An Arcanist in Karakura Town 39 (Patreon)

An Arcanist in Karakura Town

Chapter 39

-VB-

Yoruichi sat as serenly as she could while sipping her tea while her former protege sat across from her.

“I really like what you’ve done with the place,” she spoke up. “It’s more you than tradition.”

“Thank you, Yoruichi-sama.”

“So I have a few questions.”

“Please, ask.”

“Why did you send assassins after the human magician?”

Yoruichi saw her freeze.

Soi-Fon didn’t say anything for a long time.

“It was at the request of Kurotsuchi Mayuri,” she finally replied.

Another captain requested it?

“Why did he?”

“His division collected evidence that the human magician was experimenting with spiritual particles. I have the request and the report in the records, if you wish to peruse them,” she replied.

Yoruichi sighed. “So there was actually a reason for it. How many people did we lose to him?”

“... thirteen.”

“That many?”

“Yes, Yoruichi-sama.”

She sighed. “And is the order still active?”

“Yamamoto-sotaicho ordered that a magician capable of erasing spiritual particle must be eliminated before he spreads the knowledge among the human magicians.”

Yoruichi agreed with the late captain-commander, but the problem was that assassination won’t work against a target that was out of reach. At the same time, the magician wasn’t hostile towards Gotei 13 - definitely wary and paranoid but not hostile - until Soi-Fon sent those assassins.

Soi-Fon irreparably ruined any ties Gotei 13 might have formed with Marris, but she was also under orders so the fault laid with the late captain-commander. Explaining the situation would do nothing.

The order would have to be rescinded, however. There was no reason to make someone with those bombs constantly pissed off at them, now would it?

“Recall all assassination operation involving Marris Alan,” she ordered, and Soi-Fon snapped her head up and looked at her with wide eyes.

“But-!”

“Kisuke still hasn’t figured out how Marris made those bombs,” she replied easily. “Has no clue whatsoever, actually. Until such a time that we can make a counter to it, any and all operations in Karakura Town and against Marris in general are to cease.”

There was a shuffle of clothes as one of the assassin-messengers of the 2nd Division landed outside the room where the two were in. “Taicho! Report from the 12th Division. Karakura Town’s spiritual presence has dropped near completely!”

-VB-

“What?”

“The European magicians don’t want to get involved, but they declared that they will not bar us from purchasing war materials.”

I leaned back in my chair and tried not to moan in despair while Hidemasa tried not to show his discomfort.

This essentially meant that he and I were alone in this. Well, Tatsuki and Orihime, too, but they weren’t the main defender/attacker/inventor/manufacturer/etc in our group.

The Winter War would soon break out…

Actually, I wanted to know what the mood was like on both sides. Were they prepared? Did they want me dead?

If this was a game like Europa Universalis IV, then it would have been easy as clicking on whatever icon or flag Gotei 13 and Aizen’s Espada used and looking at the numbers.

Alas, the world was not a game and could never be so; there were simply too many variables for anyone or program to keep track of.

I also did not want to use Orihime or Tatsuki to probe Kurosaki. He might get the wrong idea and try to spirit them away to Soul Society, not knowing that they would sooner kill them for their association to me.

After all, Soul Society and Gotei 13 were the same creatures that genocided the Quincies; they couldn’t do it completely like any governments that took part in genocides (just as Turkey, India, China, Japan, USA, Germany, etc), but the point was that genocide was not only part of their agenda but a recent history.

I was very much not interested in getting caught up with them.

So contacting Gotei 13, even through Kurosaki as an intermediary, was out of the option.

Contacting Aizen was worthless. The man wanted to use the whole of Karakura Town as a sacrifice to make his Key. I was in his way.

Ergo I was his enemy.

“What do you think we should do?” I asked Orihime, who had been caught up on what I was trying to do by contacting the European magicians, whose innate isolationist tendency had left me hanging without an ally.

“We can’t stay inside?” she asked me while slowly caressing her baby bump.

She was in her late second trimester now.

“Honestly, we can,” I replied. “And we will certainly survive any war that breaks out over Karakura Town.”

“Then why not just stay inside?”

“Because Aizen, Urahara, and Mayuri - the scientists and leaders of the two sides we’re stuck between - will eventually find a way to penetrate our defenses. Unlike us, they have dozens if not hundreds of people while only I can make things that they consider dangerous.”

Hidemasa spoke up here. “On top of that, I doubt you want to stay inside a single building for the rest of your life, even if it is for your own safety,” he replied. “God knows I tried that with my children but it never worked.”

She nodded hesitantly. “So … what are you going to do?”

