Playing God 16
Charlie Foxtrot
Six months passed in the blink of an eye. Had it not been for the gradual shifting of the seasons, I would not have noticed. At first, I wondered how seasons could exist in the spirit world, then gave it up for the sake of my own sanity. I may as well question where all the other pantheons went.
These days, my hollow hunts saw me ranging hundreds or even thousands of miles away from Rukongai. It was no problem thanks to my teleportation and Yatagarasu.
Each morning, I took a rotating roster of students from the Genji School. They engaged the hollows under my watchful gaze, ensuring that even the least accomplished of them would gain combat experience. I took this as a sign of trust, that the old man knew I would not let his students come to harm.
Truthfully, I hadn’t initially planned on staying this long. Wanderlust was my oldest friend and I’d only stayed a month or two in Planetos. I’d forgotten how long it took to learn the shinigami arts. Or really, any skillset that didn’t come from my intuitive, game-avatar-in-real-life bullshit.
As it was, my progress was damn near miraculous. I started at a far higher baseline, with an awareness of my internal energies. Mana and ki both, as kannushi and monk, I could already use. I advanced appropriately swiftly, becoming quite good at zanjutsu, hoho, and hakuda in a mere handful of months.
That embarrassing episode with the toad hollow never repeated itself. In just a month, I was cutting gillians in half. In four, I could defeat the entirety of the Genji School, obvious exception aside, simultaneously while avoiding the use of mana altogether. All while others remained at a seeming standstill in their progress.
Of course, I knew better than to get cocky. These students were the Japanese equivalent of medieval peasants. Taught by Yamamoto or not, they were limited by the size of their “reiryoku,” their spirit power. The most that could be expected of them was to repel the occasional hollow. It sounded elitist as hell, but the noble families, especially the big five, did tend to produce warriors of far higher quality.
Now that I thought about it, a lot of shonen settings I knew about were low-key supportive of eugenics. Ichigo, this reality’s hero, had a bullshit cocktail of bloodlines that Francis Galton would envy. That quirk of spiritual genetics would give him a truly freakish growth curve, matching and surpassing the centuries of effort most people put in.
And if I needed a bit of extra humbling once in a while, Yamamoto took me aside to spar with him on occasion. He kept Ryujin Jakka in its base form. In turn, I stuck to only zanjutsu, hoho, and the blend of hakuda and my monastic tradition, the Way of the Wanderer.
We held back. He had his sword release forms. I had a cocktail of bullshit hax that he’d never even seen before. But truthfully, he held back more. That realization was the grounding motivation I needed to push myself.
X
Our blades clashed with the sound of thunder. The pressure alone pressed against me like a hurricane, threatening to launch me away. It did force everyone else aside, squishing them against the side of the mountain. Trees were flattened and the entire mountainside trembled with each exchange.
We weren’t in Rukongai anymore. We couldn’t afford to be. People in this reality seemed oddly sensitive to “reiatsu,” spirit pressure. Even holding back like this, neither of us could fight at all unless we wanted to cause mass panic or fainting spells.
Instead, Yamamoto had me open a Gate to an abandoned mountain, far from the town. Those students he deemed strong enough were permitted to observe, but we always left a token force back in town to handle any unforeseen problems.
He slid his blade along the spine of my own katana, guiding it aside. It was an almost gentle motion, unhurried yet intentional. At the same time, his fist carved a screaming arc towards my liver.
I caught it on my palm with a wince of pain. The blow made the air thunder and my hand ache. Fingers digging into his fist, I used that as leverage to lift myself, my knee angling for his temple.
He flicked his wrist, turning his sword back with the hiss of the wind. I had to abort my strike, lest Ryujin Jakka carve out my throat. That was his style, absolute and uncompromising aggression. He did not back down; he just attacked and kept attacking so much so that every counter simply became too costly to commit to. He reminded me of a raging flame, scorching all that approached regardless of whatever else might happen.
But that freed up my own sword. I hung in the air, almost parallel to the ground, leg still extended into a flying knee. My position gave my hand no leverage to cut so I dropped my blade into one, waiting tail. It curled and straightened out rapidly, lashing like a whip, blade aimed for his leg.
Yamamoto finally took a step back, progress. He saw the triumphant gleam in my eye and sped up. Removing one hand from his sword, he punched me in the chest, hard enough that I lost my breath for a second.
I countered with more tails even as I used a hakuda form to recover in midair. Nine tails lashed at him from random directions, each strong enough to punch through castle walls.
He raised his sword in a complex arc. Not once did he get distracted or overwhelmed. Ryujin Jakka swept each tail along its curve, nudging them all ever so slightly. He didn’t need to stop them all, just guide them along in such a way that they would pass him by.
