Spirit 3.5
Despite the company, the forest itself was actually rather nice to walk through. The trees were tall and straight, the undergrowth was lush and very picturesque. I could see why people might stray off the path to enjoy sitting in a clearing if they were traveling through. Of course I could also see why people could go missing if they wandered too far. The same vegetation that made the place look so nice also did a great job of making you lose your bearings if you lost sight of the road.
It didn't help that most of the sky was covered by branches and leaves so trying to navigate by the position of the sun was only possible on rare occasions. And even when we saw the sky there was no guarantee the sun was even visible from where we were.
Several times we would have wandered slightly off course after investigating the clearings and different places of interest Kimura knew about if I hadn't used a mana trick to mark where the road was. Just a simple imprint on one of the trees by the road to use as a beacon, but it did save us from wandering parallel to the road in several cases.
The first three days yielded absolutely nothing. Kimura was a pain to be around but other than the constant innuendos and 'advice' he took the investigation seriously enough for a person who had no interest in finding a problem. Which is to say, he followed me over every bit of the forest pointing out which clearing had the softest grass, which rock curved just right to support your back, and which tree had… the point is I got the feeling Kimura was a bit of an exhibitionist and had been out to this forest several times. I could see him being popular with the local girls if he never opened his mouth or let them meet his personality.
"So how long we gonna waste our time out here sweetheart?" Kimura asked on the fourth day. We had combed through most of the area along the road and were going a bit further of the path. Apparently there was a group of rocks further up ahead that was used by bandits occasionally, but it was checked enough that no one stayed there for long.
"As long as it takes to find out what is disappearing travellers or until we search the whole forest." I replied.
"Pfft, ya gonna be out here forever if you're gonna go looking after every traveller that doesn't make it through these woods." he scoffed, "Wandering of the path, bandits, the occasional Hollow. All kinds of reasons they don't make it. And they happen enough that it could be any of them at the same time."
"Then maybe your group should comb through here more often so that doesn't happen."I said scornfully.
He shrugged. "Not my job. I just have to keep the town safe. No point risking my neck if I don't need to."
"And the rest of your subordinates are fine with that?"
"Well, Yuuto complains enough. Not that he ever does anything himself."
With a lazy bastard like him at the top, I wasn't surprised. Independent action was more likely going to be ignored or added to his normal duties rather than be rewarded.
For once we walked in relative quiet where Kimura simply grumbled about getting caught on the occasional bush rather than try and convince me I should sleep with him simply because he is so awesome.
Kimura was the first to get to the clearing where the rock formation was supposed to be. With a quick flourish, he gave me a mocking bow and presented the area behind him.
"And here we are! A lovely pile of rocks off the beaten path, occasionally filled with all kinds of miscreants but as you can see, completely empty." he sneered at me a bit, "Just like the last dozen places."
"You didn't have to come with me. I would have been fine with anyone else."
"If I knew how uptight you were sweetheart, trust me I wouldn't have. Definitely would have let someone else go on the nature walk, but you seemed like the fun one. Shoulda known it was the quiet bitchy one. That type always gets freaky in the bedroom."
Pretty sure Natsumi would rather break every bone in his body than sleep with him, but I certainly wasn't going to discourage him. Who knows, if he gets his ass handed to him maybe he would shape up? Or if he gets put on medical long enough someone else would get put in charge.
Ignoring him, something I was getting a lot of practice at doing, I continued towards the rocks. A quick poke to confirm things were fine and then head off to the next site.
Noticing a natural cave leading under the rocks I went to take a look. Turns out the opening was much larger than I originally thought. You could drive a semi through the opening with little effort.
Besides being larger than I expected, the inside of the tunnel was also pitch black. The only exception was two small yellow lights glowing in the darkness.
That were slowly getting closer.
And looked awfully similar to eyes.
That was a Hollow wasn't it?
A bestial roar echoed out of the tunnel as I jumped back to avoid the Hollow surging towards me. It's fists slammed into the ground right where I had been standing kicking up dirt and creating a small dust cloud but that was it.
"Oh hey look! There's something here trying to kill me. How odd since this place is completely empty!" I called back to Kimura.
"Whatever newblood, just kill it already."
"Not going to help?" I asked, drawing the katana on my hip.
He scoffed, "What's wrong sweetheart? Too hard without the Academy instructors holding your hand? Though I can take care of it, if you do me a bit of a favor later?"
The Hollow made another leap at me. This time instead of jumping back, I stepped into its jump, slicing its foot off as it landed.
It howled in pain and tried to swat me away with a backhand, but I simply jumped over it's arm and hacked at its mask covered face. Blood splashed out of the cut before the Hollow fell over.
Dead.
While the Hollow slowly started to dissolve, I made my way back to Kimura. "I'm starting to think you're only good at mouthing off." I mocked him.
"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before. Besides, I'm more interested in you mouthing me off. You got your blood pumping after that didn't ya? Bet you wanna- LOOK OUT!"
The same time I heard his shout, something crashed into my side and tossed me into one of the trees nearby. The collision splintered the bark and knocked the wind out of me, but I was practically uninjured.
I did find that I was pinned to the tree by some kind of white goo that solidified pretty quickly. It was going to take me a bit to get out of this without breaking character.
Looking back towards Kimura, I saw that another two Hollows had made their way out of the tunnel. Unlike the first one, neither of these were very humanoid. One of them looked more like a naga with spikes sticking out of its arms, and the other looked like a giant slug with three tails. Going by the color of the slug Hollow, I'd bet it was the one that managed to stick me to a tree since it was the same whitish color as the stuff covering me. The naga on the other hand, was a sickly greenish grey.
"You still alive, newblood?" Kimura called out, drawing his own sword and turning to face the two Hollows.
"Yeah, but I'm kinda stuck. You're on your own for a bit." I yelled back.
He cursed and then dodged under the swipe of the naga.
The slug Hollow looked in my direction but seemed content that I was incapacitated for now. It turned towards the other two and lifted up its tails. Before I could say anything it shot out several more white globs from each of the tips.