“... I have another power I have access to but have neglected so far. It’s called ‘Haywire,’ and with it, I might be able to access Hueco Mundo and Soul Society.”

“What would be the purpose of that?” Hide asked with a raised eyebrow.

I grinned. “You know how I said that it would be M.A.D. for them to try to fight us in Karakura Town?”

“Yes.”

“I want to take them a step ahead. I want them to realize that attacking this very city, threatening to pull me into their conflict, will result in me not only annihilating them here in the city but their homes.”

Sure, it would work better for Soul Society than Hueco Mundo, because the arrancars weren’t too interested nor did they have a lot of people they were duty bound to. But it was also Urahara and Mayuri that I was concerned about more than Aizen when it came to penetrating my defenses.

For Aizen, I had a different approach.

“Hide, have you loaded up all of the dispersion bombs?”

“I have,” he asked. “Though I don’t know why you had me do it.”

“Well, the reason,” I said as I fished out a wire connected lever from the drawer of my desk. “Is simple. Aizen wants Karakura because it is rich in spiritual particle-enriched souls.”

“He does?” Tatsuki asked.

“Uh huh,” I replied with a hum. “He wants to sacrifice them all to make some kind of a key.”

Both of my girls looked sick at that revelation.

“So why don’t I make that impossible?”

Orihime and Tatsuki stared at me for a second before…

Why did they look horrified?

“A-Alan, you’re not thinking about bombing the city, are you…?” Orihime asked with a titter in her voice.

“I mean,” I frowned. “How else am I supposed to get Aizen’s attention off of us? We come before anyone else. You know that.”

“But you want to bomb a city!” Tatsuki hissed.

Hidemasa also looked upset but resigned. “I have ordered far worse. At the very least, your bombs will make it quick.”

I nodded. Hidemasa understood me. When life got tough, we also had to be tough with our decisions.

I pulled up spiritual radar and grabbed the lever.

Orihime and Tatsuki looked like I was about to commit a warcrime.

Then I pulled the lever.

-VB-

Ichigo heard it before he saw it.

It was a pfoomph of something being launched.

He looked up and saw … balls.

His eyes widened.

“MARRIS!” he roared in anger.

There were hundreds of those balls - bombs! - and they were being hurled all around the city.

There was no way for him to stop it all.

And then, as one, they detonated.

He closed his eyes as light washed over the entire city… and then nothing?

He opened his eyes along with the rest of the students who were at school. They all looked around in confusion while a few like Rukia, who was in gigai, looked around in confused horror.

What just happened?

She quickly hurried over to him. “Ichigo, what was that?”

“I don’t know,” he said to her. “But it has to be Marris.”

“The magician?”

He nodded. “I’m going to go and talk to him.”

The man was a hypocrite. He beat the shit out of him for being careless and then goes and detonates a hundred plus bombs all over the city.

“Wait, don’t-!”

But he was already gone, running out of the classroom. Soon, Rukia and Sado were hot on his heels, chasing after him.

And once he found an out of sight staircase, he pulled out and popped Kon into his mouth.

With a poof, he was out of his body and Kon was stumbling down the stairs.

He sped out of the school, invisible to all but those spiritual aware, and sped towards the warehouse district.

Rukia was quick to follow him but Sado stayed behind with Kon and Pyon.

It took him a minute to get there, and when he did, he banged his hands against the doors of the warehouse Marris owned.

“What the fuck, you bastard?!”

A speaker crackled to life. “What do you want, Kurosaki?”

“You threw bombs all over the place!”

“Yeah? Harmless bombs to anyone who’s human.”

Ichigo blinked. “What?”

“Harmless to humans, you thick-headed, collateral damage ghost. Those were my spiriton dispersion bombs. They don’t do anything to souls and humans. What they do, however, is push away environmental spiritons away from a location. Right now, Karakura is a desert when it comes to spiriton density.”

Ichigo wasn’t sure what he meant … but then he heard Rukia gasping.

He whirled around and saw her gasping for breath and hands on her knees.

“What…?” she hissed.

“Ah, sorry about that,” he said. “A new defense I developed. Activated it just now in case Gotei 13’s 2nd Division wants to send more assassins my way. See, I learned that what keeps a soul from just breaking apart is the consciousness-.”

“Get to the point!” Ichigo snarled as he scooped up Rukia.

“Fine. In a small radius around my warehouse, I am generating what I call Consciousness Interference Radio. It breaks down an exposed soul’s ability to maintain their sense of self, and thus their form and life. You might want to get that shinigami out of here, because in about five minutes, she’s going to dissolve on you like a goo.”

Ichigo didn’t waste any time. He hauled his ass out of there with Rukia in his arms.