive," fuck no I was not. But if I didn't get better, I was going to die anyway. It was a choice between dying now when Orihime could resurrect me and dying in the Soul Society where that just wouldn't swing. I grinned with false confidence and bravado, "I want you to do your very best to destroy me."

Yoruichi looked like she just swallowed something incredibly sour, "This is a bad idea."

"It's a great idea. I have great ideas."

Another sigh, "You… You really don't." She didn't even shift into a fighting stance. She just stood there and watched me, "You get first move. Try to hit me, once. And every time you fail, I'll start going a little faster, and start hitting a little harder."

"Why the stipulation?" I asked, "Why not just hit me?"

The frown already present on her face deepened. "You should know by now and I was hoping you'd figure it out. I'm going with you on this operation, I'm effectively the team leader… you're an information broker and recruiter with a set of abilities that cannot be reliably called upon."

"Your point?"

"I'm not done. And you still don't understand." She shook her head, "There is a significant chance that you could harm your own allies, your information has been shoddy when placed in reality, but useful in hypotheticals, your plans have gotten us into more trouble than should be feasible… and our group is simply too large."

Then it started to click. "You… You're not trying to make me faster, are you?"

"I am," she replied in denial, "But when you combine all those other factors with how slow you are to build up, you're more a liability on this mission than a help. I was hoping you'd opt out, or quit, or volunteer to stay behind with Kisuke…" she took a deep breath, "I don't trust you, but I don't want you to die. And if I take you with us, there's as much a chance of you dying as there is a chance of you killing us all by complete accident."

"…But you're still training me."

A nod, "Of course I am. I told you that I would make you stronger and faster, so that is what I'm trying to do. But if this insane idea of yours doesn't work…?"

She left the rest of the sentence hanging. I knew what she was going to say. If I couldn't hit her, if I couldn't handle her, if I was wrong… then she'd do the smart thing and leave me behind. I had no reason to go with her; she had no reason to take me. This was my one chance to prove that bringing me with the group would be a good idea.

And there was no way for me to blame her, either. This was a legitimate judgment call and in her position, if I had someone with that many hang-ups wanting to come on a mission that could go pear-shaped at any moment, there was no way in hell would I consider letting them on board. In her position, I wouldn't be nearly as forgiving or lenient. If anything, she was being generous by offering me this one chance.

And I could quit…

…I could walk away…

……I could just surrender…

But if Yoruichi was training me because she said so, what kind of student would I be if I didn't follow that level of conviction? Didn't I say I would help Ichigo? He asked for my help, so if I turned away… if Yoruichi turned me away or if I gave up… I'd be turning my back on him, too, wouldn't I?

And I wanted to quit.

I wanted to walk away.

I wanted to just surrender.

But by god, there was no way in hell I'd be able to do it now. Even if it was a dumb decision on my part, even if I might regret it for the rest of my possibly short, painful life, if I turned my back on these people, I'd be living with the reality that I walked away when I could have helped – I all but asked for this to happen when I associated with Ichigo, when I went out to recruit a team to do this job… There was no backing out for me.

"Well, then," I shrugged. I was nervous as all hell and ready to die, but even after losing as many times as I had to her, I just couldn't afford to do that anymore. Even if the smarter thing would be to stay behind, even if I didn't want to go, I was fucking obligated. And I don't walk away from obligations. "If we're done with the trivial stuff… Let's get to me punching you in the face."

Yoruichi looked at me for a moment. With a brief flash of pride and a wistful smile, she gave a single nod. That was the only courtesy I received before the Goddess of the Flash tried to kill me.

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-22

 

[Ars Poetica]

I do Kubo better than Kubo. Don't hate me for it.

-x-

There was no dodging Yoruichi's kick to my head. The only thing I could do was bring up my left forearm to block it while using my right hand to draw my sword. Clearly, by the way she pushed herself off of my arm to spin her entire body around in a full-force punch to keep my blade sheathed, she disapproved.

If I drew my sword, I could try keeping her at bay, but she knew this. So far, I'd used all manner of tricks and subterfuge to attempt winning and all these attempts had, naturally failed. I was trying to cheat a woman who was the very best at fighting asymmetrically – it was an understatement to claim I was having trouble.

Her entire weight went behind her fist as she aimed to strike my gut, I stepped back to avoid the strike. It barely nicked my chin before continuing up in a circle of pulverization. I didn't see her other leg come up to hit my head, this time I couldn't block or dodge and found myself in the air.

I wouldn't let myself falter. Forming a platform beneath my feet, I leapt up to continue my ascent higher and interrupted Yoruichi's follow-up. Her attempt to knock me down turned into an attempt to kick me higher, a counter to my counter as it were.

Another platform was made, but this time, I formed it above me. The power of the Rider flew through my watch and, with my gauntlet; I blasted my way off of the platform to go down as quickly as I could. The power went to my legs to soften the landing. But now, Yoruichi was above me and coming down as well.

She was like a rocket, but this still wasn't outside the speed she had shown in our fights. I only lasted as long as I did so far because I was used to this speed of combat. The moment she increased her speed, I'd be in trouble.

I achieved what I'd failed to do earlier and made once again to draw my sword – I clenched my wrist in pain when her fist came into contact with it, again sheathing my sword before it could come all the way out. My Asauchi shook with the sudden force and I reeled back.

Another punch came at my mid-section. It took crossing my arms over the targeted area to block the attack, but it left my face open for another devastating punch. A tooth flew out of my mouth. But that was fine, I'd grow it back. This was only the… hundredth time that had happened to me while sparring with Yoruichi.

This was not a spar, however. My mind exploded into action as I tried to find a way to right my body, flying away from Yoruichi. In a literal flash, she was behind me and bringing down her leg to slam me into the ground. This is how our last spar ended.

Not this time.

I formed a platform in front of me, parallel to the earth, and reinforced it with the Rider's power. Never before had I tried reinforcing a spiritual construct like the panels that let me fly. An act of desperation caused inspiration and with that inspiration, I made a shield… that shattered like glass from the force of the kick. Was it a useless effort?

Of course not, I thought, it wasn't useless… it slowed Yoruichi's foot down enough for me to grab it. A platform formed beneath me before I could fall. This one, when I charged it, I made explode. As I was pushed up from the force of the blast, I held on to Yoruichi's leg.

Another platform exploded behind me as I swung her around. Once, twice, I held her as we spun in the middle of the air and picked up speed from the explosions. A final blast spun me to face the ground and only then did I let go, throwing her down to the earth with all the force I could muster.

She didn't travel far – only a few feet before she stopped herself with a well-placed platform and immediately jumped off of it and out of my line of sight. I was still in the air, spinning. There was no way to defend myself as she appeared above me. Each of her legs came down in rapid succession as she stomped me down further and further.

The barriers holding me up in an attempt to arrest my momentum broke once more. Burning spiritual glass rained as I finally hit the ground. Yoruichi didn't stop kicking, though. This was it, I realized. This was the difficulty spike. Steadily, she wasn't holding back. Because I was finally showing I could on some level suffer her attacks.

My hand wrapped around the sheath of my sword and I pushed the power of the Rider through. If she wouldn't let me unsheathe my sword the right way, then I'd punish her for that much. With an ear-bursting explosion of fire and noise, my sword rocketed out of the sheath to strike her abdomen. She leapt up and caught the handle. For a moment, she stood above me and held my unsheathed Zanpakuto.

As I steadily got out of the crater where I lay, I held the sword's sheath with one hand and ran the Rider's power through. Holding it, the thing was like a staff. So when a blade of pure fire extending the length of the sheath burst forth, I suddenly found myself wielding something resembling a spear.

I wrapped the fire tighter and tighter until it burnt white and blue with power, changing from its red color. With every swing I made, it hummed as it burned through the spirit particles in the air – and perhaps even the air itself. I grinned widely and positioned myself better. Already, my instincts were guiding me. Or was it the instincts of the sword itself?

Yoruichi raised an eyebrow, "You turned your sheath into a flaming nagamaki."

"…I prefer calling it a lightsaber, but that works too." I leapt up and swung the blade of fire down at her.

With ease, she blocked it with the blunt edge of my Asauchi, "Your Ghost Rider's power is bullshit." She deadpanned. She parried my nagamaki and struck me in the side before spinning around so the edge faced the other side of my body. Barely, I brought my fire sword, my lightsaber down to block my own sword, "But I shouldn't be complaining. In a way, I'm worse." She almost chuckled.

A step and she flashed behind me once more, but I flashed behind her with my flaming boots to strike. She was already six paces above me and coming down again with my sword, a sword she was wielding with contemptuous ease… The blade came down again, a surgical strike. This time, she aimed the blade at my collar bone to cut me open vertically. The sheath blocked the strike, barely.

I could see why she thought that. When I went on a counter offensive, she blocked my every attack. But when she aimed to hit me, I felt strike after strike land on my body. Reinforcing my clothes with the power of the rider protected my arms and legs and body, but only by so much.

Flames flicked all over me as I converted piece after piece of cloth into armor, into shields, into protection. I couldn't block her attacks with my sheath, not all of them. And any counter attack I sent at her with my flaming sword of white-hot destruction was either completely dodged or blocked entirely.

I almost forgot, though, that my sword was made of fire. And fire didn't just go in one direction. Fire spread. My hands went to the bottom of my sheath and I swung a massive arc of flame away from me. Instead of dodging like I expected her to, Yoruichi stood there and brought my sword down.

With one strike, she cleaved my attack down the middle and she stood completely unharmed. "Nice try." She said with her mouth. "But not good enough." She said with my sword, hitting the sheath with enough force to almost knock if from my hands.

Fire blasted out the bottom of the sheath and exploded me away from her. For a moment, I rocketed in the opposite direction, using the fire of the sheath to dodge her. Suddenly, I had a new ride. Suddenly, I could use something other than my van of victory to attack her.

The sheath, already black, turned into a rocket and propelled me at her. I rode this thing with as much proficiency as I could; forming small platforms to jump off of or turn into ramps while fire propelled me forward. I was going faster, I realized, than I ever had. But Yoruichi was still faster.

And every so often, when I spun around to swing the sheath down and strike her with fire, she would block it, she would dodge it, or she would try to knock me off – only in the final endeavor would she fail. But on the third attempt, I felt something cut me deeply.

My gut bled from the penetrating blade, but it didn't go far. Penetrating my shirt, reinforced with the power of the Rider at the last second had saved me from death and slowed the blade enough not to skewer me. But I knew if she pulled down, I would die. My sheath exploded me away before that, but the force of the blade pulling out of me ripped a scream from my mouth.

I righted myself and sat on the sheath in as comfortable a position as I could manage. It was like the thing was a flying broomstick, but more awesome. My hand, held at my gut, dripped with crimson. I…. I had almost died. I was almost killed by my own sword. How the hell did that work, even? Weren't Zanpakuto not supposed to do that to their wielders?

…but I wasn't really a wielder of that blade, was I? I didn't know its name, so why would it protect me? And had I even bothered to ask for the blade's name? Was it worth trying at this point?

