Chapter 340

I hopped down, following Yoruichi as he ran around.

It certainly didn't take me long to find the source of my current anger and annoyance. And as he mentioned before, this Strawberry was sitting there as well.

One, Kurosaki Ichigo. And he was arguing with a kid with glasses and a shimmering blue bow made of Reiryoku in his hand.

There was also that Shinigami that did the illegal thing standing behind him.

My presence did not go unnoticed.

"YOU!!" Ichigo shouted, holding his massive sword up at me.

"Nice sword, I used to have one just like it." I greeted with a little wave.

"You bastard!"

"Calm down Strawberry, I'm not here for you." I ignored him for the moment. He was a little on guard, which was understandable. As was the silent Shinigami behind him that was eyeing me suspiciously. Though….hers was more…actual hesitance as opposed to Ichigo who just had his pride hurt the last time we met.

Don't know where Yoruichi went, but whatever.

"And you." I turned to glasses kid. "Are you the one whose mess I had to clean up?"

"Pardon?" He looked confused.

I let Lighting snap between my fingers to que him in on what happened.

"…that was you!?" Rukia finally spoke up, exclaiming in surprise. "What – how?"

"Little bit of Magic." I replied.

"That's not –" She seemed to have trouble finding the right words. "You changed the weather! You killed a Menos! That isn't something a Human should be able to do!"

Honestly, Yoruichi said the same thing about humans in general. "You lot really seem to look down on humans. I know many off the top of my head who could accomplish something similar."

"Wait, the lightning was him?" Ichigo blinked.

"Of course it was, you moron!" Rukia smacked him. "He just showed you it!"

"….but how'd he do it?" The orange haired kid barely budged after the hit. "Oi, can you do that too?" He looked at Rukia.

"That's the whole point!" She huffed. "I….I don't know any Kido that can manipulate the weather on such a large scale." She added softly. "…that's not normal."

As the two argued, I turned towards who I assumed was the Quincy. I didn't really know what that truly meant beyond some vague description that Tessai gave me and only that Yoruichi pointed it out in passing.

"You…" His eyes widened as it was pretty damn hard to miss the light show. "You stole my prey!"

….and that was not the response I was expecting.

"Care to repeat that?" I was a little surprised by his answer, I think I needed clarification.

"Hmph." He pushed up his glass, dismissing his bow. "I would have handled those Hollows fine. You interrupted my match with the Shinigami."

"….Strawberry, explain." I looked at Ichigo.

"Stop calling me that, asshole!" He growled. "And this idiot wanted to compete in killing Hollows because of some crap, I don't know."

"Let me get this straight…" I turned back to the Quincy. "You….used Hollow Bait to bring Hollows here to…..compete with this idiot?" I jerked my thumb at Ichigo.

"Who're you calling an idiot!?"

"The idiot who lost his sword." I responded.

"Come try that again, I dare you!"

"I don't want your size compensation anymore." I waved him off.

"What did you just say!?" He stomped on the ground with a huff, but I ignored him.

"That's correct." The Quincy replied, without a hint of shame.

I walked up to him, and he just seemed confused for a moment until I got in his face. And in one swift motion, I slapped him. Hard, and across his cheek. His glasses went flying off onto the ground and he stuttered backwards before falling over.

He's lucky I didn't have my brick at the moment.

"Stupid fucking kid." I muttered, looking at him recovering from the shock. "Just a stupid fucking kid probably around 15 years old." I was more so saying this to myself because I was close to wanting to just kill him and be done with it.

If he gave some answer like wanting the Hollows to rampage and cause harm, then I would have taken his head without a second thought. But no, this stupid fucking kid didn't see a problem with the situation because he thought he had it handled.

"What the hell?" Ichigo shouted as he walked towards me. "Did you just hit him?"

"He's lucky that's all I did." I glared at the other stupid kid. "If he was a few years older, I may have just decided to end the whole problem the fastest way."

Ichigo's face darkened and I saw his hand tighten around his sword. Was he going to intervene if I actually went to kill him? Well…..I can't say that makes me hate him at all, the kid has a good heart if anything.

"You, Shinigami." I snapped my head at Rukia who had been silent thus far. "Tell me, if you summoned a bunch of Hollows into a densely populated town. One that is probably the highest concentration of Reishi in the world. What would your punishment be if they ran rampant?"

"Most likely execution." She said simply, obviously getting what I was hinting at. "Intentionally causing the deaths of the living is a serious crime."

"This isn't a game." I turned back towards Ichigo. "The stakes here for whatever bullshit reason you guys 'competed' for, were the lives of innocent people."