I’d hoped to use my tails as a distraction. My katana was in my hand again. I was already lunging forward, my sword hidden behind a whirlwind of fur.
His eyes widened in surprise. His sword was out of position from deflecting all my tails. Yet, my blade did not reach him. He pulled his arms back to his chest, lowering his sword in time to catch the tip of mine on Ryujin Jakka’s kashira, the metal cap that acts as the pommel on a katana.
A front snap kick, delivered with mountain-crushing force, was my reward. It was the most basic of hakuda maneuvers, but hurt like a bitch coming from Yamamoto.
Blood welled in my mouth. My ribs cracked. I flew for miles before slamming into another mountain. The force crushed the entire mountainside, triggering a rockslide that could have crushed a village had it not been for our remote location.
I healed myself with a whispered word as I burst from the debris, a fanged grin on my face. The air ignited beneath my feet. Flames coated my tails. Not because I was trying to set the world ablaze, but simply because the air rubbed against my fur and combusted from the friction.
This was fun. That “battle high” that people talked about, I understood now. I wasn’t slower than Yamamoto, not as he was at the moment. I wasn’t that much weaker, either. And yet, I found myself thoroughly outclassed, such was the vast gulf in experience between us.
Every distraction was seen through. Every attack was parried. Nine tails, two arms, two legs, and I still couldn’t land a decisive blow. Just the slightest scratch felt like an achievement. At some point, I gave up all pretense and picked up my spear, but even my most familiar weapon was no good here.
I laughed. This was it, this was what it felt like to have someone else to chase. As fun as Westeros had been, I’d stood at the pinnacle there, and with that summit came a loneliness I hadn’t noticed.
The battle ended when the sun began to set. I was still in fighting condition thanks to constant healing magic, but there was no question that he was the victor.
“You’re a monster, Yama-sensei,” I said with a rueful chuckle.
“So are you,” he snorted in response. “Never once did you resort to your demon magics to attack.”
“You haven’t used your shikai, either.”
“You are immune to fire.”
“It makes you stronger and faster.”
“And I’m sure you have more tricks up your sleeves, fox. That spear is no normal weapon, either.”
“That it’s not.” I smirked with mostly false bravado.
Even at my best, even immune to fire as I was, I doubted I could do more than stall against his bankai. Many of my best spells were rituals, unsuited for the fast-paced fighting that dominated Bleach. I could probably flee, ensnare him in a complex illusion while I got the hell out of dodge, but even that’d require as much luck as skill.
Ame no Nuboko could forge new islands. I could conjure mountains out of the sky and tsunamis from the primordial sea, but so what? I doubted any quantity of earth or water would be effective against a monster like Yamamoto. I could stop time and maybe do something with Power Word: Kill, but even that wasn’t a certainty considering he was, strictly speaking, already a spirit.
We waited in companionable silence as the rest of his students caught up to us. We’d drifted past several mountains since we began fighting, but that was fine. My senpais could use some exercise after watching me get my shit kicked in all day.
“Teach us,” the old man said, catching me by surprise.
“Hmm? Who’s ‘us?’ And what could I possibly have to teach you?” I asked curiously.
“Magic, the demon’s path. Some of my pupils are ill-suited for direct combat.”
“‘Demon’s path,’ huh? ‘Kido?’ It’s got a nice ring to it.”
“It is more versatile than the sword alone, nor am I blind to the advantages of a dedicated healer.”
“Magic is very versatile. It’s also quite complex. I utilize a force called mana for my spells. It is possible to use the spiritual half of ki, what you call reishi, but it will not be easy.”
“But doable.”
“Doable,” I agreed.
There was some bleedover between Monk, Kannushi, and Ki Master. I’d been studying how tier magic worked, and I did specialize in rituals. What was a kido spell incantation if not a battlefield ritual?
I leaned back against a tree and laughed. I’d always wondered why it was that magic in Bleach was called “kido.” Now, I knew. In this reality at least, it was named after me, the “demon fox.” Well, who was I to deny the pull of fate? I would make kido and its three branches: hado, bakudo, and kaido.
“Fine, but I want more training from you. Less restrained than this. When we spar, we go all out.”
“We would destroy Rukongai. Not everyone is immune to my flames.”
“True. We’ll go to Hueco Mundo.”
“Hoh? Your gates reach that far?”
“I did say I am a wanderer, did I not? Not once have I lied to you, oh great mustached one.”
A gleam of excitement entered his eyes. He held out a hand. “Very well. You will learn combat from me in earnest.”
