An Arcanist in Karakura Town 53 (Patreon)

An Arcanist in Karakura Town

Chapter 53

-VB-

Alan Marris

Only a few more months after Yuzu and Karin’s birthday, Orihime’s water broke.

I didn’t take any chances and brought her to Kurosaki Clinic, used the space expansion spell and pulled got my first child out of her with aseptic technique help from … Doctor Isshin.

… So yeah, despite birth usually being a hard, long, and painful process, Orihime felt not a single strain and my first child, a son, was born, and the only real pain was during the first few minutes of contractions.

Orihime, having barely sweated, held our wrapped-up son while I sat by her side. Isshin sat on the other side of the bed with his stethoscope and a number of other devices that I had a passing familiarity with. I actually used some of them with regularity.

Syringes, in particular, because my son just got his first vaccinations.

Though… I wasn’t sure if it was that necessary for him and us considering that there were a number of non-standard ways dise-.

“You have that look.”

“What look?” I asked Isshin as he pulled the diaphragm of the stethoscope away from my still-nameless son’s back.

“‘Why does my baby have to get a shot right now?’ look,” he replied.

“Ah,” I muttered. “I guess you might see that a lot, huh?”

“A lot? I used to see it every week when Karakura Hospital was first built.” There was a pause. “Do you think you can help me with that spell when I ask in the future?”

“... Sure.”

He smiled and left us be.

“So,” I began. “Have you chosen a name for the boy?” I asked Orihime. She blinked and then looked up from the baby and at me.

“You’re … going to let me name him?”

“I’m sure I’ll get the chance eventually to name one,” I said while waggling my eyebrows, and she blushed a little. Maybe it was because her birth did not come with a lot of pain, she also didn’t feel any objection to having more babies. If only births were painless, right?

She giggled with me, but that made her body bounce, her tits included, and the baby, whose face was half-buried in her tit, wailed as his comfortable environment changed.

“Ugh, he’s going to be fussy like me, isn’t he?” I grumbled as I watched Orihime inexpertly try to get our son to calm down.

But he was still my son, and I already felt a strong … need to protect.

I supposed that men really do change when they get responsibilities.

“How about …”

I leaned in.

“Gundam!”

I nearly keeled over but recovering and glaring at her. “Do you want our son to be bullied for life?” I asked her with twitching cheeks. Was sh-.

Why did I even think that she would give him a normal name? This was the woman who put red bean jelly on top of white rice.

I sighed. “Want me to give him a normal name?”

She pouted. “Gundam’s a pretty good name…”

“For a robot, dear, not our son. Come on, try better.”

She rolled her eyes before smiling. She hummed as she looked down at our calmer son. “Hmm. How about Sora?”

“After your brother?”

“Yeah.” Her smile was nostalgic and sad but also hopeful.

“... I’m fine with that.”

We fell into a companionable silence. We were … just happy to look at our drowsy son fall asleep.

And wasn’t this going to be a memory that’ll forever be on my mind? My son’s first time sleeping.

… Oh God, I really was changing into a dad, wasn’t I? Was I going to be one of those dads who carried around a whole album of his kids? Or talk non-stop?

When I stared at … Sora’s face, I felt content. Happy like I have never been before.

-VB-

But not everything wanted me to be happy. Aside from the irregular visits by clueless Hollows who donated their souls for the causes of science, there were others.

One of them was Kurosaki Ichigo. He took my complacency to regularly challenge me to spars. The Collateral Damage Strawberry apparently found it itchy to do nothing. Go do your homework instead of bothering me!

The Onmyouji also dropped by occasionally, including their princess-priestess, who too challenged me to spars. Shouldn’t she be training to take over the family business or shrine or something?

The Gotei 13 also sent one of their own to check up on me. They didn’t want the “mad scientist” to go around experimenting on people. Hell yeah, I didn’t; I just did it to bastards.

Time flowed.

Tatsuki gave birth to my second son, and she named him Sai.

Time flowed.

I prepared for the return of the quincies. I had enough samples from my rare encounters with the Ishidas. Although I couldn’t determine the exact method, my own bullshit tinkertech bridged the gap made by my flaw to make a device that will ignore the destructive nature of the quincies’ powers. Hopefully.

Time flowed.

And then … they returned.