God what is the world coming to when I have to be someone else's moral guidance? Fuck, I'm a damn criminal in another world, a wanted fugitive a fucking Devil. Why does it fall to me to tell these stupid kids that Soul eating monsters in a populated area are a bad idea?"

"I would have handled it fine!" The Quincy kid shouted, obviously having recovered from his initial shock. "I would have proven that I was better than this – Shinigami. Besides, the Hollow Bait wasn't supposed to be able to summon that many!"

"Right, the thing you used to summon Soul eating monsters did something you didn't expect and summoned more Soul Eating monsters than anticipated. That's what you're falling back on when someone calls out your stupidity?" I sighed, repeating to myself that he wasn't malicious, but a stupid fucking kid. "If this was your genius fucking plan, why didn't you use it, I don't know, maybe outside of populated areas!?"

I had to resist the urge to slap him again.

"I –"

"Tell me, do you know how many people died because of your little stunt?"

"No one –"

"I was on the other side of town, and I killed several before I had to do something bigger to handle the stragglers. Tell me, how did you have those 'handled'?" Finally, there was a growing look of horror appearing on his face as realization set in. "Yoruichi." I called out, knowing damn well he was nearby.

I actually don't know if anyone died or not. I would genuinely be surprised if there were no deaths because of his little stunt. And It's obvious he didn't do this shit maliciously, otherwise I wouldn't even bother with words, his head would have been rolling on the ground already.

No, he's just a stupid fucking kid who didn't think through his actions.

The cat appeared in a flash. "Need something?"

"What the hell, did that cat just talk?" Ichigo blurted out.

"Is a talking cat as strange as a talking strawberry?" Yoruichi retorted.

"D-did you just…!?" The kid started fuming and it was hard to keep a serious look at that jab.

"This Quincy kid –"

"It's Ishida Uryū!" The kid snapped back, but he was sorta taking the verbal scolding without running away.

"Presumably, his parents, one or both, are Quincy. Do you know his address?" I asked, ignoring his outburst. "And you said you had people helping, is it safe to assume the remnants are taken care of?"

"The kid is right, Hollow bait shouldn't have attracted that many – at least the tiny amount he used. Not saying it was smart." Yoruichi glanced at the glasses wearing kid still on his ass. The latter of whom had the decency to actually wince at the tone. "But yeah, you did most of the heavy lifting there and the smart ones ran when the Menos appeared. Bigger predator and all that. My friends can handle the rest. As for his house, I know the address."

"Good, me and this stupid kid's parents are going to have a chat." I decided, grabbing the Quincy by the collar despite his protests.

What a fucking day this is turning out to be. Responsible Wilhelm here to tell kids to stop being idiots.

[Kind of ironic, isn't it? You're usually the one causing the big problems.]

Please, I don't bring innocent people into shit like this.

[That's true, now that I think about it, you almost always take fights and such out of the way.]

I freely admit that I do things that are not quite so wise in hindsight. But when I cause problems, it's usually calculated. Or atleast I always take responsibility for the consequences of my own messes.

God, I really hope Kunou doesn't have a phase like this when she gets a few years older.

[***]

"This the place?" I asked.

"This is –"

"I was talking to the cat." I jerked the kid's collar. I was pissed off and didn't even want to hear him talk at the moment."

"Yeah, this is it. I know his dad." Yoruichi confirmed as he stood on my shoulder.

"Wait, you know my father?"

"Obviously." Yoruichi said dryly. "Do you think the spiritual stuff in this town is big enough that I wouldn't know one of the other Quincy's living here?"

Hmm, I think Yoruichi may be a little peeved at the idiot kid too. Well, he did confess his own pride in his previous occupation as a Shinigami. Which the mainstay focus of that was to deal with Hollows. I'm sure some stupid kid summoning them into the middle of a town full of people ticked him off a little.

Maybe I was a little too hard on him before and jumping to conclusions. His callousness was maybe misinterpreted by me. I know I might appear like that to other people when I have situations well in hand but it appears chaotic for them.

And it's not like he knew how strong and such I was. So he was probably being nice and keeping me out of any nasty business.

I'll apologize later.

The house itself leaned towards wealth and I tempered myself accordingly.

Ishida Uryū muttered under his breath. "He won't be home, he's at wo—"

A man with white hair opened the door. He wore a very tidy and fashionable suite and had an air of elegance about him.

"Yoruichi." He was the first to speak.

"Hey Ryūken it's been awhile." Yoruichi greeted.

"I was not aware we were familiar enough for you to use my given name." He said calmly.

"Maybe, but I'm gonna anyways."

"Of course." He responded dryly. "And this is?" He looked at me.

"Wilhelm Henry Schweinorg." I introduced myself and I pulled Uryū up as he sort of shrunk away when his father appeared. "I believe this belongs to you?"