Well, of course it was worth trying. What, was I going to just give up after I bled from one hit? Was I just going to quit after I'd come so far? She was going harder on me than she ever had and I was already doing a damn good job fighting her! No way was I backing down after one hit like that. Not now! Not ever!

I couldn't keep running away, though. Somehow, in the midst of this fight, I had started to charge multiple objects with the Rider's power. My sheath was one object, and my shirt was another. So what I needed now was a weapon. With that in mind, my flaming gauntlet formed from my wrist watch.

With the high ground and my sheath as my steed, I would joust Yoruichi with a fist of fire. When I flew down to strike her, she was ready. My blade came up to stop me, but I wouldn't let it. I spun to let it pass beneath my sheath. I extended two fingers and focused all the power I could grasp into that small point.

Would this do it? Would piercing her with fire coming ever faster do the trick? I really hoped so, because there was no turning back now. There was no turning back now! With all my heart, I pushed forward with an attack that I knew would work to hurt her on some level. And why would it not? This was an attack that felled giant robots.

"[[BURNING FINGER!!]]"​

I felt it hit something solid and pass straight through. Did I get her? Did I hit Yoruichi? I didn't entertain the slightest notion of killing her, but I'm pretty sure I hit her… My eyes widened as I realized that her orange jacket was gone. I'd just wasted a super-awesome attack and she was completely unharmed and… she was right in front of me.

The blade came down to strike me. When I redirected my power, it was to my shirt to absorb the blow. Even then, the blade cut through and struck my back, crashing me into the ground. My shirt had shattered, leaving me only in my jeans and covered in my blood. My skin was already bruising. Still, I held out. Still, I stood slowly.

Panting, I admitted something that had been bothering me since the moment the fight had taken a turn for the worse. "You're using my sword better than I ever did…" It hurt me to admit that, but it was true.

Yoruichi jumped back and stood still for a moment. She stared at me, silently. Without warning, she started laughing. It was a full, no-holds-barred laugh, like she heard the funniest thing in the world, "Oh… Oh that's rich… Hah… Hehe…"

"What's so funny?" I raised an eyebrow. I shouldn't have been surprised at how well she was using that thing, anyway. Yoruichi had been a Shinigami for years – centuries, even. I shouldn't have been so surprised that she was outclassing me with my own sword… envious, sure, but not surprised.

"You mean you don't know?" she asked me.

"Don't know what?" I panted. The power of the Rider was slowly healing my back. If I could keep her talking for a few more moments, maybe I would heal enough to keep fighting. Maybe I would heal enough to hit her. Maybe I'd be able to win this fight…

"Poe, Kisuke doesn't just have Asauchi hanging around for no reason." She said to me. "I can't think of anyone who does that."

No. No way in hell. "Then…"

"I'm wielding this blade better than you because it's not your Zanpakuto… it's mine."

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-23

 

[Ars Poetica]

Win the unwinnable, heal the unhealable, row-row, blessed with suckage.

-x-

"It's mine."

Her words echoed in my mind again and again, they just wouldn't leave. With those two words alone, I felt my heart stop. A cold feeling washed over me. I was not going to win this fight, I suddenly knew. I was going to get my ass handed to me and nothing I did would stop that from happening. This was not a winnable battle.

Still, though rendered silent at this note, I considered the positives. I considered what positives I could find. No matter how disadvantaged I was against Yoruichi on every level, she clearly lacked an attachment to her Zanpakuto. She did not know its name. I hoped she didn't know its name.

And if she did not know its name, she could not suddenly become stronger with her blade. I still had to worry about her infamous Shunko, I still had to worry about her speed, but in a strange way I was not worried about my sword – her sword. It was never mine to begin with.

The sword that introduced me to a world of fighting monsters and kicking ass, surviving through thick and thin, the blade that I felt more attachment to than anything I actually owned before the start of this journey…

…I was worried about my sword. The symbiotic blade that probably felt more of my being and the being of the Rider than any other object or weapon or tool outside my van of incredibility, that blade had some level of sentience and it was never mine to begin with but now it was being used against me after all I went through with it – was this what Shinigami felt like if their swords were taken from them?

Was what I felt at that moment, that pain, that loss, that sense of betrayal, was that what it felt like to have my own sword turned against me so easily? Did the sword feel anything? Did it even flinch? Was it smart enough to understand what had now transpired? The sword with a name I wanted it to tell me, did it ever intend to do that from the start?

…it didn't, did it?

I was just the thing it would hang onto until it found its owner again. I was a temporary fix to its need for someone to wield it. Knowing that made what I planned to do easier, in a way. Not by much, but by enough.

Fire surged through my body, healing my injuries and revitalizing me. A burst of flame encircled my legs, my arms, and suddenly I was a burning man. My rage saw through. How dare she, I thought. How dare it. How dare they? They tricked me, I was being used by my own weapon, the thing I thought of as a partner, and it just left me–

My surge of speed must have been a terrifying thing to behold. In one hand, I held the sheath spurting a saber of fire. The other hand was a gauntlet of death. Anger, fury, vengeance guided my strength. For betraying me, I would fight with all I had. I would have revenge here and they would weep.

Striking with my sword wasn't enough, I realized after she blocked it again. So I started punching her with my other hand. The sheath when used as a weapon was never meant for only one hand, it required two. So I stopped using it as a weapon and started using it to go faster.

The sheath would be a club to strike her; the fire spurting from the back would propel me faster than any Shunpo. Mine was a wordless scream of anger and pain. That sword, I shouldn't have felt so attached to it. But it felt like a part of me was gone and Yoruichi wasn't just the cause, she was the mastermind, and she needed to–

What? What did she need to do?

Her knee hit my abdomen, but I did not falter. Her eyes went wide in realization as I took her attack, an attack that would normally stop me cold, and kept going. The Spirit of Vengeance… of course this righteous fury would empower me, embolden me, strengthen me.

I was gaining an advantage and she knew it. I was going to beat a Captain-class Shinigami into the ground and she wouldn't be able to stop me. I was going to win. I was going to break them. All that anger, all that fury, it all went into my every attack.

Even when she impaled me with what was once my own sword, I did not stop. I just swung down to decapitate her. Yoruichi dodged, but I was on the move. I would get her. I would – she detonated into light and sound and hit me harder than I'd ever been hit before. My every wound once healed, they had reopened and bled all over. The ground was drenched in liquid pain as she pulverized me.

More power came to me, more than I'd ever drawn upon before, more of the Rider's strength burned and roasted its way to the forefront and I… I suddenly stopped and vomited gore, collapsing to my knees. My body couldn't handle it. This was too much too fast and I was breaking down from it.

Just like that, all the power disappeared from me. The fire from my sheath went out and I fell again. This time, I didn't get up. This time, I didn't move. A blade stabbed into the ground next to my head. It was half-melted, chipped away at, and broken. The handle was thrown on the opposite side of me, just within my range of sight.

Yoruichi looked at me from above as I lied on my back and stared up at the ceiling of the training area. Her head looked upside-down to me. I couldn't quite make out the expression on her face through the sheer pain I felt. My vision was blurring. Was this from blood loss?

"Your little hissy fit broke my sword." She said to me, "I… don't know what to feel about that," a sigh. She rubbed the back of her head.

"Did…" I coughed, "Did I win…?"

She held her hand up to me – the hand that once held the destroyed Zanpakuto. "When you broke my sword, you cut my palm." Indeed, it was bleeding. "You hit me. If we were fighting to the death, you'd be a goner. But you hit me, so…"

"…if…?"

"Yeah, if. What, you thought I was going to try killing you? You thought I'd just murder you like," she snapped her fingers, "That? Don't be an idiot. If you thought that a near-death experience could make you stronger, I just needed to simulate one."

"…that… that was you… pretending to go hard on me…?"

Her look was an amused deadpan, "Kid, I'm so far above your level that it's ridiculous."

"…I wasn't supposed to win, was I?"

"No. You weren't."

"But now you're taking me."

She looked stunned at the idea, the notion, "What? You… You can't even win against me when I'm barely trying. You managed to hurt me only one time and look at the state you're in. The Captains in the Soul Society would destroy you if they had the chance. And you still want to go? You still want to fight them?"

"…I have to."

"You really don't!" she protested, "You really, seriously don't."

I don't know how I found the strength to grin. "…I do."

She couldn't believe it. I'd genuinely left her flatfooted in what was either the best or worst way. And before she could reply to what I'd said, before she could do anything to deter me, I passed out from pain and blood loss.

-x-

I won. Well, I lost, but I also won. Yoruichi was right when she said I'd have died if she was taking me seriously, but even so, I managed to hit her. So that was… a good thing? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, I passed her challenge for achieving the right to go to the Soul Society. On the other hand, I wasn't supposed to.

On the one hand, I lost my sword, had a mental breakdown, and destroyed it in a fit of rage. On the other hand, it never was my sword to begin with and that need for revenge let me win an unwinnable fight. Hurray blind fury? There were lots of things I could have thanked, really.

For example, I could have thanked the power of the Ghost Rider. And yet I didn't want to thank the power of the Ghost Rider. My fight with Yoruichi all but started with me calling him a crutch, and what did I do? Instead of trying to find my own strength, my own ability, I just… leaned on the Spirit of Vengeance until it gave way.

And boy did it give…

It was like I went against myself to win. I didn't use my power. I didn't have any power. I just had the power of the Ghost Rider and that was it. What made me so angry? I guess what made me furious was the fact that I thought I had something of my own, something that wasn't the Ghost Rider's. I thought I had a Zanpakuto. I thought I could be like one of the Shinigami.

And instead, I just…

Did I need to apologize? Did I need to say I was sorry for winning that fight? Did I do something wrong, objectively? I went against my word. But I didn't really… I just said I didn't like using the Rider's power, because it wasn't my power, but I didn't have any power, so what was the problem here?

Why was I so pissed off?

I climbed out of the futon and checked myself. Orihime did good work, apparently. Injuries that would have taken me over a week to heal with the power of the Rider took only seconds when she came into play. So… why was I so exhausted? It was like I ran a marathon. My muscles all hurt, my legs wobbled with every step. What the hell happened to me?

"Oh, hey… You're not supposed to be out of bed." I turned to look at the speaker. Ichigo was standing in the hallway – when did I stumble into the hallway – and he looked at me, "You don't look that good…"

"I'll be fine… I just… I just need more time…" I was panting. Why was I so tired? Why was I so out of it? "I need…" I collapsed again.

"H-Hey! Poe!"

I shut my eyes.

-x-

The next time my eyes opened, Shishigawara was standing over my bed on one side. Opposite him, Ichigo was by the door. Urahara was next to him. "Well…" I drawled, "Aren't I popular?"

I wasn't hurting anymore, but when I made to move, Shishigawara pushed me down, "Oi! Don't move!"

Pain. Just the sensation of him pushing me back into the futon sent ripples of agony through my entire body. I wanted to throw up just from how much it hurt to move. It wasn't that I stopped hurting; I was just completely numb from the pain of it all.