Kimura dodged around them easily enough at first but when one blob flew straight at him he made to cut it midair-
"Don't touch it! It dries almost instantly!"
-before throwing himself on the ground to avoid it.
I was straining at the goop holding me little by little, weakening it so my escape would look natural enough, but if it looked like Kimura was going to die I would just go full strength and finish off the Hollows. I could just make him figuring out I wasn't a student Soul Reaper Natsumi's problem.
I also miiight be dragging out how long I needed to escape because I enjoyed seeing Kimura run around in a panic.
No one could prove it though.
The naga-like hollow charged Kimura and swiped at him with its claws. Kimura rolled on the ground to avoid its hands and slashed at its fingers to get a bit more space. Springing back to his feet, the Soul Reaper quickly dodged more balls of goo from the slug.
"Anytime now newblood!"
"Working on it!"
Truth was I was ready to break out at any time. One good shove should shatter the stuff around me pretty easily.
The two hollows were doing a good job keeping pressure on Kimura though. If he wasn't diving out of the way of more of those goo projectiles, he was being harassed by claws and spikes. Even if he managed to avoid the majority of their attacks, if he couldn't counter attack he would eventually make a mistake.
Of course as soon as that thought went through my head, one of the blobs landed on Kimura's foot trapping him in place. Taking advantage of his newly trapped status, the naga Hollow pounced at him.
I was ready to rush over but before I could Kimura started shouting.
"I'M NOT GONNA GO DOWN LIKE THIS! DANCE ON THE WIND, ODORU TONBO!
To my surprise, not only did a Soul Reaper not a member of the Gotei 13 in a remote place like this have a shikai, it was actually somewhat impressive.
Nothing changed about the blade itself, but when Kimura thrusted at the naga Hollow to keep it away the blade continued to extend out before sharply changing direction midair to pierce the Hollow's wrist.
Howling in pain, the Hollow tried to escape, but the blade continued to change direction. It would extend swiftly in one direction before changing direction just as fast. The naga Hollow was suddenly pierced through the arm, its tail, its flank, the chest, before finally the blade pierced the back of its head and through its mask.
With its target dead the knot of bladed metal that looked more like a 3D art sculpture than a sword, glowed white and suddenly returned to its normal appearance. Without missing a beat Kimura turned and thrust at the other Hollow, blade extending and changing direction midair the whole time, and neatly skewered the slug Hollow between the eye holes in its mask.
Surprisingly with the slug Hollow dead, the goop holding me to the tree(even if only by a wish and a prayer at this point) crumbled to dust, freeing both me and Kimura when the blob on his foot dissolved as well.
Huh, self cleaning badguy. That was convenient.
Walking back to the clearing I brushed the bits of Hollow that remained off of my clothes.
"You okay?" I asked. I didn't see him take any hits, but I was polite enough to check. And he had collapsed after he finished off the second Hollow.
"I think snakey might have had poison on his claws." Kimura said gravely. "My leg is getting all stiff. You might need to suck out the poison."
Moving a little faster, I strode over and started looking over his legs. Poison wasn't something I had a lot of experience with. If I couldn't heal it then I would need to make sure it was at least contained until I could get him to a professional. We were several days from the town so additional medical help was not an option anytime soon.
"Which leg?"
"The middle one." I looked at his face and saw the grin, "I think the poison's getting deeper in, sweetheart. Gonna have to give it a gooood sucking to get it out."
Wordlessly, I angled my sword towards his crotch and stabbed down. I didn't actually stab him, but I came close enough that he scurried back and let out a shill scream.
"Oh no, the poison is too deep. Guess we need to amputate." I said.
"Okay, okay, okayokayokay! No need for anything drastic! Hell newblood, would it kill you to loosen up?"
Ignoring him I got up and started heading back to the tunnel the three Hollows came from. I wasn't about to assume it was empty after three Hollows managed to fit inside.
I slowly made my way down the tunnel, keeping an eye out for any side paths or nooks something could be hiding in. But it was just a simple straight pathway into a large underground chamber. I looked around for any sign of people being held here or moved. Aside from the occasional graffiti carved into the walls, it looked like no one had stayed here for some time.
Another site with no lead to the lab. I hoped Natsumi was having better luck.
Returning to the surface I walked back to Kimura.
"Nothing left in the cave. Should we head to the next location?" I asked.
Kimura looked at me, incredulous. "We just cleared out a den of Hollows and you want to go looking for more?"
I shrugged. "I don't wanna have to come back out here. And the faster we finish looking, the faster we can go back to town. Besides it's not like the Hollows hurt us, so quit complaining."
"Says the one who spent half the fight watching." he grumbled. "I was the one that had to fight two of them. Dammit, the whole reason I stayed in the trash heap was because I didn't want to deal with things like that."
"Wait you chose to be stationed out here?"
"Yeah, you wouldn't know being an Academy brat, but occasionally the Gotei comes out to recruit anyone who stands out in the local guards. I turned them down cause I'm the top of the pile out here, why would I want to go back to being a small fish?"
I gave him a sideways look, "So the recruiter got a sight of your personality and left you here?"
"Hey, I'll have you know I beat a tenth seat officer on the last recruitment drive!" He said, offended. "Out here, everyone knows I'm the one at the top. I'm not giving that up just to join some squad for no benefits."
"If you say so. Now let's get this over with, I don't want to be out here with you longer than I need to."
"If it's because you can't contain yourself around me, don't be shy. I'll take you anytime anywhere." Kimura said lecherously.
I was starting to think it would be a miracle if I didn't castrate him before we returned. I was sure nothing of value would be lost.
Spirit 3.6
-Back in the town of Koifushi, South Rukongai District 49. Two days after Alexandria departed-
A shadowed figure silently slipped into an empty office.
Night had fallen over the Soul Society and perhaps fitting for a town in the mid-Rukongai the local guard was not particularly vigilant for people sneaking into governmental buildings.
The figure quickly moved from the door and made its way to the records cabinet and expertly started shifting through them. A small handheld device occasionally flashing as the intruder copied each page before it was returned to its original place.
