An Arcanist in Karakura Town 5 (Patreon)

An Arcanist in Karakura Town
Chapter 5

-VB-

If what Inoue did to me for my punishment was bad, then what she did to Tatsuki was worse. 

“W-What?” the raven haired girl sputtered. “B-But Inoue-!” 

“No,” the orange haired girl turned her head away. “No buts. I know that you care, but you also said things that weren’t acceptable.”

I didn’t know Inoue had a backbone like this.

“But he’s taking advantage of you!” Tatsuki tried. It wasn’t a good way to go about it but did so anyway. 

Now, Inoue was glaring at her. 

“No.”

“But-”

“Until you are ready to apologize to my boyfriend-” she stressed that word. “Don’t come back.” And then she shut the door on her friend. 

Then she turned to me, teary eyed and upset, but she refused to be weak.

I hugged her and rested my head on top of hers as she curled into me. “Thank you.” Simple was best, no need to make it longer than necessary. Her head nodded on my chest. 

We stood there by the foyer of our home.

Inoue had, basically, stood up to Tatsuki regarding the words she’s said the last time she visited. While the word “yankee” was not exactly a racial slur when spoken by a native white speaker, when a Japanese did it, it was meant as a racial slur. 

Inoue took that hard. For her best friend to insult me was … it made her nervous, anxious, and upset. I ended up having to talk to her to help her out, and I told her that if she wanted to take the long path for us to earn Tatsuki’s approval, I was fine with it. 

Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.

But Inoue must have had a different train of thought, because when Tatsuki tried to come in our home, she refused her friend and told her to apologize to me if she wanted to talk to her again.

“Alan.”

“Hmm?”

“Make me forget this for a moment, please?”

“Of course.”

-VB-

She laid naked underneath the thin sheets, breathing steadily and deeply in her dreamland. Inoue was supposedly the naive, weak, and fragile of the Bleach human trio, and yet, here she was, taking step after step in a relationship and standing up to her friend for what she believed was right.

Inoue was just that underappreciated, me thinks.

I slipped out of the bed, ready to go on another night of hunting.

I took a quick shower to wipe our bodily fluids off of myself and then wore a boxer, a pair of jeans, a red t-shirt, a thin hoodie, and my Hollow mask. I used prestidigitation to dye my hair black. Then I was out of the home, the warehouse, and finally on the streets. 

Quickly, I looked around to see if anyone was watching me, and seeing that no one else was around, I jumped away into the night. 

…

She appeared when I dispatched my fifth Hollow, “eating” it not unlike how a Hollow would eat Pluses, humans, and other Hollows. 

It was, as such, understandable that she thought I was some kind of advanced Hollow.

And thus struck first. 

I almost didn’t see her before her first strike, but I did see it by chance and I dodged preemptively. 

Just as well, because Kuchiki Rukia was faster than I was. 

Her sword slashed down from above, but I had already rolled to the side. I jumped to my feet and drew both of my elbows back and hands curled into claws with spiritual force compressed and ready to be unleashed. 

Oh so elegantly, she drew her sword back up and took the middle level posture, the one that most people would be familiar with if they ever saw Kendo.

“So. Why is a shinigami attacking a human?”

“You call yourself a human?” she asked me with furrowed eyebrows. “Perhaps you are a new Hollow, still unaware of yourself.”

I wondered if I could gamble here. If I showed her that the Hollow mask was just that - a mask - then I might be able to get her to back off. 

… Why not? It wasn’t like I was going to show her my face. I canceled the whirling pool of mana(?) in my left hand and reached up to my face, loosening my own animalistic hunched form. I grabbed the chin of the mask and pulled it up and over, but only a third of the way. 

“See?” I said. “Just a mask.”

When I put it back down, I saw Kuchiki lower her sword in surprise before huffing and sheathing her sword. 

“You are a human,” she noted. “Why do you wear a Hollow mask?”

“Ain’t a good sorcerer, you see,” I misdirected my own title. “I can do some low level stuff just fine with me hands-” and butchering my own words. “- but some higher level stuff, I just couldn’t do. So I hadda get something useful. Hollows, evil as they are-” I didn’t think that they were all evil, just most. “- even the lowest of them can do some cool shit, ya know?”

She frowned before nodding. “Very well. I can see that you are not destroying the souls, so I will let you be. But be warned, if you step out of line by destroying spirits, then Soul Society will come after you and put a stop to it. Do you understand?”

“Crystal clear, ma’am!” I even gave her a double thumbs up to add to this character. 

She shunpo’ed away, leaving me by myself. I didn’t feel her spiritual residue linger in the area, which told me that she truly did leave. 

… Well, I thought that commanding voice of hers was hot.

Anyways, I think I did a good job. Having a mask, unknown face, black hair, and weird talking style would ensure that she wouldn’t associate this “me” with the regular me, who had blonde hair, had a staff that didn’t work, and American.

Yeah, misdirection success (I hope)!

…

But Kuchiki Rukia was in town. That meant that canon was very close to starting, if it doesn’t start tonight. 

Gotta keep rolling my own progress if I don’t want to be left behind~.