My face was frozen in a look of twisting, nauseous pain. Why was this happening to me? Oh god why was this happening?! "Haaaaaahh…!" I exhaled through a clenched jaw, "Hookaay… Holy… Hoohohooly shiiit…!"

"You feeling alright there, Poe?" Urahara asked me.

"Nnn," I sputtered, "Nnnnever better!"

"That pain you're feeling right now is normal," Urahara explained, "After all, you basically ran the equivalent of paper cuts through the – what could I call them? Imagine veins and arteries in your body that channel spiritual energy." He calmly gestured with his hands, "Now imagine shoving a rusty nail through them. Sear the wounds shut. Then do it again. Twice." He smiled at me, "That's what you did with Yoruichi."

"Oh… Oh god ow…"

"Yeah, see, it is amazing how little Orihime's healing helps you when the damage is temporal." Urahara nodded, "You hurt yourself so badly, that your injuries warped time. And yes, spiritual energy can do this. You're a dimensional traveler, so you probably know what the Dangai is, yes?"

I knew. I would have told him I knew, but I was kind of squirming in horrific agony at the moment. I settled for a strangled nod in his general direction.

"Great! Well, apparently, while you were crossing through dimensions, you gained a wonderful power. The more severely injured you are, the harder it is to reverse time on you. Isn't that awesome! You have a unique power, all your own, that in no way involves this Spirit of Vengeance. And it makes you the only member of the team who Orihime can't bring back from the dead. Or from near-death. Or from crippling. Or from…" he shrugged, "Well, you get the point. So while you're lying there for the rest of the week, I want you to think about this moment."

I didn't want powers anymore. I didn't want my own superpowers. I didn't ask for this!

Time to master the Ghost Rider! No more of this shit! No more of this pain!

"I want you to remember what happens when you overtax yourself. When you use too much of the Rider's power… you basically shut down. You get to die, Poe. Physical injuries might be healed, but the spiritual ones in particular will last and, eventually, kill you." Urahara started stepping out the door, "Just remember that, Poe. And congratulations, you're going to the Soul Society."

With that backhanded comment, I fell unconscious again. I was getting really sick of passing out.

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-24

 

[Ars Poetica]

To thank you for waiting patiently, here's the longest update I've written for this story done a day sooner than anticipated.

-x-

I lived by the philosophy that there was no such thing as good news or bad news, just news in general. In spite of this, I would often ask others what the 'good news' or 'bad news' was, largely because I found it harder to ask them just for the 'news' in general. And why was this?

People, I found, thought in pros and cons. Even a person like me, who believed solely in the concept of 'news' thought in what was good or bad… was this inherently bad? I have no idea. How did this relate to my situation? Well, I had good news and I had bad news.

When my body healed, I began to assess my situation. My trip through dimensions had definitely given me an interesting power. The more injured I was, the less affected my body and soul were by space-time phenomena. This, naturally, included Orihime's ability to heal me…

Surface scratches were easy enough, but a waste of her time. So the only injuries that would be worth her time would, largely, not be healable by her. This made me the one member of our team being sent to the Soul Society that could not be healed if crippled, that could not be resurrected if slain.

This power of mine was awful. It would only work if I was severely injured and what it achieved was, at best, terrible. I could still be shot in the head, for example, and that would kill me. It was a very specific immunity for very specific circumstances. I held no illusions of its potential uses.

My ability, the ability that I had and the Rider did not, this power was worthless.

And speaking of the Rider, there were problems on that front. First, I could only access his full power in absolute darkness while imminent death was present. Absolute darkness and imminent death were the two necessary causes to yield the Ghost Rider in combat. Doing this would win the fight, but the chances of those circumstances coming to fruition were ridiculous.

Worse, after these unlikely circumstances came into being, I would be incapable of controlling myself or the Rider. There was nothing preventing the Ghost Rider from turning on my own allies if it saw fit to. Naturally, I objected to this. If I was going to enter a fight, I wanted to be in control of myself.

This left me an alternative option.

I could draw upon portions of the Ghost Rider's power. Using it, I could reinforce inanimate objects, my clothing, or even the weapons I held. With vehicles, my reach extended even further and let me animate them from a distance. Vehicles I spent time with more frequently, such as my super-mega-awesome van would become stronger and gain more 'intelligence'. Those vehicles would presumably repair themselves and come to my aid when called.

This had another slew of issues. First, hellfire was volatile. In the hands of the Ghost Rider, it was a tool no different than a hammer and incapable of harming the innocent. In my hands, that hellfire was just fire. And fire burns. In my hands, I could hurt a lot of people with that power. So often, in the event of a fight, I would have to be careful not to harm civilians. I hadn't done a good job of that so far, but I was working on it.

The second issue was how I increased my strength. Constant situations involving imminent death had boosted the amount of power I could call on. But if I called on too much power, I would badly hurt myself. Indeed, the more power I called on, the more likely I would die before I killed the opponent who pushed me to those new heights.

Even if I won, I would leave myself wide open for other enemies to finish the job. If we were going to the Soul Society where such a thing was a very real possibility, I couldn't afford to pull on too much power. So, I had to be careful. I needed to learn my limitations and stick to them without going overboard.

Could I do that? Sure, I could do that. But would I?

…I had no idea. The Soul Society would be a very different animal than anything I had ever encountered. I was sure that my fight with Yoruichi had ultimately left me stronger, but there was no way I was on the level of several of the opponents I would face. There was no way I was strong enough to combat someone with their Bankai out.

Captains could and most likely would kill me. This limited my fights to their lieutenants, the Vice-Captains. Could I fight them? I ran a list through my mind as I got dressed. First Division Vice-Captain, I had no clue. Supposedly, he was on the level of a Captain, but Ichigo beat him bare-handed in the first timeline. Also, he had Bankai. So he was automatically out.

I'd already fought Omaeda. Now that I'd gotten stronger… well, at this stage in the game, I was certain a rematch between us would go a lot differently. So that was two down, ten to go… or something like that. Who was next? Third Division Vice-Captain… Kira, was it?

Right, no Bankai, but he could double the weight of whatever he hit. So if I used my… sword…

I paused. My upper body wrapped in bandages, I was halfway through putting on a T-shirt when I realized something crucial. I didn't have a sword. I had no sword. "Hey, boss!" I called for Urahara as I walked out of my room, "Can we talk?"

-x-

"She was telling the truth," Urahara explained. "I don't just have Asauchi laying around for anybody to use. I just gave you her sword because it was useless to her."

I sighed, "Great. Looks like I'm going to the Soul Society unarmed, then…"

"Not necessarily." He pointed to the empty sheath hanging from my belt. "You were able to effectively turn that sheath into its own weapon, a strong focus for your powers at that."

A frown crossed my face. He had a point. The Rider's power had turned the sheath into a rocket, a lightsaber, and a flamethrower all rolled into one, neat package. Combine that with just how damn light the thing was and that made it into a fast, terrifying weapon. A weapon that required skill with a spear as much as a sword – it was something between the two, certainly.

As a weapon, though, was it better than a sword? Well, sort of. The thing was useful, don't get me wrong, but even with an instinctual understanding of how it worked, it would take years of training to become sufficiently proficient in it and – the problem with the sword/spear/thing was that it was a very strange weapon. And very strange weapons do not have many masters on the count of them being… strange.

Anything I learned with this sword-sheath would be learned either by accident or by trial and error. A long road was ahead of me and I didn't want to deal with the issue. I just wanted a weapon somebody could teach me how to use. I wanted something simple, but not too dumb, something effective, but… "What about Bankai?"

"What about it?"

"Well," I licked my lips, "What if I need a power boost and want to up the strength of my sheath? I don't get a Bankai to do that, do I?"

"Poe… you're not even a Shinigami. I don't know what you are, but you're so different… if your sheath has a Bankai to be achieved, then you won't be achieving it. You just don't have the time, the patience, or the ability."

"…Ow," I murmured, "That… Ouch. Aren't you supposed to say "You can do it, Poe!" or "Just keep trying, Poe!"? Because that… that hurt."

"I don't want to get your hopes up." Kisuke shifted, "Listen, the Ghost Rider is powerful. But you're… not. Not really. Maybe, eventually, you will be. But I don't think that will entail you getting a Bankai."

"Oh. Well. Okay…"

"You remember how to make a fire sword, right? Shouldn't that be enough?"

I shrugged, "Sort of, until you consider that the strongest fire user in existence lives in the Soul Society. Oh, and the strongest ice user. I'm kind of boned if things go south… just saying."

Urahara exhaled through his nose before taking a breath. "Poe… the odds of you fighting the Head Captain are ridiculously low. It's just not going to happen. As for the strongest ice-user…" His brow scrunched in thought, "That's the new Captain, the one for the Tenth Division, right?" I nodded, "You… probably won't fight him."

"Boss, out of everyone going right now, I'm the weakest link. Fire sword or not, if I'm caught, I'm dead. I need something to keep me safe from that."

He looked at me for a hard moment. "…You're serious." His eyes were narrow, his grin was gone, "If I do this…"

"I'll owe you another favor?" I asked him, "You gave me food, clothes, and shelter. I have the metaphorical sword, now I need a literal shield. You gave me a chariot," I gestured to my mythical van of awesomeness, "This is the last thing I'll ask for, and we both know it."

"…I get the sense you're just pressing me for nice things."

"NO! No, no, no, no, no…! No…" I waved my hands at him.

Urahara raised an eyebrow, "…So…?"

"I just don't want to die."

"I'll see you downstairs, Poe."

-x-

"And how much more ungrateful could he get? After all the things I do around here…"

Shishigawara just stared, "Like what, sir?"

"I move boxes!"

"We haven't let you do that since you stole Kon." Tessai informed us both.

"I supply information!"

"Information that has been consistently wrong is worse than no information at all."

"I…" I was running out of things I did. "I drive really well?"

"That sounds like a question that I do not want to answer."

"I eat food cleanly?"

"You threw up on me the first day you woke up."

"I've got swag."

"…You what."

"You heard me," I nodded, "I've got swag. I don't need to be right. I just need to be myself. Shishigawara! Take a note," I addressed him, "Be yourself: don't be the "you" that others wish you were, be the "you" that you wish you could be by being that wish… you."

"Are you… trying to be deep?" Shishigawara asked.

"That advice sounds awful." Grumbled Tessai as he adjusted his apron – speaking of aprons…!

"Hey, Tessai-"

"Boss." He corrected me.

"Yeah, that. Can I get a new apron? Uryu broke mine."

"…He broke your apron?" Tessai stopped what he was doing, "How does one break an apron?"

"Spirit arrows, man," I shrugged, "How do they fucking work? And while we're talking about clothes, I came here in a hoodie…" Someone handed the thing to me… and an apron, "Oh, hey, thanks!"

Uryu raised an eyebrow. He was looking… better. "You're welcome."