Barely ten minutes later, all the files had been copied and the figure snuck back out the door.
-o-
The next day, Natsumi was looking over the analysis of all the records she had copied and sent back to the support members in Squads Two and Twelve to look over while she slowly finished off a cup of tea.
While she hadn't needed to do these types of missions for close to 30 years, most of her job after promotion to third seat consisted of managing the Squad and the occasional hunt of especially crafty Hollows, it was nice to know that her skills were still sharp.
It was also rather relaxing to not be the one responsible for paperwork for a change.
'If the squad wouldn't fall apart with Omaeda in charge I would think about making this a regular thing.' Natsumi mused. It was rather fun blending into the crowds here. While the standards of living were far from what she was used to, there were enough goods moving through the area that the bars were well stocked and by extension enough drunks in position that Natsumi was learning all kinds of things even without getting involved in the flow of conversation. Not that she said nothing, a well timed comment could easily guide the people around her into talking more about any topic they knew about.
For instance, the town had recently replaced its mayor for the third time in as many years because the two major criminal groups in the area had clashed before being subsumed by a third group.
It was a little tidbit Natsumi had relayed back to one of the Onmitsukidō to investigate. If the group was tolerable enough perhaps a deal could be struck for how they handled the area. If not they could always infiltrate and direct the group or eliminate them if they were too disruptive.
She also learned the general opinion on the local Shinigami garrison and their members. Like most places the local garrison kept the 'peace' in town. Meaning they would step in for obvious criminal activity or threats, but would remain largely uninvolved with anything underground or outside of town.
According to many of the bar patrons, many more people had been vanishing around the Red Leaves Forest than had been reported. It was simply that most people didn't care to file a report if nothing would come of it.
Natsumi was glad that Alexandria was off in that area. If the issue was local, she could handle it. If it wasn't and they were lucky, it might give them a lead to where the Senkaimon and lab were located.
She was distracted from her thoughts when she heard a door slide open and another Shinigami walk in.
"Oh, hello Hanakage-san. I didn't realise you were up already." the newcomer said.
Natsumi looked up to see the second-in-command of the local garrison walk into the rest area she was in. She had briefly talked to him during the process of sorting out her and Alexandria's sleeping arrangements, but she hadn't run into him in the days following. Not surprising, considering Natsumi was enjoying ordering Alexandria around as revenge for the overly familiar mannerisms the blonde tended to subject her too. The former-Ryoka could be alarmingly similar to Lieutenant Matsumoto at times, and Natsumi was rather glad the similarities ended with just the overly friendly personality and not the laziness and drinking habits of the Squad Ten Lieutenant.
"I wouldn't call 10 o'clock early Kiba-san." Natsumi replied.
Yuuto Kiba did not look like what you would expect of a Shinigami this far out in the Rukongai. Most local Shinigami tended to look taller and more muscular than the souls surrounding them. Something about Reiryoku helping push a Shinigami's body toward its peak. It was why being an overweight Shinigami was only possible in the center districts, where resources were plentiful and threats were rare.
But Yuuto Kiba? He looked like he would fit in as a member of one of the minor noble families in the Seireitei. His soft slightly androgynus features looked slightly out of place compared to the harder features of everyone else, making him look even less like someone in command. Between the blond hair, grey-blue eyes, and gentle smile Natsumi had heard several women in town mention they wished to catch the eye of the Shinigami.
"W-well most of the garrison tends to stay out at night, so they usually aren't up until noon." Kiba laughed nervously while rubbing the back of his head.
Natsumi simply hummed and turned back to her reports. She had enough to do in Squad Two and she would not ruin this little break from those duties sorting out discipline issues for an outpost unit.
"So what do you have there? It looks like you are really interested in it." Kiba asked, joining Natsumi at the table she was using with his own cup of tea.
"Just some poetry a friend in my squad gave me." Natsumi lied easily. The Onmitsukidō had used poetry to code messages for years. It helped that the Gotei 13 encouraged an interest in poetry during the years spent at the Academy, so it wasn't unusual for Shinigami to be seen reading it in their time off.
'Well, as long as they weren't in Squad Eleven.' Natsumi thought.
"You have an interest in poetry?"
"For reading purposes only. I'm not very good at composing unfortunately."
The two of them sat in silence. Natsumi continued through her reports while they both sipped at their tea.
When Natsumi finished, she began collecting her sheets and prepared to leave.
"Ah, one second Hanakage-san." Kiba called out. "I was hoping to talk to you more about your time here, since you are on a mission to investigate the disappearances in the area."
Natsumi raised an eyebrow but settled back into her seat. "Certainly, but what about? I don't believe I nor my assistant have done anything outside a standard investigation though so I am unsure what you want to discuss."
"Well there is the fact you are investigating according to standards." Kiba said with a gentle smile. "Normally a Shinigami from the Gotei just puts in a token effort before going back to the Seireitei. If there is something else going on, I would be happy to offer my and my garrison's assistance."
"Well normally those assigned to these kinds of missions are for disciplinary reasons, but both myself and my assistant were assigned as a graduation test of sorts for her. Our squad officers want to see how she conducts herself away from the Seireitei." Natsumi smiled back, keeping to the fiction of their cover story. "This mission was just the next to be assigned. I don't expect to find anything more than the ordinary issues that are unfortunately common in the Rukongai."
"I hope that you don't take any actions of hers while she is with the squad leader against her then." Kiba's smile turned pained.
"Why's that?"
"Squad Leader Kimura is definitely one of the most powerful Shinigami in the district, but he is also rather… direct about his desires with women that he does not spend much time with. It doesn't help that his methods are actually successful in some cases."
"Are you saying he might force himself on my assistant?" Natsumi worried. She was unsure how she would explain the leader of a garrison being slaughtered by an Academy student and it would certainly make completing their real mission harder as well.
Misunderstanding the source of her worry, Kiba shook his head. "No, the squad leader is never physical, but his mannerisms have caused several… incidents… with other female Shinigami. So if she performs unprofessionally, please don't hold it against her."
