An Arcanist in Karakura Town 23 (Patreon)

An Arcanist in Karakura Town
Chapter 23

-VB-

The infusion of Menos Mask into Orihime made for a rather interesting display.

She stood before me, flexing her spiritual essence. Being no weakling myself, I ignored the pressure bearing down on my body and examined her make-up of her spiritual essence.

Before our tantric ritual yesterday, she barely had enough spiritual essence to even materialize a spiritual pressure. Now, she could pin down lesser Hollows with ease much like how a Menos could. At the same time, her “aura” was now tinted with a Hollow’s more hungering essence. Orihime was fundamentally a cheerful girl, only acting bubbly because it would ease the tension around her. She was still cheerful, and it wasn’t that she was less cheerful.

It was just that there were other parts of her that, as a result of the ritual, became more outwardly expressive. The way she talked about our next

Well, I supposed that I wouldn’t say no to more sex later.

What also surprised me was that …

“You are so cute!” she squealed as she hugged what I assumed was her power.

I expected to see the Shun Shun Rikka. Those tiny five fairies that let her do a lot of different stuff. Instead of Shun Shun Rikka, Orihime got a bipedal fluffy bear-dog, if there was a bear version of a Tibetian Mastiff. It was also not a tiny fairy but as big as Orihime while standing.

“Huh, I did not expect that,” I uttered out loud, more for her than me. I knew what I was surprised by; I didn’t need to tell myself redundantly that I was surprised while being surprised.

Half buried in its brown and white fur, Orihime turned to me with wide jubilant eyes. “Hey, hey, Alan! Let’s go see Mr. Megazord defeat the evil hollows!”

Mr. Megazord?

I looked up to the furry face of the bear-dog. It looked like it just got constipation hearing that name.

I snorted in amusement. “Sure. I am sure that Mr. Megazord -” the spirit glared at me. “- is very strong! After all, I got you a hundred Hollow’s worth of power!”

“You did?!”

“Yup. You do feel strong, right?”

She nodded rapidly.

“Alright, let’s go see him -”

-VB-

“- punt Hollows to death. Wow. Are you really letting him do that?”

Admittedly, a lot of the Hollows I devoured for the Menos Mask were physical fighters rather than the trickier technique users simply because they were the most abundant bunch to be found.

At the same time, calling what was happening before us a “punting” fight was incorrect.

“Mr. Megazord” was powerful. He didn’t use his power like Hollows, who defused their power over their entire body, which was why they had techniques like Hierro that just became normal among the higher tiers of Hollows. Mr. Megazord (God, I had to convince her to change that name) focused all of the powers of a Menos into his claws, making them glow gold and rip right through the weaker defenses of Hollows.

Oh, and teeth. He also infused his teeth with power, and boy oh boy, he made tearing souls apart with teeth look easy and good.

“I think I made your power more aggressive than what it was before.”

I remembered that Shun Shun Rikka used to be 2:2:1 when it came to defense, healing, and offense, respectively. I think by infusing Hollow into her, the balance of power shifted heavily towards offense as Hollows were naturally more aggressive than Pluses and living humans.

“What do you think?” I asked and looked at my lover.

She looked contemplative.

What was also true was that ever since we finished the tantric ritual, she had become more aggressive as well.

She never pushed me down right after a meal for a full sex marathon before, but she did yesterday.

“Mr. Megazord!” she suddenly shouted.

The bear-dog turned around and woofed.

“Let’s transform!”

Wait, what?

Almost naturally, Mr. Megazord jumped towards Orihime, but halfway to his destination, he came apart into the spiritual essence that enveloped Orihime.

There was a burst of light…

‘I see.’

I now saw what happened.

Magic was a fickle thing. It interacted differently than what I desired when I used the Menos Mask, a spiritual object, with magic, a non-spiritual force, to incorporate the former into a human, a living being. The tantric ritual should have provided instruction on how the mask should have diffused into Orihime, but that was a mistake on my part.

An apt comparison of what happened would be similar to dropping off a Midwestern American, who has little to no contact with Hispanic cultures, in rural Mexico.

It doesn’t work.

But it worked, and I think it had more to do with Orihime than a random chance that allowed it to work. As a living being, she grew and adapted. When her power and body encountered the ritual and the mask, it adapted… but it adapted according to how she saw the world, and how she saw the world was how her innate spiritual power interpreted reality.

Staring at Orihime with furry and clawed gauntlets, bear ears, and something akin to a furry bikini armor for her bras, I think I liked how this ended up.

Perhaps a rendition of animalistic mating session was in order.

We could discover the rest of her power later.