Looking around the massive area that was Urahara's basement, I started to notice something. "We're all here… Is today the day?" I asked out loud, "I thought we had more time…"

"You slept for several days," Orihime explained, "We were worried you wouldn't wake up in time for the, uh…"

"Operation? Mission? Excursion? Or, well, incursion depending on how you look at it…" I petered off from there.

"This is an invasion force being sent to rescue Rukia Kuchiki and eliminate Aizen Sosuke as a threat." Tessai explained, "The former is our necessary goal, the latter is secondary."

"Huh?" I blinked, "Wait, what exactly is the plan?" I inquired as I put on my white work apron and black hoodie, "And why are there crosses on these things?"

Tessai frowned, "We didn't… Oh, right, of course we didn't tell you…" He breathed, "Our plan is relatively simple. Upon entering the Soul Society, our goal is to extract Rukia while having Aizen Sosuke reveal himself as the mastermind of a conspiracy spanning over a century. If Aizen is revealed, Rukia's name will be cleared and this rescue mission will turn into an assassination mission."

"So… we're gonna ice a dead guy?" Shishigawara asked. He looked at me, "You cool with this, sir?"

"I couldn't be cooler with it if I tried." I answered, "Aizen is, put simply, a monster. He plans to create something called a King's Key. What does it do, you might be asking me, that doesn't sound so terrifying, you might be saying to yourselves… Well, it's a key to God. Literally, capital "G" God, the Lord… but Shinigami call him the Spirit King. Aizen plans to overthrow the God by making a key to his palace. Unfortunately, that key can only be made with the souls of a lot of people." I gestured around me, "Specifically, Karakura Town."

"That's… awful." Orihime breathed.

"All the more reason to stop this guy, right?" Ichigo asked, stepping into the conversation for the first time. "I just want to save Rukia, and I don't just want to kill this Aizen guy… I don't even know him. But if what you're saying is true, he has to be stopped." And saving Rukia, something he already intended to do, would stop Aizen cold.

"That is a quick summary of Aizen's main goal, but what you must all understand is that he cannot be fought directly." Tessai continued where I left off, "Aizen holds the ability to absolutely hypnotize anyone who makes eye contact with his sword in its released state. If he calls the name of his blade, "Suigetsu", assume he has you under his control. At that point, he could have you fight your comrades as easily as he could have you chasing ghosts – fictitious ghosts, of course."

"Of course," I drawled.

"At that point, the best possible thing you can do is stand still. You already lost when he hypnotized you, but we know that he cannot wrest the will of those he is controlling from them – in other words, he can manipulate your senses, but he cannot manipulate you as a person. Not with his sword."

"If you see a nice looking guy with brown hair, glasses, and the kanji for "five" on his jacket, run like hell." I said, "Even without that absolute hypnosis ability, he is bullshit. This guy would kill you all in seconds if you were a real nuisance to him. But he'd be worse if he had the Hogyoku which is currently inside of Rukia."

"…The what?" Shishigawara looked lost.

Urahara coughed, "Actually… it's not."

"…What do you mean? I thought the plan was-" I stopped asking when he interrupted me.

"Poe," he said to me, "The plan you made was asinine and foolish. When you arrived, I put a decoy Hogyoku inside of Rukia instead of the real thing. Tessai and I will be keeping guard over it while you're all gone. Aizen's goal, right now, is to steal a certain item sealed inside of Rukia. He thinks it will help him in his mission to Godhood. It's actually a spirit particle detonator designed to explode as soon as he tries using it."

"Ohoho…" I chuckled, "That's evil."

"No," he corrected me, "Aizen's about as evil as you can get in this world. I could molest his children and it would be morally acceptable." He addressed us all, "The man is a maniac willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals. He will betray his own allies, murder any man, woman, or child in his way – do not grab his attention, do not engage him in combat, and do not let him win."

"On that cheery note, we get back to the actual plan." I smiled, "What was it, again?"

"Yoruichi will be leading you into the Soul Society after you go through the Dangai. Upon entry, you will be met by at least one of Suì-Fēng's men and guided to a nearby safehouse. From there, phase two will begin. Normally, we would attempt an aerial entry of the Seireitei," the Court of Pure Souls, the center of the Soul Society, "However, with Suì-Fēng's assistance; you will be entering through the sewage pipes."

"Like Mario?"

"…Like Mario." He sighed, "Phase three will begin as you make your way to Rukia's location, and acquire her. Lastly, we have phase four where you exit out through the way you came in and bring her to the safehouse where she will remain under surveillance while Aizen searches for her. In his attempts to find her, Suì-Fēng will "discover" Aizen's questionable ties to a local crime syndicate…"

"…Wait," I held up a hand, "We're framing Aizen with afterlife mob ties?"

"If we can't find actual evidence of the things he's done, this is our plan B. Plan A would entail Suì-Fēng succeeding at the impossible."

"…This plan is shit." He looked at me when I said this, "No, really. When I think about it, this plan is dumb. What's the real plan? The one you're not telling us about?" his frown turned almost stern. I should probably have stopped talking, "Because you do stuff like that all the time." Mouth, stop tickling furry unicorns and be quiet, "I'm actually losing faith in you and this work environment!"

Long, awkward silence followed. Shishigawara raised his hand, "So, uh, there's a bad guy, and he kidnapped a girl, and the people we're messing with don't know he's the bad guy, so in order to save the girl we have to expose the bad guy… as being a bad guy." He nodded, satisfied with himself, "Yeah… I guess the plan's not shit, the whole thing is shit."

Urahara's sigh was deep and full of pain, "It is. Any chance we have of exposing Aizen relies on us making him think we're giving him the Hogyoku. So far, we have reason to believe he's bought into that. But there exists a very real possibility that he will discover our plan. So the real plan is to pretend to try rescuing Rukia. There's no way we'll succeed, he won't let us."

"…Let?" asked Ichigo, "Like giving us permission? How much control does Aizen have, Hat 'n clogs?" That's the first time I'd ever heard Ichigo call the shopkeeper by that name. It was a nice thing.

"Well…" Urahara trailed, "He has enough that we're not actually going to succeed at getting Rukia out of the Seireitei without him getting involved. Most likely, Aizen will succeed at acquiring the Hogyoku when Rukia is about to be executed, so that's our best bet of taking him down. Everything we do from this moment forward is designed to convince him that he's after the real Hogyoku."

"…so we don't really have to do anything. We just show up, survive, and tell everyone we're saving Rukia." I cross my arms and lean back onto a nearby rock, "That… actually sounds kind of brilliant." And when Aizen took the fake Hogyoku with him and tried to use it, the thing would detonate. The explosion might not kill the man, but it would definitely hamper any army he tried to construct. So fighting the Espada would probably go much better this time around than in the original story.

"And you won't even be lying," Urahara smiles, "If all goes well, Rukia will survive this. Even if Aizen kills her, Orihime can bring her back to life. Rukia would be saved while Aizen would lose a major weapon needed for his plans…" And the names of everyone who was victimized by Aizen's schemes and still breathed would be cleared, for the most part.

"That's all well and good," Uryu at last interjected, "But how will we be getting to the Soul Society?"

Urahara turned and started walking away from us, "Well, normally I'd have your bodies be converted into spiritual energy so you could go there, but we happen to have an easier solution." He tapped his hand against my van of travelling, "Poe's van has been modified to survive a lot of things. Instead of converting your bodies, this van will ferry you all to the Soul Society – no conversion necessary." His grin matched mine.

All at once, everyone in the room looked at me, "Kisuke…" Yoruichi had remained the most silent of all of us. For her to speak now, it must have been very important. "You're having Poe drive us to the Soul Society?"

"Yup!" his answer was about as cheery as possible.

"Best… roadtrip… ever…" My grin was about as wide as it was going to get. This was a good day to travel through the Dangai.

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-25

 

[Ars Poetica]

Oh Mama... Tell your children...

-x-

"It should be important to note," Urahara explained, "The Dangai warps space and time. Poe already experienced some of that, but you need to understand there is a very real likelihood of time travel." He looked at me, "That being said, Poe, don't stop. Just hold your foot on the pedal and don't let go."

My smile couldn't get much wider, but it was the sentiment that counted. "No brakes?"

"No breaks," Urahara confirmed. The sound that elicited from me was a squeal, not unlike the sound a teapot made when the water boiled.

Ichigo just stared at me, "Uh… are you alright, Poe?"

"I… have never been more spectacular." That was all I really needed to say, wasn't it?

He took a step back with slightly widened eyes, "Okaaaaay…"

Urahara continued as though uninterrupted, "Upon entry into the Soul Society, Yoruichi will assist with the landing if it becomes necessary. Now–"

"Let's get in the Mystery Machine, gang!" I cried as I pulled open the door and hopped in the driver's seat. I checked my dashboard and noticed a discrepancy, "Hold on, where's Kon?"

"The mod soul?" Urahara asked, "He'll be covering for Ichigo while he's gone."

"Oh. Huh." I considered saluting the hula girl on his journey through the darkness that was Ichigo's life and Urahara's business of defending the city from filler foes and, "Okay! Everyone, get in the fucking van! We're on a road trip to the afterlife!"

They piled into the extended van of awesome. Miraculously, there was still plenty of leg space. Yoruichi sat on my left. "You know what you're doing, right? You're not going to crash into the wall or anything…"

"Yoruichi," I glanced at her, "Do you have so little faith in me?"

The look in her eyes was answer enough. I just laughed.

"…Miss Orihime, I'm scared."

"I'm scared, too Shishikawara."

"…My name is–!"

What a fascinating conversation. I floored it as soon as Urahara had a portal open.

-x-

"So… what were you guys all scared about, anyway?" Ichigo asked Orihime and Shishigawara, "This isn't that bad."

"It could be a little less bumpy," mused Uryu, "But as we're travelling between dimensions in a van, I shouldn't be complaining."

"You guys don't get it! He's a monster! A maniac!" Shishigawara attempted to explain, "When I was in the van, he… He…"

"Vans don't fly." Orihime said simply, "Why, then, can he make them fly?"

"They don't drive on rivers, either!" Shishigawara snapped. "Any second now, we're going to be upside down, on fire, screaming…" He looked pale, his eyes were wide, "Vans aren't supposed to work like that…"

Phasing out the conversation behind us, I just kept my eyes on the road ahead of us. Yoruichi occasionally stared at me. After a few minutes of that, I felt my patience vanish, "What? What is it?"

"You're… not doing anything strangely…"

"Huh?"

"I mean, you're just driving in a straight line."

"Yes. And?"

"Why?"

I considered stopping the van to rant at her, but Urahara told me not to. So… yeah, "We're in a space between space, a time before and after time, and you're suggesting I try running us into a wall?"

Yoruichi shook her head, "No, no, no! I mean… Usually, when you drive, it gets…"

"Safe? Comfortable? Excellent?"

"Hectic."

"My road trips are an acquired taste."

"The point is… why are you just driving without, well, doing what you normally do?"

I considered how to answer that. "Well," I began, "Let's think about how I got here. Dimensional travel. I don't want to re-experience that, or inflict that experience on anybody else. Because so far? This has sucked balls."