“And you and your students will learn magic from me,” I agreed, sealing the pact.
X
Another six months passed. It felt distinctly awkward calling Yamamoto “Yama-sensei” since I was also teaching him. For that matter, I could hardly call students at the Genji School “senpai” anymore, either. A good quarter of them were my students now.
Well, calling me a teacher felt a bit exaggerated, to be honest. These people did not have mana, not like Louise. They had reiryoku, what I roughly equated with the spiritual half of my Ki Master class. Converting tier magic spells into a usable format required a lot of trial and error on my part. In that sense, I was learning at the same time they were.
I appreciated this opportunity. Though I was starting to feel the pricklings of wanderlust, I didn’t think I would have studied the relationship between mana and ki had I not been given a reason. In the past six months, I managed to make a handful of kido spells, rituals really, and those only for the lower ends of tier magic.
Lessons needed to be revised and optimized of course, but the framework was largely adequate. My own studies could progress faster if I had the right students, I felt.
Unfortunately, people who were disciplined, academically inclined, had a great well of reiryoku to draw upon, and possessed immense spiritual control were exceedingly rare. Most who joined the Genji School understandably came here to hone their direct combat abilities.
I could see it now, the beginning of what would one day be Shin’o Academy that would be the foundation of the Gotei Thirteen. We were starting to draw attention from beyond Rukongai. Now, the Town of Drifting Spirits was no longer just the protectorate of Shigekuni Yamamoto; it was a town of education and training, of change.
“Yo, Nagi-senpai~” I greeted with a shit-eating grin. I didn’t know if I’d kickstarted the beginning of the Seireitei a thousand years early, but it was none of my business.
The shorter man squirmed with discomfort. “You can stop calling me that, Asahina-dono. I am hardly your senpai anymore.”
“Nonsense! The order of hierarchy in a dojo is sacred! You joined before me and thus, you are my senpai!”
“You teach me kido. You even teach Yamamoto-sensei kido.”
“That is correct. My apologies; I have been enlightened.”
“That’s good–”
“You are Nagi deshi-senpai!” I said with a solemn bow. Really, he was way too serious. Twisting the usual hierarchy into a pretzel was fun.
“You don’t call anyone else that. Why don’t you call Yamamoto-sensei ‘deshi-sensei?’” he asked with a sour face.
“Because being stabbed first thing in the morning is no fun.”
“Smart fox,” he snorted. “Where are you off to this morning?”
“I want to check on the clinics. They’ve been a good way for students to practice healing spells, but there are always patients that only I can treat.”
“Very well, I shall join you. My patrol is in this direction.” The two of us headed out through the main gate of the Genji School.
We were greeted by a wide street, paved in polished stone. A year was a long time for one of my one-tailed clones to work and I usually had a few out when I wasn’t busy trying not to get skinned alive by Yamamoto.
The Rukongai of canon was a shit-heap. Of the three hundred twenty districts, only the inner few were affluent while the outer districts were crowded and languished in poverty. There was no reward for good deeds. The afterlife provided neither rest nor bliss nor enlightenment.
Truthfully, it’d probably happen again. As far as I was aware, the great monk Ichibei and the noble houses monitored the balance of souls at this time. They ruled from far off districts and compounds, or in Ichibei’s case, from an entirely separate realm.
Eventually, the Gotei Thirteen would take over that role. Noble families, and the Central Forty-Six, would migrate here. One day, Rukongai would swell with an influx of spirits. In that light, overpopulation, poverty, and general human suffering were probably inevitable.
I was no administrator. Nor was I an urban planner. That said, I had the right sorts of talents to ameliorate the problem, at least in the present. Just because Rukongai would turn into a shit-heap eventually didn’t mean I had to allow it now, right?
So, I paved roads. I dug wells. I used earth manipulation on a grand scale, spreading the houses and streets wider and building parks and squares like I remembered from cities in the twenty-first century. I planted fruit trees in public spaces, and in private yards if people permitted, all so normal spirits could taste food, however rarely.
I gathered an assembly of the most influential men and women, even if they weren’t spiritually powerful. I gave them rules that became the law of the land. I helped my fellow students establish district courts, schools, firefighter brigades, and more. Ostensibly, it was so the students of the Genji School could dedicate themselves to personal improvement without distractions.
I was the Inari Okami. Commerce, blacksmithing, farming, and in a broader sense, society were all within my domain. I tapped into my divine nature and made my presence felt. People came here from afar and knew immediately that this town was like none other. The whole town had been touched by my hand in a way that was impossible to deny.