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Natsumi said.
'And pray Alexandria doesn't do anything rash.' She thought.
"Is there anything else?"
"Perhaps you could let me know what you are working on in the meantime while your assistant is away? Squad Leader Kimura doesn't assign us many things outside of keeping public order so I would be happy to assist you while you are here." The smile was back on Yuuto Kiba's face.
"Nothing much." Natsumi replied. "I've been going over a lot of reports your subordinates handed over looking for any patterns that stood out. I'm not sure anything will stand out but it doesn't hurt to try."
What she didn't say was that she was augmenting her search by raiding both the local government and criminal headquarters when she managed to locate one. No need to rile up the locals with her investigation since they always had their own skeletons to hide.
Kiba nodded at her words. "Yes, we've done that a bit in the past. I can get you some of the previous maps we made with the positions of the disappearances marked."
"That would be helpful, thank you."
A short time later the second-in-command returned with an armful of maps with color coded dots with a number that matched to a missing persons report. The majority were a yellow color signifying the case as unresolved, but there were a few greens where a person had been found, red where the report turned out to be fake, and some black where a body had been discovered.
Immediately Natsumi noticed something odd about the maps since one area remained largely the same across all the maps.
"Why is this area always covered in red? It seems unlikely there were that many fake reports consistently."
Kiba looked at the section Natsumi pointed out and blushed. Not the reaction Natsumi was expecting.
"Ah, that area is the red light area in town. Most of those reports are men and women trying to reconnect with the 'special friend' from the night before."
That...seemed unlikely to Natsumi. She would need to check the situation closer before Alexandria returned.
"I see... Thank you for the maps, but I think I will stop here for today. This is more a task for my assistant afterall." Natsumi was sure that there was something else going on in the red light area. But she would investigate on her own. Yuuto Kiba was too well known locally to walk through such an area without drawing attention and seemed determined to assist if he knew what she would be doing.
Best he think she would wait for Alexandria before he offered to help again.
-o-
A few days later, practically the minute Alexandria returned to town, Natsumi quickly pulled the blonde aside.
"I hope you're happy sticking me with that idiot. Cause I am sooo getting you back-" "I think I found where our lab is getting its research subjects." Natsumi interrupted. "And the number might be far higher than we initially assumed."
Blue eyes searched Natsumi's face for any signs she wasn't serious before Alexandria slumped, the previous annoyance pushed aside for the moment.
"Okay, what did you find?"
Spirit 3.7
I was starting to wonder if this entire mission was just one long prank by the Soul Reapers to relieve their frustrations of how badly we showed them up trying to get at Rukia.
It started off simple enough. Oh, you don't have the personnel to investigate this issue? Sure I can help. Of course they don't mention the place they need help in is a medieval town in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, I need to blend in despite being several inches taller than most people in Soul Society? I guess I can wear something else. I chose a slightly modified student uniform? Well you can just be an assistant and handle going through the paperwork first! Not that I minded that much. For all my complaining, I was used to the role from dealing with Urahara.
Oh, we need you to investigate a forest where people mysteriously vanish. Cool, done. But you have to do it with someone even more direct and perverted than Kon. And considering the first thing the mod-soul did with practically every female he met was throw himself at their chest, I was reluctantly impressed Kimura never made a move physically and still annoyed me as much as he did.
And then finally, just when I think I'm done with being harassed after more than a week with a stuck up Soul Reaper who thinks almost exclusively with his small head… Natsumi tells me we are heading into the red light district to get a closer look at something she found.
It's just...it's just not fair.
"So let me get this straight. You managed to investigate your lead, create a complete picture of the area's criminal landscape, get blackmail material on all the local leaders, and then find another lead in the time it took me to find a Hollow nest and clear it out?!"
"No of course not. The data analysts back in the Seireitei handled the local politics, I simply sent them the files I found."
Files that you managed to steal from safehouses and government buildings completely undetected. Safehouses that you also managed to find in under a week. Freaking stupidly talented samurai-ghost-ninja.
"Of course, silly me." I dragged a hand down my face in frustration before shifting it to knead at my temple. The beginnings of a headache were starting to get to me.
"And you want me traipsing around the red light district, why?"
Natsumi pulled out several pages of paper and handed them over. Looking through I started seeing references to case numbers, locations, dates, and witnesses statements. It was a lot.
"Okay, so what's different about these than the other files we looked through?" I asked. If these were just the summaries then Natsumi had clearly found a pattern somewhere for there to be so many different cases called out.
"After my initial lead proved unhelpful, I took the time to map out where missing persons reports were laid out in the area. I discovered that most of these incidents revolved around the pleasure district." Not terribly surprising, those kinds of areas usually had ties with the criminal element at some level.
"The issue was that the amount of incidents was an order of magnitude more than the rest of the town, and many of the missing persons matched the names of people who had submitted their own reports earlier on." Natsumi continued.
"Wait, so people were disappearing and when even more people reported it they disappeared too? How did no one notice this before now?"
Natsumi looked grim, "It was waived off by the local Shinigami as unimportant. What's worse is that this has been going on for years now. And that not only are the people reporting these disappearances missing, many of the people that might report the issue elsewhere seem to be vanishing as well."
I was starting to get a bad feeling.
"So how many?"
Natsumi stared directly at me. "Twelve thousand a year. Probably more since we don't have a way to track the ones no one reported. And the trend became noticeable as far back as fifty years ago."
I did some mental math and froze.
"Over half a million souls?!" I breathed.
That was insane. Even if people were going missing after reporting things, that many people vanishing should have been noticed by someone! There should have been rumors, theories where people went, something!
So why was this considered such a small thing that the number two of the local Soul Reaper garrison looked at the situation and basically shrugged and said it wasn't a big deal.
"How could this never come up? No one else passed this along?"
There was a dark look in Natsumi's eyes. "I believe the severity of the situation is being suppressed by someone. Missing cases are common but not enough that this many can be hidden like this. The incident maps supplied by the second-in-charge Yuuto Kiba proves that they have the numbers, but no one is tasked to look into anything. And because no one is looking, then there is no reason for a report to be sent to the Seireitei."