"It can't have been that bad…"

"I've gotten the shit beaten out of me more times in the past two weeks than I have in my entire life. Every day, something bad has happened to me or has involved me. Dimensional travel is bullshit that nobody should have to deal with."

"So you're driving carefully because you don't want to do it again?"

"Pssshh! Nah… I just don't have to make any turns. Drive straight. Easiest thing in the world," I leaned back, "All I need to do is keep this on cruise control and–"

"Oh my god, hands on the wheel, now."

"Huh? But I…"

"Hands. Wheel. Now."

-x-

"We've been driving for…" I checked the clock, "An hour. How have we been driving for an hour?"

"Time moves differently in the Dangai." Yoruichi waved me off, "This isn't as unusual as you'd think. We'll be there shortly."

"If you say so." I said with a shrug, "Hey, I've got a magic radio. Any genre requests?"

Ichigo shrugged, "Anything's fine. It's way too quiet in here."

"Rap!" Shishigawara called.

"Classical," suggested Uryu.

Orihime grinned, "Something European."

I looked at Yoruichi, "Anything?"

"Techno. Fusion, preferably."

"…Seriously?" I just looked at her, "Seriously?"

She shrugged, "Techno has a good beat to it."

I bit my lip, "Okay, uh…" I thought about it, "Let's listen to a classic. Something that everyone in the world knows by heart…" I turned on the radio.

I don't wanna be a chicken, I don't wanna be a duck, so I shake my butt…

"No!" Yoruichi smacked the back of my head.

In response, I turned off the radio. "Okay. No music, then. That's fine, too." We were still driving. For fifteen minutes, silence passed. "Hey, uh, Uryu, you… you never answered me on why there are crosses on my hoodie. And my apron."

"I made the apron and Urahara asked me to repair your hoodie. It was damaged." He answered succinctly.

I nodded, "Okay. So the crosses?"

"What about them? I made sure the colors blended nicely."

A red set of crosses on the front of my apron that covered the chest, a white set of identical crosses on the back of my hoodie covering about the same area… the contrasts weren't bad; they just made me look like some fanatical knight of the Templar order.

"I'm not comfortable wearing crosses." I wanted to look back to address him, but a glare from Yoruichi left me thinking that taking my eyes off the 'road' would be a poor decision at this juncture.

"Ah." Uryu exhaled, "Religious reasons?"

"Parental, personal, etcetera… My mother's protestant, my father's Jewish, and at best I'm Buddhist. Crosses don't really come into the equation in my life." I ran a mental count, "Let alone ten of them."

"First, you are not wearing ten crosses."

"Oh. Because it looks like–"

"It's a pair of five-fold crosses."

"…so it's ten crosses."

"No, it's two Jerusalem crosses. This isn't hard to understand."

"Well, why did you put them on my apron? And my hoodie? Not that I'm ungrateful for you replacing the former and fixing the latter, but the crosses are just… uncomfortable."

"They just fit."

"They just fit?"

"They just fit."

"That's… That doesn't make sense."

"Quincies derive power from a very thin bloodline lasting over a thousand years and tracing back to the first Quincy. Part of why we were able to survive was because of our participation in the Crusades."

"…That explains so little, and yet so much." I sighed, "So, basically, you participated in the Crusades and decided to keep crosses around at all times?"

"You're close. Crosses, it was discovered, better channeled our power than any other symbols. Pentagrams were superior to that, in turn, but starting Quincies all use crosses with personal meaning to them."

"…So you put crosses on my hoodie and my work apron because…?"

"I put crosses on everything I fix. The history is only a benefit to the aesthetic appeal of one of mankind's eldest symbols."

"Oh." I considered that, "So… It's not because you want me to convert?"

"Absolutely not."

"And it's not because you want me to be a Quincy?"

"Hell no."

"Okay, then. Good talk."

An awkward silence fell over the van of yes again. "So…" Orihime trailed, "We're not listening to music?"
taptaptaptap
-x-

"This is getting strange." Yoruichi commented, "We've been travelling for two hours and there's no end in sight. And where the hell is the Kototsu?" she moved to check my rearview mirrors for the golden light of the black sweeper.
taptaptaptap
The Kototsu, also called the Wresting Surge or, more simply, the Cleaner. This travelling engine of the Dangai would regularly cleanse it of intruders and any who would take advantage of the distorted time and space. This was something that arrived once a week, regularly.
taptaptaptap
Apparently, Urahara intended for the Kototsu to appear in our short journey. Or maybe he calculated the effect it would have on our trip, predetermining the amount of time that we would travel backwards upon arrival. Or was it before…?
taptaptaptap
I considered asking if that was what he planned, but something else occurred to me, "Wait. The Kototsu is missing. Do you think it's possible that I, uh…"
taptaptaptap
A concerned look crossed Yoruichi's face, "That… is a possibility," she conceded, "During your travels, it would be likely for something to occur to the Kototsu. Travelling through space and time has had negative effects on the Dangai and its unusual inhabitants in the past, so it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility…"
taptaptaptap
"Let's suppose that I'm the reason the Kototsu isn't here, anymore. Would that explain why, uh," I gestured my head towards Ichigo. He wasn't listening to me. He was having a conversation with Orihime. Shishigawara was attempting to share words with Uryu, to little effect.
taptaptaptap
"Maybe. Maybe everything that is happening now is because of what happened to you. Or maybe something else is at play here. I don't know, and neither do you." Yoruichi leaned back in her seat, "There's no point blaming yourself for something beyond your control." Her voice took a bitter tone at that.
taptaptaptap
"Huh." I readjusted my grip of the steering wheel, "That's pretty wise of you."
taptaptaptap
In the darkness of the Dangai, my flaming van of justice burned bright. The dimensional tunnel through realities that whisked away all creation was silent except for the dulled roar of the engines of my soul. But neither behind us nor in front of us was there salvation in the form of an exit or damnation in the form of the destructive Kototsu.
taptaptaptap
All was quiet.
taptaptaptap
I put in more power to the van of victory, "We're leaving."
taptaptaptap
Yoruichi glanced at me, "Hm? What do you mean?"
taptaptaptap
"I mean we're leaving. Something's not right."
taptaptaptap
With a mighty thump, something smashed against the side of the van of awesome. To the vehicle's credit, it hardly swerved. Something was screaming. It didn't sound human, but the high hissing whine of the creature made my ears hurt and my body quiver.
taptaptaptap
"Did you hear that…?" Yoruichi asked me.
taptaptaptap
"I felt that!" There was a light, "Everyone, we're done here! Get ready!"
taptaptaptap
Another thump was followed by the rhythmic beating of one of the back door. It was too dark to see outside the van – something wasn't right, something was very wrong – another thump. I put more power into the engines. We were going faster, I knew.

A sword pierced the back of the van and the thing screeched louder. Shishigawara was quick to act, "Nope!" And punched the sword with all his might, breaking the thing and sending the creature hanging on by the back to fall away… The back doors opened and the rest of its blade fell out.

Behind us was a horde of white phantoms with bright red pinheads. Slowly, their featureless faces were being covered in chalky masks, faceless except for wordlessly screaming mouths that gaped open and shut. Swords jutted from their bodies as the things ran at us.

"Orihime! Make a shield!" I shouted.

"[[SHITEN KOSHUN!! I REJECT!!]]"​

The explosion reflected in her eyes and, in the briefest instant, they weren't silver – but an amber color, kind of brown but brighter and – "POE!" Yoruichi snapped at me.

"I'm watching the road, I know!"

A light had finally appeared in front of us. The explosion behind the van was shut out by the closing of the portal between worlds. The black abyss of the Dangai disappeared into the blue sky as the van, and us inside, fell from it. "Van's aren't supposed to fly!!" Shishigawara cried as I maneuvered us into a landing.

"They do, now!" I snapped back.

With an impressive jerk, we hit the ground. It was not the best landing, but we made it. On a hill overlooking the Seireitei, we arrived. Dust covered the windows of the van. Uryu, thank god, had the presence of mind to shut the back doors before we made it.

"Is everyone okay?!" Ichigo asked, "We're all okay, right?!"

"That… That was terrifying…" Uryu panted. "Is this what you were warning us about?"

"Never again!" Orihime cried, "Just… No! If Mister Poe is driving, I don't want to be a part of it!"

"That's… harsh…" I pouted, "I got everyone here alright… shouldn't that count for something? Huh? Isn't that right, Yoruichi?" When I looked to her for a response, I found that she was already out of the car. She was just standing there, staring. I got out of the van of awesomeness to meet with her. "Hey, Yoruichi, what's…?" I stopped. I turned to look at what she was staring at with widened eyes and a slightly agape mouth. "…Oh my god."

Swaths of the Soul Society, the districts surrounding the Seireitei and even chunks of the Seireitei itself were burning. The wall that separated the Court of Pure Souls and the City of Wandering Souls – the Rukongai – the wall had collapsed in several places. The gates went down first, I mused, because those things were the weakest points of the walls.

I licked my lips and moved to respond. Everyone else had already gotten out of the van. They were just staring. "Did… Did we take a wrong turn? Are we in Hell?" Shishigawara asked.

"We might as well be…" I murmured in reply.

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-26

 

[Ars Poetica]

Tell your children...

-x-

There is something to be said, I think, at how calm I became when I saw the destruction. "Holy shit." Well, not calm. I was more incredulous than calm. A very real, very sizable part of me could not understand and did not want to believe what was in front of me. The Soul Society was on fire. "What the hell is this?"

Yoruichi looked at me, "You mean you don't know?"

"Soul Society being on fire isn't supposed to happen, yet!"

The cry that exited Yoruichi's throat was something between an incredulous cry and a startled screech, "…YET?!!" She stared at me, "Poe…! Everything is… This is destruction on a scale that is just…" She sputtered, "I…"

"We shouldn't be out in the open," Uryu trailed as he stepped out of the amazing van, "If the Soul Society is as much of a warzone as it looks, we should find cover."

"Good idea!" I hopped back into the van of awesome and turned the ignition… It snapped, crackled, popped, and stopped. "…I don't like that noise…"

Orihime frowned, "It sounds like something is wrong with the engine."

"…All three of them?" I asked her. Still, it was the best we had to go on… I kneeled over and checked under the van of – holy shit!

"SKREEEEE-!!"

I punched the remaining thing in the mask-face-head and watched it collapse like a broken doll. With my other hand, I dragged it out by its ripped, white robes and dropped its body in front of us – already, it was in the process of decaying into spirit particles… or whatever the hell it was made of.

Shishigawara pressed himself against the van, "Oh my god what the hell no! What is that thing?!"

"It's a Blank," Yoruichi answered for him, "And it should not be here."

That was an understatement. Blanks were souls lacking memories, usually coalescing into the Valley of Screams. And the Valley of Screams was in the Dangai… The Dangai we were just in… the Dangai without a Kototsu… When I thought about it, things started to sort of make sense.

