Chapter 8

Tatsuki kinda looked freaked out as I laid out the tools for her power up and honestly I couldn't blame her.

What kind of idiot wouldn't be unnerved when somebody comes to them with a knife and start talking about business?

Though I realized something as I looked at the tools…

"I changed my mind, we'll do this outside."

"Huh, why?!" Tatsuki jumped at my sudden decision, looking less than sure what to make out of it.

"If we do it here and you get a big power up…" I trailed off to give a dramatic feeling and succeeded since Tatsuki had gulped in fright.

"…the energy might mess up my house and I don't want to deal with that." I said my completely valid reason though for some reason Tatsuki was looking at me like I was some sort of moron.

Little ingrate, of course she wouldn't realize the woes of cleaning a house roughed by spiritual energy. Not that I ever had to do it either but I was smart enough to know that it would be a pain in the ass.

Though that might be just cleaning rather than it being roughed by spiritual energy.

Doesn't matter.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"This place should be good enough." I claimed as we finally reached a part of the park that was far away from people. Mostly because it was close enough to the dumping ground that it smelled.

"Yeah, yeah. Can we do it already." Tatsuki complained as she crossed her arms.

"Just give me a second." I said, honestly youngsters these days are always in a hurry.

I gathered some spirit particles in my hand and shaped into a crude knife, something that wouldn't last one blow in a fight but it was sufficient for what I was about to do.

I plunged the spirit knife to the ground and started to drag it behind me as I kept walking, making a small circle around me and Tatsuki.

Seeing that the shape was good I dispersed the knife back into particles and slapped my hands together like a praying monk.

"Verstecktes Feld. Aktivieren Es." With my incantations the circle glowed faintly in a blue color similar to natural spiritual energy one could find in the air.

"This will keep others from sensing spiritual power from inside."

"Useful." Tatsuki dryly said and I had to keep myself from crying, cause it wasn't.

The barrier could hide what was inside of it but it had to be fucking small, the one I drew around me and Tatsuki was actually as big as it could go. Not to mention anyone from outside entering would disrupt it.

If it wasn't so useless for anything other than what we were about to do, I would be using it to train without alerting anybody! But it was practically impossible to do any training worth something in such a small space especially because what he really wanted to train was speed and summoning his hollows. None which were small enough for the space of the barrier.

He had thought about using gravity manipulation inside of it, using it on some trees while he was inside the barrier. But it simply wasn't worth the risk since he didn't know whether spiritual power would be felt only from him or from where he used the power on. Not to mention an irregularity in gravity would never go unnoticed.

"So, how are we doing this?" Tatsuki's words took me out of my thoughts, she really looked impatient.

"Sit down." I told her as I followed my own advice. It would be easier this way after all.

"First I will explain the process, then you will decide whether you will do it or not." I said and Tatsuki immediately scowled.

"You think I will chicken out?!" The school tomboy hissed through gritted teeth, looking as threatening as a kitten to me.

"Probably not. But by explaining the process I will have the right to say 'not my problem' if there is anything you don't like about the results." I deadpanned at her which seemed to calm her down.

"Now..." I said as I put down the saucer on the ground and took the bottle of water, my hand glowing with power as I poured some of the water inside the saucer. Then I picked the knife and before Tatsuki could say anything, I slit just under my wrist and let the blood fill out the rest of the saucer, getting a loud gasp from the karate prodigy.

"Are you crazy?!" Tatsuki yelled out as she reached out to my hand and checked for... nothing. Under the blood there was no cut, the skin looked smooth and without any sort blemish.

"How?" She whispered as she shared my wrist, as if she was trying to make sure that it was real and not some sort of illusion and that it wouldn't start to bleed again.

"Not important." I took my hand back from her grip as I took the saucer off of the ground and presented it to her.

"In this, there is my blood. If spirit is the metaphysical proof of life then one can claim that blood is the physical proof of it. You will drink it." I started to explain and smiled as I saw her face scrunch up in disgust.

"If this is some sort of prank, I WILL punch you." She said but still accepted the saucer, looking at the blood water mix inside it with conflicted feelings.

"No prank. Through water laced with my spiritual power and blood, my energy will be able to make contact with your soul. There I will use it to carve a letter into your soul."

"Sounds(gulp)... dangerous." She said with her face pale, not that I could blame her for it.

"Dangerous, no. Painful, more than likely." I said, seeing no reason to lie to her about it.

"But through carving a letter in your soul, I'll also be granting you power through a word with that letter." I explained and that made her perk up in interest.

"This is your last chance to back up. After the process begins, there will no go backs." I warned her, not that it was needed since I already knew her character well enough to know what her decision would be.

And she didn't disappoint as she brought the saucer to her lips and drank it all in one gulp.

I smiled as I felt my power inside her, ready to obey my commands. Now that I think about it, Yhwach could use this method to actually kill people from within, not that the mustache bastard would ever need to kill somebody like that.

As I guided my power, I already knew exactly what I would engrave it into her. And then Tatsuki screamed out for a moment before blacking out.

Not that I cared about it. All my focus was on my power putting the last touches into her soul.

Unlike Yhwach who had used latin letters for his Sternritter, I decided to put something of a Japanese touch to what I was doing. Which was why the process was taking so long. It took a whole minute unlike the few seconds a latin letter would take, my forehead covered in sweat when I had finally finished.

But I had done it. I had engraved a kanji into her soul. If one could actually look into someone's soul they would see the character standing proudly on her's.

Befitting Arisawa Tatsuki...

Tatsu(Dragon).