Unbelievable.
"Okay, so what do you need me to do." Personal feelings could take a backseat for now. With how big an issue this became, getting to the bottom of where these people are being taken is the most important thing.
"From the few people I managed to get to talk, there is a certain building that people have a tendency to enter and then they never leave. We are going to inspect as best we can to discover the cause. I will be giving instructions back to Squad Two for support, but this is what you need to know..."
For the next few hours the two of us discussed exactly how we would investigate the issue.
-o-
Contrary to my expectations, the red light district was not some den of debauchery where prost- *ahem* escorts tried their best to entice people off the streets.
There certainly were a few trying such a thing, but for the most part the shops and buildings actually seemed better constructed than the rest of the town. Several tasteful wooden buildings lined the streets with signs promoting the shows within or services offered.
I would be more comfortable if every other male escort didn't keep promoting their services to me, but it wasn't like I could tell them to not do their job.
"I don't know why I couldn't wear a disguise also." I hissed to Natsumi.
The Soul Reaper had removed her easily recognizable uniform and through a mix of new clothes and makeup, had transformed herself into someone completely different. I, on the other hand, had been made to stay in the same uniform for some reason.
Natsumi rolled her eyes. "The same reasons you left to investigate the forest while I remained here. You stand out too much, and I can play the role of a guide far easier than trying to find a way to pass you off as someone else."
"And why would I need a guide?" I huffed, "You could have just come with me normally."
"How would you explain going directly to the building we are interested in?" she questioned. "I doubt you spend much time in such places but someone so obviously uncomfortable with her surroundings going further into the district will only attract more attention. But with myself serving as a guide it will simply be reasoned off that I have an agreement with the facility in question to bring potential customers to them."
"You just didn't want the attention from walking through here." I accused.
She shrugged. "Believe that if you wish."
I could feel my eye twitch at the negligent answer. She wasn't the one being eyed like a piece of meat by a dozen starving wolves. At least this was the worst it would get.
"Well look who it is! Sweetheart if you wanted some action in town you just had to ask!"
By everything holy, please no.
A hand landed on my shoulder and I turned to face the source of my headaches for days, Aoyama Kimura.
The black haired pretty boy of a Soul Reaper was standing there with the biggest grin on his face and it immediately gave me urges to punch him in the face, but being mindful of my surroundings I pushed it aside.
"Kimura." I acknowledged him with a nod before stepping out of his reach. "Not exactly looking for the type of action you could provide."
He looked lost for a bit before looking at Natsumi. I had no idea what was going through his mind but I'm sure it was only vaguely attached to reality.
"Oh I see! A ladies girl then? No wonder you kept turning me down. Not sure where she's taking you, but if you tell me I can let you know if it's worth your time. I've been all over this part of town and know all the best places around. Or if you want to try the other team again I'm sure I can change your mind."
Natsumi was giggling off to the side while I just blankly stared at the idiot in front of me. Why did I agree to help the Soul Reapers again? Ever since I got here my dignity has been taking a beating.
So you know what? Screw it.
I threw an arm around Natsumi and pulled her into a tight hug with her head pressed into my chest. Ignoring the startled squeak, I looked back at Kimura.
"Well, not exactly the reason I turned you down. But this cutie here offered to show me a good place to relax. I heard that some of these shops have shows that you absolutely need to see if you are in the area."
"So where you headed?"
"A place called the Moonlit Garden, apparently it comes recommended to people from out of the area."
Natsumi covertly jabbed me with an elbow, her eyes screaming 'what are you doing?'
Mine, sparkling with sadistic enjoyment at her predicament, simply responded with 'revenge!'
"Ah, I know the place!" Kimura said excitedly, evidently not noticing the looks we were giving each other. "Not a bad place to unwind, but not really much for the 'personal touch' if you catch my meaning." He gave me a lecherous wink. "Not much more I can say about it though. I tend to hang out where the girls are a little friendlier. But hey, I'll tag along! I figure you deserve a drink on me for taking out a real Hollow nest. Not even out of the Academy and racking up a score!"
He gave both Natsumi and me a very… thorough… look over. I was suddenly very aware of how her head pressed against my shirt, making my assets more noticable.
"Plus if the two of you put on a show I'm sure I can grease some wheels when you get into the actual squads. Heck, if it's good enough I might give you a better deal than if you got with me!"
"Not on your life." I wasted no time refusing him.
He shrugged, more than used to my rejections. "And what about you 'cutie'? I'm sure I can help such a lovely girl like you with something in town?"
Natsumi tensed up and for a second looked like she was going to be ill, before she put on a pleasant mask and replied, "I'm sure that we will be able to find something to satisfy your desires, sir." She wiggled out of my grip and took my hand, and began walking down the street. "If you would follow me? We are almost there."
She gave me a look that promised pain, but I took the whole thing as a minor win. If I was going to be saddled with the asshole again, Natsumi was going to deal with him too.
-o-
Annoyingly enough Kimura was much better behaved with other people around.
Make no mistake, he still tried to convince both Natsumi and me to sleep with him, or together, or have a threesome. Basically just trying any combination he could think of to get us out of our clothes. But he was much less blunt about it than when I was alone with him.
Still watching Natsumi twitch every now and then from all the comments was enough to make up for that.
Too bad that once we actually arrived at the place Natsumi had a pretty easy time ditching the both of us. With her role as a guide complete, she would change her disguise and poke around for a bit before meeting up with me when she found something. Until then I had planned to just keep a low profile and wait, but Kimura decided to make good on his offer for a drink so I was once again left in his company.
Fortunately, there were several girls here that were paid to deal with people like him so besides answering the odd question I had no reason to interact with him.
So I was enjoying the short ravenette lounging in my arms as she occasionally topped off my drink (I was making sure to inspect that nothing fishy was going into it with a handy Analysis spell since I wasn't going to risk anything being slipped in) and just waiting for Natsumi. I'd never been to a place like this before, but I could see the appeal of finding someone soft to cuddle with like this.