Blanks were made when souls got lost in the Dangai. And when a lot of them got lost, they would form the Valley. Their memories would become energy and combine into a "Memory Rosary" which would then appear in the Living World. However, there was something left out of that explanation.

If the Kototsu existed in the Dangai to cleanse and erase intruders, then the only way for the Blanks to form their Valley of Screams was if the Kototsu was not present. If the Kototsu didn't run its route for a long time, it was entirely likely that the Valley of Screams would form that much faster – at least, compared to the timing of the Soul Society and Living World.

In short, no Kototsu meant that the Valley would form. If the Valley formed, it would have an inordinately large amount of time to build upon itself until the Kototsu ran around to blow it all up. If that happened, presumably, the "Memory Rosary" in the Living World would probably die – the source of its power would have disappeared, wouldn't it? The forms that once held those memories…?

But there were hundreds of Blanks, thousands of them, and there was no sign of them stopping. More than that, they were hostile. These things weren't being guided by any intelligence; they were just hunting us. The Blanks were trying to…

"They were trying to eat us." I murmured, "Yoruichi, Blanks are just souls without memories, right? So where's their Chain of Fate?"

"We have bigger problems than that, Poe," she tried to sway the conversation.

I shook my head, "No. No we do not. Those Blanks were trying to eat us. That is so far outside their normal behavior I don't know where to begin. They had swords, they had…" my eyes went wide, "They had swords and masks." I felt the blood run out of me as I paled and swayed, "Oh my god…"

The Blanks were developing Shinigami and Hollow powers. I did not know how they were doing this, but they were. And without the Kototsu to keep them in check, they were developing these abilities and traits unregulated. How much time was passing for them in the Dangai? I did not know the answer, I still don't. But enough time had passed that the Blanks were becoming independent of their Rosary.

Uryu was the voice of reason, "As horrifying as this all is, we can't get out of here with the van. We're going to have to find help on foot." He looked to Yoruichi, "Urahara mentioned a safe house."

Yoruichi looked ill, "Right… He did." She took a deep breath and composed herself. There wasn't much else she could do, admittedly, but every little bit helped. "Let's go. Everyone, stick close."

I looked at my van and, reluctantly, departed. I considered asking Orihime to help fix it, but… that wouldn't work, would it? It didn't work before, why would it now? I looked up in thought. The sun was high in the sky; there weren't many clouds… if not for the smoke and fire this would have been a beautiful day.

-x-

For the most part, the route Yoruichi took us through was filled with houses already burnt out. To a limited extent I was thankful there weren't any bodies to trip over. Souls dispersed upon death in the Soul Society, they would just return to the cycle of reincarnation.

Still, for the bodies to have disappeared so quickly meant that they didn't have much power to them… It didn't matter. I'd already been in one too many burning buildings with screaming people inside, "Why are we sticking together in a group?" I asked.

Ichigo answered me, "You want us to split up in a warzone?"

"Point," I nodded, "Here's my counter: What are the chances that the safe house hasn't already been hit?"

"It depends," Yoruichi answered, "Where we're going, it's far enough away from the Seireitei that if the fighting started there, it should be untouched. But if the fighting started in the Rukongai, we might have bigger problems."

She craned her head and saw something in the distance. A small smile crossed her face. "We found it?" Orihime asked her.

"We found it." Yoruichi confirmed.

Good. I didn't want to stay here any longer than I had to. It was while we were rushing through the burnt out part of the Rukongai that something attacked us. A group of men wearing… things on their arms…

I drew my sheath and pushed fire through it, immediately cutting one down. When I turned to see Yoruichi, she'd already dealt with four of them. Uryu was pinning another two, and Shishigawara was just hammering on one of the poor sods.

Orihime… holy crap, Orihime just massacred half of them. And Ichigo just stood there and gaped. "Uh, guys…?" He trailed, "They're getting back up."

What.

The people who surrounded us were dressed like, well, I don't want to say ninja. But they were dressed like ninja. And they were dead… and still getting up. The things on their arms looked like swords, but reached through their limbs to control their bodies – probably making them work before they faded away.

"Oh what the fuck?" Shishigawara hissed. He threw a punch that broke one of the walking things in two. "They're dead, right?"

Ichigo acted, finally, striking down another three with one swing. Orihime… looked a little bored as she had Tsubaki bum rush a dozen of them. That was until one of them got too close and – the undead ninja thing exploded almost immediately into fading gore from one shot. Uryu notched another spirit arrow and fired.

Meanwhile, I acted in the best interests of the group by cutting another one of the… beings… in half and looking down a road. "We've got trouble! More are coming!"

"How many more?!" Ichigo called to me from the other side of what was growing into a battlefield.

I turned to look and start counting, "…Can I say too many? I kind of lost count at, uh…" my eyes widened, "Oh wow, we're about to get fuuucked…"

"Goddamnit Poe!" Ichigo snapped and split a zombie assassin vertically. His parts collapsed to the ground and quickly faded. "Yoruichi, any ideas?!"

"Working on it!" She disappeared. And in a moment, she stood again having landed in the same place she – oh wow, I did not know people could be sliced up quite that way… Slipping knives into her socks, because of course the former head of the Stealth Corp would have a hidden knife collection on her person; she took a quick look around, "Is everyone alright?"

I frowned and looked back the way of the reinforcements only to see corpses destroyed beyond any hope of moving. "Peachy." was my reply. Was it odd that I felt like I barely did anything? I took out less than half a dozen of these guys before Yoruichi just swept them all away… I felt almost cheated.

"Great," she turned, "In that case, let's go."

-x-

Kukaku's home was… a mess. The cannons sticking out the top were snapped and destroyed, the area all around it looked like the scene of – I've used battle and warzone too often. It looked like a group of elephants broke into a rhinoceros' home; gang raped it, and then proceeded to trample all the earth around with body slams and fire.

Or I could have just called it a battlefield. That would have been equally accurate. The hands that held up her name had signs of recent, sloppy repairs. And when we went to the door, we were greeted by a tired Kukaku. Her wood arm was shattered and she was holding a sword in her other.

Before I could ask how she opened the door, Ganju slowly revealed himself. "Friends, sis?" he asked.

She nodded, "Yeah. They're friendly. Yoruichi…" a small smile crept across her weary face. It didn't look too happy. "…I thought you'd be a cat."

"Well, circumstances kind of made that impossible," Yoruichi shrugged. She wanted to ask if Kukaku was alright, I'm sure she did, but we had other matters to deal with. "Is…"

"Suì-Fēng's alright. Her Lieutenant died before you could get here, though."

Uryu adjusted his glasses, "I don't want to interrupt, but what happened here?"

Kukaku made to snap at him for doing exactly that before Ganju's hand pressed against her un-bandaged shoulder. The siblings shared a look. She shut her eyes and replied, "A civil war happened. Suì-Fēng was right at the forefront of it, so you'd be best off asking her for the full story."

"And for the short story?" I asked.

Kukaku scowled, "I just told you. Civil war."

I nodded, "Oh, well, good. For a second, I was worried that it was because of the Hollow army of Blanks with Zanpakuto building in the Dangai." I maintained my small smile for only a moment before I realized just how quiet things had gotten.

"…You must be 'Poe'." Kukaku deadpanned. I wasn't sure whether to be depressed or impressed that she was able to guess my name. Did Yoruichi really tell Kukaku to identify me as the bearer of bad news? Is that how she remembered my name? It would have been comical if it wasn't so sad, "The kid with the glasses is the Quincy, and I don't know what that girl is… or that punk."

"My name's actually Shishi-" he started, but was stopped.

"Shut it."

"Yes, ma'am."

She stared at him for a moment before focusing her attention on Ichigo, "And you must be the Substitute Shinigami." Her gaze switched to her brother, "Ganju, let the guests in. And get me my pipe." The second demand was really more of a grumble.

-x-

Suì-Fēng was on a small bed in a back room staring at the ceiling. Orihime was already in the process of healing her. Lit with the glow of her power, we stood in that room and watched silently.

"Lady Yoruichi…" Suì-Fēng spoke, "…I failed you."

Yoruichi was quick to reply, "You didn't fail anyone, Suì-Fēng."

"I did!" she cried, "There was a traitor in our midst… for years he served us, and he just…" she chocked, "This kind of security breach is what the Onmitsukido is for. We exist to deal with issues like this and we just…"

Yoruichi shook her head, "We never could have predicted that Aizen would have done this. We… This was unprecedented." Suì-Fēng stared at Yoruichi. In the quiet of the room, I could hear by heart pounding in my ears. It smelled like gunpowder and medicine.

The sun was already starting to set, I noticed. The fires couldn't burn forever; they were already fading out one after another. Perhaps night wasn't falling? Perhaps the smoke was just blotting out the sky? I hoped none of the cinders would reach our flimsy safe house. It was all we had, at this point.

When her injuries had faded away, she leaned up and crossed an arm over her lap, supporting her head with her other hand, "Aizen…?" she asked, "Aizen didn't do anything."

…Huh? Did Aizen hypnotize her? It could have happened, but he never showed the ability to just straight-up alter memories completely. Aizen was powerful, but at the end of the day he was an illusionist before a hypnotist. He couldn't just make people do as he ordered them to, he had to either force them with power or coerce them by being… well, himself.

For someone else to have beaten him to the punch in damaging the Soul Society to this extent, it was outrageous. Wide eyes all around, we looked at her in confusion. "If the man we came here to stop didn't do this…" Orihime trailed, biting her lip, "If Aizen didn't do this, then who did?"

Well wasn't that the question?

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-27

 

[Ars Poetica]

Not to do...

-x-

The order first came through the Central Forty-Six. It's amazing how many horror stories or tales of fuck-ups began like that. The Quincy Affair was the first example that came to mind, but there were dozens of others. Point in case or case in point: The Soul Society Civil War…

When something disrupted the Kototsu two weeks ago, nobody was entirely sure what it was. Shinigami on missions to the Living World would return to the Soul Society after several weeks… on the same day they left, usually within the same hour. Suì-Fēng reported the discrepancy only to discover she was not the first and would not be the last.

Upon returning with Rukia Kuchiki, the girl was immediately placed in lockdown for the time being. Until the damage done to the Kototsu of the Precipice World, the Dangai, was repaired… there would be no execution. With the execution being stalled, Suì-Fēng had time to look into our claims about Aizen.

Two missions were assigned to her in that time.

The first mission was to investigate the affairs of the Dangai and observe the happenings within the portal between worlds. They would be accompanied by the best that the Twelfth Division had to offer and a small medical staff issued by the Fourth Division.

Some of the finest Onmitsukido operatives under Suì-Fēng went in the Dangai with those Shinigami. Following this was total communication silence. This was… odd. All other attempts to travel through the Dangai and take Shinigami into the Living World were relatively fine, except the odd time displacement.

When it was discovered that a similar displacement was present in the Living World; Shinigami who went back and forth frequently would return to the Living World on the same day they departed led to the conclusion that the Kototsu hadn't been destroyed at all. Instead, it had presumably evolved into something different.