"Uryū" He said evenly.

"….father." The kid didn't meet his eyes.

Oof, something tells me these two aren't really close.

"Very well, come in." He held the door open as he stepped to the side.

I did let go of the kid's collar once we crossed the threshold. Seemed impolite to keep manhandling him while his father was right there.

He gestured towards the couch with the accompanying coffee table as I took a seat and he sat down across from me. And seeing Uryū keep a certain distance from his father wasn't lost on me.

"Am I to assume that the mark on my son's face is from you?" He asked.

His cheek was still visibly red and I could vaguely see an outline from my hand.

"It is." I didn't deny it one bit. "I would say it's a better alternative than you finding his head rolling on the ground."

I was kind of annoyed that he didn't get upset at the insinuation of me killing his son.

"I assume there is a good reason for this meeting?" He asked.

"Why are you playing like you don't know, Ryūken." Yoruichi snorted, hopping off my shoulder onto the seat next to me. "You're not nearly out of practice enough to not notice what happened earlier. You still don't leak an iota of Reiatsu that you don't want to."

The man let out a long breath. "What did you do, Uryū?" He turned towards his son.

The kid scowled and didn't answer.

"He decided that it was a good idea to use Hollow Bait in the middle of the city." I filled in the blanks. "You could probably notice the consequences of that. He was spouting some nonsense about proving his superiority over the Shinigami by forcing him into a competition to kill Hollows."

Ryūken let out a sigh, rubbing his eyes. "Son." He said authoritatively.

"It wasn't supposed to…." The words died in his mouth. "It was supposed to just bring out a few Hollows, and I was going to teach that Shinigami a lesson. That's it."

"I was forced to leave work early because there were a substantial number of Hollows nearby. I even dealt with a good number of them myself." Uryu's Dad explained. "That is until I noticed the shopkeeper making a move." He glanced at Yoruichi.

"See, I told you we had it handled." Yoruichi looked at me smugly.

I suppose that refers to his people then. Tessai did mention something about a 'shopkeeper'.

"I…..I didn't mean to.." The kid stuttered out.

Yeah, he was way in over his head here. He clearly didn't mean for things to escalate like they did and he wasn't mentally prepared for the fallout.

"Uryū, go to your room. We'll talk after I'm done with our guests." His father said sternly.

The Kid looked like he wanted to argue, but hung his head dejectedly and followed his command, disappearing up some stairs.

"Thank you for bringing my son." He suddenly said, "I can understand how this may have looked from your perspective."

"It wasn't malicious." I replied. "Beyond stupid, but it didn't come from a place of wanting to hurt anyone."

"Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to let go of his Quincy heritage ever since his Grandfather passed away. He blames the Shinigami for his death."

"There's nothing wrong with acknowledging one's heritage and honoring it. But he seemed a little obsessed to the point where it overruled his common sense until I literally smacked him back to reality." I was starting to get a bad vibe from him.

I wasn't liking the feeling I was getting so far.

The look on his face said he didn't agree with me and I could guess he didn't care to argue.

"I won't tell you how to be a father – mainly because I've only been one for a few months at this point and still have no idea what I'm doing. But….clearly he's had wounds that have been festering for awhile. Might be a good idea to address them instead of just silently disregarding his clear interests until he does something worse in his misguided pursuits." I admit I was getting a tiny bit more annoyed with each passing moment.

Well, there was a silent reaction out of him, a small frown that appeared on his face.

"I will clarify his Grandfather's death so he will not act out against any Shinigami in the future." He replied.

"….right." And just ignore all his apparent trauma that's obvious to me, an outsider, that's known him for all of less than an hour. Kid clearly lashed out for some reason and expressed guilt afterwards. "Is his mom not in the picture?"

"His mother passed away when he was younger." He said simply.

….the way he just sounds so detached is pissing me off.

But I'm starting to heavily sympathize with this kid now.

"So, here's a crazy thought. I have a suggestion that may help. Have you tried acting like a father? Because so far you seem utterly unconcerned about this whole affair and your son's health and safety."

Hoh, that really got a reaction.

Almost a scowl.

"You have my thanks for returning my son." He stood up from his seat. "Allow me to see you out."

He was politely telling me to get the fuck out. Guess I really did piss him off.

Well, good.

Act like a goddamn parent.

Well, I didn't realize that sets me off as much as it does. Learn something new everyday.

I would leave it at this, the kid did something exceedingly stupid for stupid reasons, but not out of maliciousness. It's not as though he was acting like those Hero faction kids who attacked Kyoto and killed a good amount of Yasaka's people.