It was nice.
"Another bottle miss?"
A waitress stood nearby with a tray holding several bottles of alcohol. I was about to refuse when Kimura spoke up from the other side of the room.
"Leave three of them on me. Newblood there helped take out a Hollow nest before she even graduated! She'll go far if she ever takes the stick out her ass, but whatever. You girls know a way to get her to unwind?"
Jackass, I was plenty relaxed. Just because I didn't have three girls crawling over me didn't mean I needed help.
"Uhm, we have an incense service that some customers use to help relax but it can be a bit debilitating. It tends to numb some of the senses if you breathe too much of it."
"That sounds perfect! Might actually convince her to stop just petting the girl she has there and get to business! What do you say ladies, want to get a little loose with me?" he said looking at the girls beside him.
"Ah, if you are looking to get more intimate with our staff you will need to go to a different room. This one is not equipped for that kind of service." the waitress said.
"It's alright. I'm not planning going any further than this. You don't need to do anything for me." I interjected trying to stop her before I ended up somewhere else in the building. Last thing I wanted was to miss a signal because I wasn't where Natsumi thought I was.
Kimura scoffed and waved at me. "See what I mean? Stick up her ass." He got up and started walking towards the door with a girl in each arm. "Well I'm gonna get to know these lovely ladies a little better. Feel free to enjoy the cuddle session and the incense, it's on me." He stopped right at the door frame, "Oh and if you want to replace the stick with something a little more fun, you just have to ask. I'd be happy to help." He said with a wink before disappearing down the hall.
The waitress gave me an awkward smile before removing a panel on the wall revealing an incense container hidden within. I did manage to convince her to change to just a nice smelling one rather than whatever drug laced thing Kimura requested, but I still wasn't convinced nothing was up. So using more wind spells I created an air channel between my face and the window, making sure I was getting the freshest air I could and trying my best not to breathe in the scent filling the room.
The next half hour was spent drinking and listening to a story narrated by the girl I was holding. Even with the precautions I had taken with the dinking and incense, I was beginning to get drowsy. The warm room and soothing conversation was starting to break down my guard and I needed to do something about that.
Gently pushing the girl away I made the excuse I needed to visit the restroom, only to be startled when the warm smile on her face morphed into an emotionless mask.
"Method one: unsuccessful. Activate method two." She droned tonelessly.
Before I could even attempt to decipher that, the lounge chair exploded into needles that struck the both of us.
I ripped them out as quickly as possible, but I could feel the drugs start taking effect already. My thoughts slowed down, my eyesight became blurry, and moving felt like I had weights strapped to my body.
Some kind of sedative, at least.
Fighting the effects as best I could, I lurched to the door. If I made it to the open Natsumi might spot me.
"Well you are a tough one." A voice said somewhere behind me.
I turned to face it, but all I could see was a blurry form of a person dressed in black.
"Let's not make a scene." the figure said before something hit me in the stomach and I knew no more.
Interlude YS
'How is it that, that buffoon can remember the spirit fluctuations of every single person he's met, yet can't remember where he left the notebook he was using yesterday?' Yoruichi complained in her mind while she shifted through piles of books looking for the one they needed.
Somehow in the few weeks since they had left for the Soul Society, Kisuke had managed to not only undo the efforts Alexandria made to organize his notes last time but also start losing things in areas completely unrelated to the topic they contained.
Yoruichi had actually found an explosives manual in the kitchen. She had no idea why it ended up there, but she was glad Ururu noticed and brought it to her before Ginta found it and started making his own supply of fireworks. She was fond of the kid, but she also didn't want the neighborhood burning down around them.
'Found it, finally!' Returning to the lab Kisuke was in, she saw he was fully absorbed in yet another notebook.
Walking behind him Yoruichi smacked him across the head with the recovered book. "Kisuke, focus. You know we need to finish the details for the Karakura Replacement Plan. No getting distracted." she scolded, snatching the notebook out of his hands.
"Hey! Be careful with that!" Kisuke protested. "It's one of Alex-chan's books, she will kill me if it gets damaged."
Yoruichi blinked in surprise. "She gave you one of her notebooks? I thought she threatened to castrate you if you went digging through her things."
"Ah, hahaha. Well you see, I kinda found it when I was looking for a reference book I leant her and might have borrowed it without asking? But as long as she doesn't find out it's fine!"
Kisuke and his thrice damned curiosity. Alexandria was very relaxed about people wandering into her workshop. She would even explain what she was working on if asked (Not that Yoruichi bothered beyond the basics since she didn't understand that stuff) but she was insanely territorial about her notebooks.
The last time Kisuke 'borrowed' one of her notebooks, Alexandria chased him around for seven hours bombarding him with every Kido she knew and a couple Yoruichi was sure she had never used before.
It took the combined efforts of Tessei, Ururu, Ginta, and herself working together to stop the two of them from destroying the Urahara shop. From then on messing with Alexandria's notebooks was added to the unofficial forbidden things list, right along with giving the kids too much caffeine, letting Kisuke experiment unsupervised after being awake for 72 hours, letting Tessai shop for tea unescorted, or letting Yoruichi have catnip (it wasn't a habit. She could stop whenever she wanted).
And here was Kisuke, ignoring that warning.
"Please tell me it's at least one of her research books and not a project one." Yoruichi sighed covering her eyes with a hand.
"This is one of her research books." her infuriating childhood friend dutifully parroted.
She sighed again. Of course Kisuke would keep going after Alexandria's book. He had always been too curious for his own good and telling him that he was forbidden from knowing something only tended to make him poke his nose into it.
"So what project of hers could possibly make you risk your manhood after last time?" In addition to the damage to the surroundings Alexandria had come up with an interesting lightning based Kido that seemed to solely target the groin of whoever she used it on.
Kisuke had been hit by several and power distance aside, getting electrocuted in that... 'region'... was far from pleasant, given how he had been whining several hours afterwards. And that was before Alexandria had been able to copy Zanpakuto and fight on an even level with two captains for even a little bit.