The Kototsu existed on different laws than the rest of the universe and could not truly be destroyed. Readings from the Twelfth suggested that it was operating in different pathways at the moment and, perhaps, the initial terror of its loss was unfounded… complete radio silence said otherwise.

I had a feeling I knew what happened to those Shinigami. The sheer number of Blanks we saw on our way here could not account for the swords they wielded and the masks on their faces. Blanks, I realized, didn't go through Hollowfication. But Shinigami could and did. Something happened to the Shinigami sent to the Dangai and…

But that was just another theory.

With a chunk of the Second Division otherwise occupied with the Dangai incidents, the second mission came as a complete surprise. Suì-Fēng was already working with her best and brightest on the Aizen investigation, so she only had the Patrol Corps to spare for the investigation of illegal weaponry in the noble houses.

This was her first error.

"My second error," she regaled, "Was having that no good, two-timing, backstabbing son of a bitch act as the leader of the teams sent. His record was spotless, oh sure. But looking back, it was suspicious. He said he was from the Rukongai, but we never checked that. We should have, but we didn't."

Divisions got applicants from all over the Rukongai all the time. It would have been impossible to verify which were true and which were false. Faking documents to enter the Seireitei was nothing new or unheard of; it was hardly grounds for being kicked out of the Seireitei when your superiors were just as guilty as you at doing it.

It seemed that even in the afterlife, red tape was the root of all evil. More than a few of the Soul Society's most famous or most infamous people, depending on your perspective, came from the anonymity provided by the faulty system. In this case, the person was most definitely infamous.

"He couldn't even hold is liquor and he was able to cause this damage…" Suì-Fēng mused.

"What was his name?" I asked. I already had a feeling I knew who it was. Illegal weapon manufacturing noble clan? Check. Onmitsukido Patrol Corps traitor? Check. Couldn't hold his liquor? I only knew one person with the latter two traits and a connection to the first, "It was Amagai, wasn't it?"

"…how did you know that?" Suì-Fēng asked me with wide eyes, "Is our security really that awful?"

I shook my head, "You give yourself too much credit. I'm," a quick glance was shared with Yoruichi, "I'm from the future. Spoiler alert: Cars that aren't my van don't fly in the future." She just gave me a half-lidded stare, "What? I thought you might be curious."

"You know Shusuke Amagai." Suì-Fēng said to me, "So you must also know the name of the clan we were investigating."

The Kasumioji Clan… yes, I knew them well enough. A noble clan that created parasitic pseudo-Zanpakuto, weapons that helped you in exchange for trying to kill you – the Bakkoto.

"The ones who attacked us outside…" I trailed, "They were possessed by their weapons."

She scoffed, "Possessed, nothing. They were disgruntled citizens and conscripted soldiers, controlled after being slain by weapons rightfully illegalized years ago. If they weren't dead before you killed them again, they might as well have been."

When Amagai was pitted against the clan that supplied him with his Bakkoto, he defected from the Patrol Corps… More accurately, he and the Patrol Corps defected from the Onmitsukido. The Second Division, spread thin between their losses in the Dangai expedition and Amagai's betrayal, was forced to cancel any further investigations into Aizen's actions in favor of dealing with the issue of the defectors. Suì-Fēng considered the affair a personal issue, one that she would take part in with Omaeda.

This would be her final mistake.

"When the other noble clans heard that the Second Division was mobilizing to eliminate the Kasumioji, they probably feared their interests were at risk," Yoruichi theorized, "And at the behest of the Kasumioji, various lesser clans joined their defense."

Suì-Fēng nodded, "That's exactly right. We expected only to face some defectors to our division. What we faced, instead, was an army wielding weapons we had little understanding of how to properly combat."

The Bakkoto were an equalizer in the fight. Or, maybe, they were what tipped the scales to favor the Kasumioji forces. Now armed with weapons boosting their strength by significant margins, the Kasumioji were able to repel the remains of the Second Division. Suì-Fēng probably recognized how the fight was going and made the tactical decision to run around the back and decapitate the enemy leadership.

Sever the head and the serpent dies; that was her reasoning. So she tried to kill who she felt was leading the rebellion. Suì-Fēng tried to kill Shusuke Amagai. But Amagai had other plans.

"A Bakkoto that negates the powers of Zanpakuto," Uryu considered the idea of it, "For an enemy of the Soul Society to have something like that; and to have it so close to the Seireitei…" he trailed off into what must have been stunned silence.

"I was outclassed." Suì-Fēng's voice was bitter, "I was beaten. I underestimated him and he took no chances and crushed me. I barely escaped alive. Omaeda wasn't so fortunate."

Following the failed counterattack and terrible loss, Suì-Fēng reported to Head Captain Yamamoto. When he was informed of the growing Kasumioji rebellion, he moved to mobilize all forces against this growing threat. Rukia's execution was no longer on anybody's minds, nobody cared about that. A rebellion was happening now! They had to act.

But the Thirteenth Division lacked the manpower necessary. Although they were mostly present in the Rukongai, they were being quickly overwhelmed. The Eleventh Division was useful for the open fighting, but they were just outclassed against the tactics being employed against them.

Amagai, it should be said, was not a stupid person. If the conflict between his growing forces and the Seireitei became open, they would lose. Guerrilla tactics were employed. They would only act when the enemy was overwhelmingly outnumbered, they would retreat quickly and disappear, and they would leave traps all over the area to strike down their enemies. They never fought alone, they always fought together, and they were winning.

The Divisions being sent to fight this issue weren't enough. Yamamoto issued a call to arms, declaring that the Soul Society was in a state of emergency. Bankai was permitted in and outside the Seireitei. The full force of the Gotei Thirteen was employed against the rebellion. Or it would have been.

A surprise attack from Amagai decimated the Fifth Division. Sosuke Aizen disappeared in the conflict, but he was last seen losing to a group of assassins wielding Bakkoto. Captain Komamura and Captain Tousen both died defending one of Soul Society's gates…

Gin Ichimaru has assumed control of the Fifth Division in addition to his current duties with the Third. As a former Lieutenant of that Division, it only made sense. But the Seventh and Ninth were left without leaders and the Fifth was particularly devastated by the attack in terms of casualties alone.

Sever the head and the serpent dies. But, at least according to Suì-Fēng, Amagai did a better job of it than her and in a single night had slain three Captains while causing immense destruction to each of their Divisions. Including the effective destruction of the Second Division, since the start of the rebellion, four of the thirteen Divisions had been crushed.

"Yesterday, the Head Captain involved himself directly against Amagai. He believed he could overpower the anti-Zanpakuto Bakkoto with experience and raw power." Suì-Fēng grimaced, "He was wrong."

It didn't matter how strong he was, how long he'd wielded his Zanpakuto… what mattered was that he was using a Zanpakuto and the Bakkoto was just a solid hard counter to that. Left with nothing but his bare hands, sword skills, and kido, the Head Captain was lowered to an even match against Amagai.

This lasted until Amagai entered Bankai and just wiped the floor with the man. Though Yamamoto survived the conflict, his loss to Amagai devastated morale among the Gotei.

"I was there for that fight." Suì-Fēng told us, "I watched him lose. It was… indescribable. An unbelievable turn of events… I watched as we retreated into the Seireitei through collapsed walls and turned barracks and homes into fortresses. I watched the tables turn completely. And I ran."

She retreated to the safe house and waited for help to arrive. But with the time distortion as it was, she arrived exactly in the time she left, several days ago. We arrived just in time for almost a week of this conflict to have passed. And if we spent a week here, a month here, or a year here, we would return to the Living World in the same hour that we left it.

That would be the case until the issues being caused by the Dangai were fixed. But with everyone focused on the sudden civil war, nobody was focused on Rukia. And nobody was focused on the building army of Blanks turning into strange, Hollow-like creatures… probably made from what used to be Shinigami.

And nobody paid attention to the fact that Aizen was an illusionist before he was a hypnotist. Nobody paid attention to the fact that Aizen had disappeared, that Tousen had 'died' while there were witnesses, and that Gin had assumed control of Aizen's broken Division just in time for the invasion to worsen.

Everything about this felt wrong. Everything about this wasn't right. But what could we do?

"Are we still rescuing Rukia?" Ichigo asked, "I…" he looked around the room. "I won't ask you to do this, anymore. Poe," he addressed me, "I asked you to come here, and to help me. But I don't think anybody was expecting this. This is…" It was out of my depth? It was beyond fucked, in all honesty.

"Ichigo, if you're going to retract your request, then I'll have to hit you." I said to him. "You don't ask for someone's help and then tell them they don't need to stay. Even if everyone else leaves," and I hoped to god or whatever else as listening that they didn't, "I'll still be here."

He looked to his friends. Uryu just adjusted his glasses and shifted his feet a little. "I will stay. I trained a week for coming here to save your friend; no plan survives contact with the enemy. We just need to improvise a new one."

Orihime was enthusiastic, "Of course I'm staying! If I leave and you die, then what?" she said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Shishigawara looked at me, "Sir," 'senpai', I heard, "You're at the most risk since Orihime can't heal you. So if you die, it won't be her fault. It'll be mine for letting that happen! I won't let you down, sir!"

"You're making me blush. Please, just call me 'Ars'… My friends call me that." I said to him in response.

"…Aaaruzu?"

"No, 'Ars'."

"Aruju?"

"…No, just call me 'Ars', man."

"Achu?"

I stared at him for a few seconds. My mouth opened to say something, but I stopped myself. I tried again, "Y-You know what…? Just call me 'Poe'. Everyone calls me 'Poe'."

"Alright, Poe-senpai!"

…Oh god why.

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-28

 

[Ars Poetica]

What I...

-x-

Time and time again, revelations would be shared over a table and a few cups of tea. Sitting across from me at the tiny table was Yoruichi, and sitting at a corner was Kukaku slowly smoking her pipe. Ganju was elsewhere in the house, I didn't know. It didn't matter.

It occurred to me, however, briefly, that I could now tell the story of how I shared drinks with two beautiful women. But the idea was dashed with the realization that it probably wasn't that significant a feat. A shame. I could have made it sound much better than it was.

"He's still out there." I said to Yoruichi, "There's no way Amagai would be able to take him out."

Aizen was not a magnificent bastard, he was the magnificent bastard. This was a man who used a girl with the power to stop him as bait to split the collective forces of his enemies in two. This was a man who, even with all his power sealed, was able to alter the perception of time for one of the series' most terrifying and powerful villains.

Even without the ability to hypnotize you, as evidenced by Tousen, he could still manipulate you into doing his bidding with barely any effort at all. If something went south in his plans, he could just make new ones. The notion of Amagai actually beating Aizen was… silly.

"I know," she said as she sipped her tea.

Amagai, with his Bakkoto, was probably immune to Aizen's absolute hypnosis ability. But Aizen was strong, far too strong for Amagai to simply take down. This was a man who earned the respect of almost all the Hollows in Hueco Mundo. They did not follow him because he hypnotized them; they followed him because he had the power to back up his every word.