[***]

"I can't believe you said that to his face." Yoruichi chuckled as we walked down the street back towards my 'home'.

"I was thinking about skipping over the politeness and just calling him a cunt to his face."

"Pfft." Yoruichi nearly fell over in laughter. "Please, can we redo this. Can we go back and you do that instead? Actually, let's just knock on his door and you say that and then turn around and leave."

"As tempting as that sounds….he honestly pisses me off enough that I don't want to see him. Deadbeat parents are one of my sore spots." For rather obvious reasons. "Kind of sympathize with the kid now."

"He wasn't always so grumpy and boring. Before his wife died, he did have some life in him. Not much, but he could crack a smile before. But he kind of just checked out afterwards." Yoruichi revealed. "Were you serious back there?'

"About telling him to be a father? Of course I was."

"No, I mean, you said you were a father. Didn't think you'd have a brat running around. Seem kind of young."

"She adopted me not that long ago. She's ten years old now, almost eleven." I smiled wistfully.

"Cute." Yoruichi snorted. "Also, where'd you get a Zanpakutō?"

"You just couldn't wait to ask me that, could you?"

"It's been killing me."

"Would you believe me if I said I just found it?"

"Nope."

"That's unfortunate, because that's what happened."

"Bullshit, you can't just find one laying around."

"Really? Have you tried?"

"Why would I try!? That doesn't happen!"

"My new Zanpakutō proves otherwise." I taunted.

"Am I gonna hear about some poor Shinigami that got mugged?" Yoruichi narrowed his eyes.

"…..no."

"I was joking but now I'm sort of concerned."

"Listen…..don't worry about it."

"When someone tells you not to worry about something, usually you should worry about it." He looked at me suspiciously.

"Didn't you tell me not to worry about the Hollows?"

"…..touché."

"Also, do you know about something called 'Hohō?" I decided to ask.

"Yes, but how do you know about that? You didn't even know about Kidō until I told you about it. My suspicion meter is kind of swinging wildly here."

"Don't worry about it."

"I think it's broken now. I think I really should worry. I feel like I'm going to find some poor Shinigami laying face down in the gutter with all his belongings ransacked. Did you steal his Shihakushō too?"

Oh, is that what the uniform is called? Garment of Dead Souls?

Sounds edgy.

And that was…..fairly close to what actually happened.

"Also, do you know someone named Unohana Retsu?" I decided to change the subject.

"….There isn't a Shinigami alive that doesn't know that name. And again, how do you know it?"

"I just randomly heard it mentioned." I said casually.

"Right, cause that was some bullshit you were spewing." Yoruichi rolled his eyes. "Why do you want to know about her?"

"Just curious, I heard she's a beauty." I shrugged.

"Pfft, sure." Yoruichi snorted. "Don't know why you know that name, but listen. There are two Shinigami that I absolutely do not want to get into a fight with. Two that actually scare me. The first is the Old Man himself, The Captain Commander of the Gotei 13."

"Sounds impressive."

"He can keep all the other idiot captains in line, so yes, he is. He's been leading it for over two thousand years now. And he's supposedly the strongest Shinigami that's ever lived. Don't know how much of that is truth cause I've never actually seen him fight seriously."

Huh, is that who Shunsui meant when he mentioned an 'old man'.

Something to take note of.

"And the other is the Captain of the Fourth Division. Which, I should iterate, is the healing division. They focus almost entirely on healing. The woman you mentioned, Unohana Retsu."

"Ah, I got it. No one fucks with the healers, right?"

"Actually, a good chunk of the Shinigami there look down on the healers. But everyone is polite towards her. Believe me when I said that no one fucks with the captain of the fourth division."

Huh.

[Doesn't deter you in the slightest, does it?]

Ignoring the dragon.

"Well, not that it matters. She rarely ever leaves her division and the Old Man doesn't leave his post for anything short of the end of the world. And It's not like you'll ever meet them."

"…..right."

Suddenly, Yoruichi perked up, his ears straightened, and his tail followed suit before he ran over to someone walking down the street towards us.

He was….very out of place honestly.

He wore wooden clogs on his feet and supported himself with a cane. He had a sort of bucket hat on his head and wore a samue with a black Haori over it. His messy blonde hair peeked out underneath and he had a strange smile on his face as he approached.

Yoruichi jumped up to his shoulder then onto his head, laying himself ontop of his hat.

"Ara, you must be Schweinorg-kun." The man greeted me. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Urahara Kisuke." He bowed his head slightly with a strange glint in his eyes.

He gave me a weird feeling.

"….is this the friend you mentioned, Yoruichi?" I asked. "Cause he seems sketchy as fuck."

Yoruichi fell off his head, laughing.

[***]

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