Now Yoruichi thought they might need to actively restrain their mysterious friend before she leveled the entire town.
"A ship." Kisuke responded, still entranced by what he was reading. Incidentally knocking Yoruichi out of her thoughts of seeing if Soifon would lend her some of her militia to help restrain a furious captain level opponent.
"A what?"
"It's a ship! Alex-chan wants to make a ship and it's one of the greatest things I've ever seen!" Kisuke said, getting more excited now that his attention was pulled away from the book. "From what I've seen in this, this ship could work in the depths of space to the bottom of the ocean if it needed to and there are so many ideas that I never thought of! Sensor arrays, life support systems, power generators, and more. It's all in this" he declares flourishing the book overhead like it was some holy treasure rather than an academic notebook picked up at the 100-yen store.
"And she somehow has perfect designs to a ship that has things you've never heard of before?" Yoruichi asked skeptically. She had long accepted that Alexandria would probably never come completely clean about her past. It was fine. She had also fully accepted that she wasn't working against them.
Still, she would like some idea of Alexandria's past if only to know where she got so many ideas from. And one thing she knew for certain about Alexandria's ideas was that they never worked immediately.
There was a reason no one besides Kisuke was crazy enough to be anywhere near Alexandria's experiments while she was testing them. They had a high tendency of exploding.
Kisuke waved her off "No, the designs here are almost terrible. If she actually tried to make this it would go critical and explode into a million pieces the first time she turned it on."
'Called it.' Yoruichi thought.
"No," Kisuke declared with the same crazy gleam he got when he went through the giant robot building phase a while back. "I'm going to take these designs and make them perfect!" He pulled out another notebook and began scribbling away, lost in his own little world.
Yoruichi sighed yet again as any hope of getting any actual work done today went out the window.
Maybe Alexandria would forgive them going through her books if they presented it as a gift?
Spirit 3.8
I awoke to the soft whir of machinery and a dark room.
For a minute I had no idea where I was or what happened before the memories rushed back.
I was ambushed!
Adrenalin surged through me, banishing the last bit of drowsiness as I tried to leap to my feet but I ran into two issues. One, I was already standing. Two, I was held in place by some seriously heavy duty restraints that covered everything up to my wrists and ankles so the only thing my reaction did was make me flail against them helplessly.
My awakening must have triggered something since a bright light suddenly flooded the room, forcing me to tightly close my eyes.
Blinking away the spots caused by the bright flash I got my first proper look at the room.
I don't know what I was expecting to see, but a sci-fi lab out of the 80's was not in my top ten guesses. Large banks of monitors hung on one side of the room while giant machines dominated the other. Aside from the center of the floor and a path to the middle of the monitors, practically the whole floor was covered with thick bundles of wires.
The disturbing part was that most of those cables were plugged into the scaffold that was holding me up. The cylindrical metal restraints on my ankles connected to machines I had no idea what their purpose was but I doubted I would enjoy it.
...
Right. Time to leave.
I didn't want to set off an alarm by just destroying the restraints. They certainly looked like they did something other than just hold me in place, so an alarm set to go off if they get broken doesn't seem unreasonable.
I focused on the shackle covering my right hand and used Structural Analysis to get an idea of what I was dealing with. And oh man, I did not like what I found. Needles, electrodes, heating elements, and a variety of sensors. All signs pointed to either torture equipment, experimental procedures, or both. Now then, while I don't use the Alteration branch of my magecraft often outside my workshop, this would be the easiest way to get out since it works exactly how it sounds. It's a bunch of spells that physically alter the state of its target. Simply project my mana outward, encase the locking mechanism, use a spell to shift the mechanism to unlocked and-
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
-and get electrocuted for my trouble. I hung limply from my wrists as I tried to stay conscious. Obviously, whoever captured me was very paranoid about escapes if they had a way to monitor the locks being moved without the right command.
O-okay… finesse didn't work. Brute force would have to do.
Reinforcing my body to the limit I prepared to yank my hands out of the metal coverings. Just had to not think about how much that first time hurt. Or how much trouble I'm in if I can't pull out of them…
…
Fuck, why am I breathing so hard?! It was just a bit of electricity!
I've been cut several times and even stabbed through the chest, so this shouldn't be getting to me this badly!
Forcibly calming my now heavy breathing I tensed against the restraints and prepared to break them…
…
…
Okay, just….do it then.
3, 2, 1--
*Thunk* "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!
Rather than restrain me until they snapped, the shackles held in place for a little bit before clamps hidden further up the scaffold released and the electricity kicked in. This time, it was not a single blast of electricity but two. The second one being powerful enough that I absolutely blacked out for a second.
When my senses came back to me I saw the final inches of a thick cable receding back into the scaffold while my arms were lifted back to their original position.
So clamps on the restraints that release before they break, and cables to pull the prisoner back into place once they were shocked into a helpless state? Someone had a lot of experience keeping people with special abilities restrained.
Before I could come up with another way to escape I felt a needle jab my wrist and something cold enter my body. A few seconds later my eyes felt heavy and it went dark again.
-o-
"I believe you've slept long enough."
Something hard jammed into my ribs and I jolted back into awareness.
Groaning, I tried to loosen up my muscles which were screaming in protest from both the shocks and from me hanging by my wrists for who knows how long.
"Hurry up. You are wasting my valuable time."
Another blow to the ribs made me open my eyes.
Standing in front of me was an old man with short slicked back silver hair. He wore a white collared shirt with a red tie covered by a lab coat. Considering the bias towards classical japanese clothing it looked rather shocking. But something else about his appearance was causing chills to go down my spine, but nothing seemed to jump out as to why.
Even if I couldn't nail down what was bothering me, the man matched the pictures I was provided of Akihiro Kanou. Guess he was alive after all.
"You're awake. Good. Now report, tell me the details of your construction."
What the hell is this guy asking?
"I see. Command: Me o samashite watashi no nyūsatsu o okonaimasu. Now again, tell me the details of your construction."