"And if he's alive, so is Tousen. Komamura is probably dead. I don't know who else died, but…"

"Poe, I realize this." Yoruichi paused in taking another sip. I just held my green tea, waiting for it to cool. "Even if I could prove Aizen was involved, I'm not sure it would be enough."

"Oh," that was true. Proving Aizen was involved with causing the Soul Society Civil War would have helped discredit the man post-mortem, but it wouldn't prove he was still alive. Even so, it was a step in the right direction. But how didn't Yoruichi have a plan for that? It was obvious. "Why don't we just show everyone that the Central Forty-Six are dead?"

"…excuse me," Kukaku nearly dropped her pipe, "What did you say?"

"Aizen killed the Central Forty-Six," I answered, "He just murdered them and took their place for the past… I don't really know how long. But with his Zanpakuto, it was really easy in the original timeline. Why wouldn't he do it in this one?" I twirled the cup of tea in my hand a little, feeling the liquid slosh back and forth, "Nobody told you?"

"No."

I nodded slowly, "Probably forgot, then."

Yoruichi looked like she was in the process of a conniption. Kukaku exhaled smoke while bearing an expression of awe, "Wow," she looked me up and down for a second. Her gaze went to Yoruichi, "When you told me he was an idiot, you weren't kidding."

"Poe…" Yoruichi began. She stopped herself, "Poe… You don't just tell people these things."

Was I staring at her with a half-lidded gaze? It felt that way, certainly. "Why not?" I asked her, "Kukaku's in on this, isn't she?" I eyed her, "Aren't you?"

"I am…" Kukaku confirmed, "It's just… killing the Central Forty-Six is – I mean, I wouldn't put it past the guy to do it and there is no love lost there, but that is some heavy shit. You don't just do that."

"He did, though." I stated simply, "Was I wrong to tell you?"

"No… well, yes… Kid, I'm on Yoruichi's side with this one," Kukaku said to me, "Knowing the Central Forty-Six is taboo, they're supposed to be anonymous. Knowing they're dead is almost as bad. It implies the chance that you've seen something you shouldn't have. Yoruichi probably didn't say anything for the sake of plausible deniability if things fell through here."

"We're in a civil war, Kukaku," Yoruichi said to her, "Poe's actually right for once." She glared at me, "That doesn't make your approach much better. Do you have to be so… blunt?"

"I'm tired, I'm confused, my van's fucked, and we're stuck between the literal rock and hard place." I chugged my lukewarm green tea, "We're past the point where being blunt can hurt anyone. We need a new plan, and we need it now." I glanced at Kukaku, "Also, can I have a cold glass of water? I get you guys like tea, but it just gives me a headache."

"Help yourself." Kukaku waved me off and turned her attention to Yoruichi, "He has a point. What's the new plan?"

"…I don't know." Yoruichi admitted, "Aizen might be dead. But he might also be alive. If he's really dead, which I doubt, then we just need to deal with Amagai. If he isn't, then he might not even be in the Seireitei anymore… let alone the Soul Society."

"So, in summary," I began as I sat down again with a glass of murky tap water, "We're boned."

"Not necessarily." Yoruichi was quick to rebuke me, "We came here to rescue Rukia Kuchiki and we can still do that. We just need to figure out where she is being held."

"A stealth mission, then?" Kukaku mused, "As much as I wish I could… I can't really help you there. Stealth's not my thing."

I barked out a short laugh, "Yeah! Explosions all the way!" I made to fist bump her, but my arm hung there for a moment while I stared at her broken prosthetic with a half-formed smile. "Uh…" she stared at me. "I'll just… put my hand down…"

"You do that." She deadpanned, "Fucking jackass…"

"…The problem," Yoruichi continued, "Is that Aizen is still a major deciding factor in how we go about doing this."

If Aizen really was either dead or not here, we'd have to deal with Amagai as a major threat. This was a man who could chew us up and spit us out, so we needed to be able to approach this properly. Combine that with the kill-on-sight orders that were being bounced between every Shinigami and their mothers… well, our problems were obvious.

The alternative was that Aizen didn't really leave and he was orchestrating events behind the scenes, where we could not see him. This was a far more likely option, but it still left us with the threats of the previous scenario plus the looming sword of Suigetsu – at any moment, Aizen could swoop in like the Angel of Death and rip us apart. We'd never even know he was there.

Both possibilities held the practical problem of the current civil war, but only one of the two required tinfoil hats. The question here was which one Aizen expected us to pick and which he had the better plan for, assuming he was involved in either one. Because there was no way in hell we were assuming Aizen was dead, not by Amagai's hands.

"If we go with the option that he's not here… we'd be ignoring him," I mused, "And leaving him to his own devices, completely undisturbed. But if we go with the option that he is here, we'd be chasing shadows in the fog of an escalating war." When I said it out loud, it was even worse. "That son of a bitch blocked us in."

Damned if we looked for him, damned if we didn't – he had us, and he probably knew it. Yeah, this above all else was what convinced me that Aizen was alive. If he was dead he wouldn't have been able to screw us over to this extent. The whole thing was just too perfect for him.

"We can't focus on him." Yoruichi sighed, "He has made that completely impossible."

"And we can't just not focus on him, because – well, I mean…" I struggled for words, "Because he's Aizen." I finally spat, "Let's look at what we have to work with. There's a civil war going on. We know both sides of the conflict. One side has Rukia as prisoner, but that doesn't mean they have to be enemies."

"…Poe, I don't know what you're about to say, but I'm fairly certain I won't like it."

"No, no, no… It's a great idea, the best I've ever had. Hear me out." With my hands, I gestured frantically to get my point across, "First, we get Suì-Fēng to deliver a message from us to the Soul Society leadership – the Head Captain, if we have to." Yoruichi's eyes slowly grew wider and wider. "Step two, he will receive our message with open arms. Step three, we do a little… stuff… and step four, he lets us leave with Rukia, arm in arm. Mission accomplished."

"What's the message?" Kukaku asked pertinently.

I coughed, "Well, I don't want to write it, since I can't write or read anything but my native tongue at the moment…" fucking blue squares, "But, I bet Yoruichi can write!"

"That's not how Hell Butterflies work…" she sighed.

"If I had to dictate what the message would be, though… it'd probably be something like–" a thought occurred, "Wait, he can read English, yeah?"

Kukaku nodded, "He can. Or at least, he should be able to. The man is thousands of years old. You pick stuff up at that age…" she considered.

"Great! I'm going to need a Hell Butterfly and some spare paper. And some kind of writing implement, preferably a pen." I received two worn-down crayons and three paper napkins with the explanation of everything else having effectively been reduced to ashes by the recent, literal firefight.

It took me all of ten minutes to get what I needed to say on paper. For a moment, I eyed the Hell Butterfly that had suddenly been supplied to me. How does one send messages through these things again? I knew they could record messages, but I'm sure they could also pick up notes… Yoruichi took the napkins and shoved it in the general direction of what I assumed was the Hell Butterfly's mouth – I blinked, "Two things, first, is that how it works? Really? And second, what happened to using Suì-Fēng as a middle man?"

"Yes this is how it works, Poe," she explained to me like I was a child. Fresh out of patience and clearly out of fucks to give she gave me a hollow stare, "No, the Hell Butterfly did not eat your crayon and napkin message to the Head Captain."

"…Oh." I exhaled, "Uh, so about using Suì-Fēng…?"

"I brought my own Hell Butterflies."

Well, Yoruichi was a Shinigami. It shouldn't be a surprise that she would have access to Hell Butterflies… I nodded, "Okay. That makes sense." Another thought occurred to me, "Uh, so, the message has been sent?"

"Yes." She raised an eyebrow, "Your plans are generally bad, but any plan is better than no plan, at the moment. I trust that you didn't overstep your bounds and send something completely inappropriate…?" she stared at me.

I thought very hard about that and, ultimately, decided that the honest answer was the best option, "I have no idea."

-x-

Captain Commander Major General Super Awesome Yami Guy,

After hearing of your horrific plight and the tragic loss of three four Divisions to a group of assholes rebels monsters revolutionaries people who shared sharp disagreements with your policies, I have decided most verily to assist your endeavors. Now while I am sure that you do not know who I am, you will learn who I am through my actions – my incredibly generous and in no way two-faced actions. And you will learn that I'm actually a pretty stand-up guy. This is especially the case for people who keep their promises and follow through on their bargains. (Pay attention to this, by the way. It's crucial that you do.)

With the full knowledge that you are exactly the sort who keeps said promises and follows through on their bargains, I promise you the assistance of both myself and my motley band of marauding men and women – one of whom you may or may not know – and, with this promise, do swear for the time being to serve the Soul Society's better interests in the short-term future. I say the short-term future because this is a promise not to last much longer than however long this war lasts. And how, you may ask, can we be certain this is not a long-term arrangement?

To be clear, friend, we are sure because our promise is actually a bargain – but really, they're the same thing. Politics. Am I right? The bargain would, naturally, be more to your benefit than to ours for what could possibly benefit us except the smallest, tiniest, most incredibly short cost of a certain individual who most likely has fallen into your fairly recent possession…? I do not presume to assume that you hold a little girl in a tower like a fire-breathing dragon in a fairy tale, but the fact that I could allude to the comparison says not very good things about your P.R. And P.R. keeps the world going round, kind of like the hands of a clock. Speaking of hands, please do not allow any unpleasant hands near the individual in question whose name you should probably know at this point.

But I fear I ramble. And as fear is the enemy of all mankind, and soulkind, and just kindness in general, I feel it best to get all fear off the table with the proposal that we receive the cute midget princess most promptly. We could not possibly ask for her before we do the deed that would be promised to you – our services most divine and holy like a fresh New York (or New Jersey) bagel on Monday morning. And what services, you might be asking yourself as you scratch your bald, scarred head could we be offering? What could we possibly give you that would make you certain that an arrangement between us is not just the best option, but THE BEST option? What could be given and what could we give you?

In exchange for our incredibly brief and most stalwart progression of action to prevent long-term relations and strengthen short-term relations like lead strengthens steel until it is exposed to harsh, clashing temperatures, we do hereby issue the promise to eliminate the major threat that seems to be bothering your poor, wrinkled self. To summarize, we're going to kill Shusuke Amagai. And if we do this, we'd like Rukia Kuchiki to be delivered to us – if you are to wrap a bow on her, please note that we prefer bright red bows. Also, none of that prison robe stuff. And we would further like a flock of personal Hell Butterflies to use at our convenience a monster truck some samples of your finest candies a guarantee that you won't back out of our deal. Though we acknowledge that you are an honest person who upholds promises and bargains, the assurance that you won't set us on fire would be most welcome!

Thus, if you reply to this humble message with an agreement, please don't kill us. Seriously. That would be rude. And if you do not agree to our admittedly unusual proposal, then don't bother replying at all. Just burn this message – if you're able to burn this message. Uh, can you burn this message? I'd like to know if you can burn spiritual paper, because I'm not entirely sure.

Hugs and Kisses,

Poe R.R. Acti

-x-

One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train

End-29