It wasn’t just a spot of altruism on my part. I didn’t get possessed by the spirit of Mother Theresa because I arrived on technically-still-Earth. Unlike in Dorne, I was trying to affect change. I wanted to be seen as a powerful, benevolent spirit and draw the eye of the powers that be.
After all, I’d reached a plateau in my shinigami training.
My time here had not been a waste. I’d grown immensely in skill and experience. I could perform shunpo and scrap it out in hakuda exchanges with the best of them. I understood the interplay between ki and mana and pioneered all three branches of kido.
By Yamamoto’s own admission, I’d long since surpassed the point at which an asauchi would have imprinted on me to become a zanpakuto. Other students were practicing “jinzen,” a form of meditation in which they got to learn about their zanpakuto spirits. Nagi already had his shikai.
But not me. It was the cause of much teasing from Nagi. There was no asauchi left because Oetsu Nimaiya had not seen fit to grace us with his presence. Yamamoto told me about the legendary smith. He did not mention the Royal Guard, their existence was a secret even this early, but he did say that Nimaiya seldom visited.
A year? Ten? What was a century to an immortal? He could drop by tonight, or five hundred years from now. Nimaiya was just that eccentric. I considered going to him myself, the World Penetration Gate could, but I wasn’t supposed to be able to do that.
And so, I did good works in this world. I hoped that I would eventually draw the attention of either the smith, or Ichibei Hyosube. He was the commander of the Royal Guard, and so had the authority to bestow an asauchi. At least, I presumed so.
Ichibei, the Monk Who Calls the True Name, was a good man, at least in a general sense. Pragmatic, absolutely merciless in battle, but a good man. He was a friendly sort who did not fight lightly and was open to negotiation, even with the likes of Yhwach. I hoped he’d be willing to see my good deeds and hear me out.
I bid Nagi a good day and headed off to check on my projects. My clones were nice, but they weren’t shadow clones from Naruto, more like simulacra. I had to visit the people I’d appointed if I wanted to be briefed on the happenings around town.
Things were progressing nicely. People were being clothed and fed. My students were learning Cure Light Wounds, the basic-bitch healing spell that would probably go on to be the foundation of kaido, the “turning way.” Whether for pioneering kido or simply for making sure the people didn’t suffer unduly, I would draw Hyosube’s attention eventually.
And that meant it was time to go. The bait had been laid. I could continue to work on new kido spells elsewhere. Maybe it was contradictory considering I wanted a zanpakuto, but I wasn’t willing to wait potentially centuries in one town.
I’d visit frequently to spar with Yamamoto and help develop Rukongai. I’d also be sure to leave a prayer slip with Yamamoto, just like I’d done with Tyene. If either members of the Royal Guard wanted to summon me, they could.
So, affairs settled for the moment, I headed back into the Explorer’s Refuge, far from the troubles of this land.
Author’s Note
As you can see, Bleach is going to be a recurring setting. We’ll encounter a bit of a time skip whenever we come to Bleach. That way, we can get to canon and the “venerable master fox who pioneered the demon’s way” can troll the shit out of the main cast.
Sir Francis Galton, a half-cousin of Charles Darwin, fathered the theory of eugenics as it exists in academia. Of course, the notion of bloodline supremacy is as old as history, but we needed a Brit to put a stamp on it.
D&D 3.5e monks don’t get monastic traditions in RAW. I’m including them for flavor because I can’t imagine YGGDRASIL not having them. Way of the Wanderer is not canon to D&D 5e. It’s homebrew because I don’t think any 5e format fits well with YGGDRASIL’s extremely loose interpretation of 3.5e.
I’m in a weird place regarding speed tiers. Charlie is faster than Ainz, but I’m not actually sure how that translates to Bleach characters because speed in shonen settings is all over the place. I could get into the powerscaling hole I dived into for this, but I’ll spare you the migraine.
Long story short, I generally reject FTL statements because relying on statements invites a lot of shitty interpretations of purple prose. As far as I’m concerned, Charlie and Yamamoto are fairly comparable in speed, at least while Ryujin Jakka remains sealed.
“Deshi” means “disciple.” “Deshi-senpai” therefore means “disciple-senior,” because Charlie is both Nagi’s kido instructor and kohai at the Genji School. It sounds stupid in Japanese, too.
Animal Fact: Female red squirrels have highly developed maternal instincts. They are territorial, live largely alone, and seldom interact with one another. However, they will adopt orphaned baby squirrels (which are called kits, kittens, or pups interchangeably).
Other animals do adopt relatives as well, such as chimpanzees, monkeys, elephants, etc. But notice that such animals tend to be relatively intelligent and live in social collectives. An asocial animal like a red squirrel adopting an orphan, even one that’s related to it, is quite unusual.