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. What is he talking about? What construction?
Another jab to the ribs made me groan. "Answer him, if you would."
Looking in the direction of the new voice I saw a blond haired Soul Reaper with a pleasant, but fake, looking smile on his face.
"H-huh.. Guess we w-were wrong. I had money on Kimura being the traitor." I gasped out.
Yuuto Kiba made no change to his expression. "How unfortunate for you. Now please answer Doctor Kanou." He proceeded to jab the end of his sheathed Zanpakuto into my ribs again.
I hissed as my abused ribs took another hit.
"I have no idea w-what you are talking about..."
The old man sighed heavily, which brought my attention back to him. "It seems this one dates before the backup as well. What a shame. Reverse engineering takes so long."
"W-what backup?"
Ignoring me, the doctor sent a look to Kiba, who pulled out a small remote and pressed a button.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!"
"You will not question me unless I permit it. Remember that." The asshole in a lab coat said mildly, paying no attention that I was hanging limply in the restraints with gray dots swimming in my vision. "Still it would be remiss of me to leave a question unanswered."
"Some years ago, a brilliant scientist earned the jealousy of his peers. They could not match his genius nor his ambition so they sought to lower him to their level.
They pulled back resources, declared his work failures, and tried to suborn him to their own petty desires. And when that didn't work, they tried to kill him.
But you see, this scientist was greater than them. He knew they would try to kill him to ease their fragile egos, so he created a plan. A backup. In the case of his death he created a copy of himself. Identical to him in every way using the very best techniques available to him. Only even fate tried to turn against the brilliant man in the end.
When the lapdogs of the Central 46 came for him they destroyed his laboratory. A place of science years ahead of anything they had seen in an attempt to deny the man his destiny, and in their folly damaged the memory banks that contained the later years of his work. The last century of his hard won discoveries… lost to time.
Yet even then, they failed to stop his glorious work. Even with destruction of years worth of memories, the copy survived."
Kanou started getting more and more animated the longer he talked, he paced in front of me getting more heated when he spoke of the Soul Reapers. Then he spun back to me, jabbing a thumb into his chest.
"I survived.
It has taken me over a hundred and fifty years to return to even half the heights my first iteration pioneered. I have spent a considerable amount of effort reclaiming what was lost to me when the dogs interfered. Unfortunately it seems you also follow what I must now consider the rule for my creations during that lost century. Either the commands only recognize that physical body or the phrases themselves changed for some reason." He mused.
He paused lost in his thoughts before shaking his head and turning his attention back to me.
"A matter for another time. Let us return to you." he pulled out a clipboard and started flipping through the papers on it. "You are very likely my last creation before my first death." Not at all, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "Even as weak as you are, you are an almost stable merging of souls. It frustrates me that my first death came before I truly managed a perfect merge and now I must take care not to break you and accelerate the degradation-"
"W-what!? What degradation?" I demanded. Kanou calmly glanced back up at me before sliding his gaze over to Kiba. Instantly I was screaming again as electricity coursed through my body. When the pain finally stopped I could taste copper.
"I believe I told you not to question me. But yes, the degradigation. A flaw that exists in all my creations to date unfortunately. You are by far the closest to a complete merge I have managed, yet the ambient Reishi is still grinding away at the connections. Likely you will fall apart within fifty years and perish within a fraction of that, but that should be plenty of time for me to reverse engineer you. Unfortunately, that will still have to wait until the completion of my current project."
I said nothing as this new information shook me to my core. I was dying just by being in this universe. Kisuke had suspected something was wrong with me just by the limited data he could observe with his own equipment, but he could never narrow down a reason.
But Kanou specialized in this.
It was his sole focus from what I'd been told. There was little chance of him being wrong. Especially when I thought about my arrival to the Soul Society and when I used the hot spring in Yoruichi's training ground.
The Dangai was a forced corridor through the different realms of existence here. The inside was full of unrestrained Reishi that caused feelings of unease for anyone traveling it without one of the Soul Reapers Hell Butterflies stabilizing it and protecting the user.
The reason I felt so sick going through it wasn't because some outside energy affected me. It was because without that protection I was almost literally sand-blasting my own soul!
I started feeling nauseous and the rest of my focus went to trying to avoid being ill.
Kanou seemed to notice I was no longer paying attention to him as he started towards the door.
"It seems this is as far as we will get for today. Yuuto, be sure to clean up then meet me in Lab 5. And remember to activate the drainers. No point letting the damage get worse..."
Kiba bowed as the doctor left the room. "Of course, sir." then walked in front of me.
"You wouldn't happen to know where your friend ran off to would you? It would save us a lot of trouble." Even after all that, he still had that plastic smile on his face.
"B-bite me." I hissed hatefully.
He shrugged. "Worth a try." He brought up the remote again and pressed a button.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
"Ah, wrong button. My mistake." he said mildly. "Let's try this one."
Another button push, but this time a...a not cold feeling washed over me, but at the same time it felt like something had removed a weight from me. Leaving me feeling detached and floaty.
"Reiatsu drainers." Kiba explained. "They remove all Reiryoku from a person except the bare minimum needed to survive. Can't have you damaging the equipment with Kido now, can we?"
He made his way to a table and placed the remote next to a white sword. My eyes widening at the sight of it.
"Ah, you noticed. A shame you were captured so easily. I would have liked to see what a spirit tool like this would be like to fight against. Quality ones are so rare compared to all the Zanpakuto we see around here." He said picking up and waving Kanshou around like it was a toy sword. "But I guess you wouldn't have put up much of a fight anyway."
He tossed Kanshou back on the table, making me narrow my eyes at the disrespect shown to one of my swords.
"Well then, have a nice day."
With that he walked out of the room, leaving me electrocuted, drained, and alone.
-------------
A/N
So yeah….
Easily the darkest part I've written, but when I thought about what would happen if you were a unique person captured by an amoral scientist, 'good things' was surprisingly not on the list.
Still not as messed up as what Kurotsuchi does though, so… yay?