An Arcanist in Karakura Town 63 (Patreon)

An Arcanist in Karakura Town

Chapter 63

-VB-

The world plunged into crisis mode as satellites, ground camera crews, and sensors of all types showed the world what kind of hell had descended upon North Korea’s capital. 

I watched, too, on TV as the Gotei 13 laid waste to North Korea without even trying to. Quincies, of course, fought since their cover had been stripped away. With no way to retreat with their own base visible to even lowly humans, they fought like madmen to eradicate the Gotei 13. 

As for me?

I watched and waited with my fingers rolling around the buttons of my next deployable bomb. 

And then something unthinkable happened. 

The North Koreans dropped their nukes on themselves. 

All three of us at home watched as our TV flashed white… and then gave away to a blooming mushroom as the brightness died down.

Did I feel a little guilty?

… Maybe. 

I didn’t know that the Collapser would lead to Pyongyang becoming the battlefield between the shinigamis and the quincies, but I also didn’t care about the country so much as I felt bad for the people who would die in some of the worst ways possible. Because that bomb? That bomb hadn’t been dropped at the center of the city but on the outskirts where the fighting between the shinigamis and the quinicies had been at their most intense. 

Meaning…

The rest of Pyongyang and its people just got enough rad dose to turn them into walking tumors, if not outright had their skins burned and sloughing off of them.

I felt a little guilty about that. 

I did. 

I really did.

Just a little.

Because ultimately, I didn’t care about what happened to other people. I cared about what happened to me and my people, and my people only included my family. 

And maybe Yuzu and Karin. And their dad. But no Ichigo. No, the Collateral Damage Strawberry was still on my shit-list. Very low on that list, but still on it. 

As long as Karakura Town didn’t get blasted, I was willing to let some other country get blasted. 

But I was very glad it didn’t happen to South Korea. They certainly had more people, and I didn’t want that many people in my consciousness. Kind of. After all, their deaths were not tragedies I had to live through, and anyone who would feel grief would probably die soon from the shinigamis and quinicies duking it out.

Now, what I wanted to know was if the shinigamis and quincies even felt that nuclear blow. 

Because if not… then I was going to have to step in and take care of them myself. 

-VB-

Lieutenant Kuchiki Rukia gasped as she pushed herself up to her knees. 

Her head was ringing from whatever that had been. She shook her head. Shook it again. The ringing was not going away. 

She tried to get up but fell back down.

It took her a while but she eventually got back up on her two wobbling legs.

Her body ached and burned with whatever that widespread attack had been. She looked around and saw a hellscape. The captain-commander’s shikai had already set everything on fire, but the latest attack to flatten her to the ground hadn’t just set everything to fire; a lot of the buildings around her had been flattened to rubble no taller than her waist at the highest. She looked behind her and saw that much of the city in that direction remained standing, but most of their glasses had been shattered and few of the taller buildings closer to the attack but outside the immediate impact had fallen over. 

In all, it was a sorry sight for a city that had been grander than Karakura Town, if much more drab and monotone.

“Keee…!!!”

Her head snapped to the right and saw one of the human soldiers she had been trying to convince to stop fighting her. He was more than a hundred meters from where she was, but even still, she jolted back in horror when she saw their skin literally just falling off of his face. 

“W-W-Wha…?!” she stuttered.

They were reaching out toward her in the middle of this hellscape. 

“AAAHHHH!!!”

Her head snapped again towards another voice, and saw … 

There had been children.

There were children in the area. Had been when the captain-commander set the city on fire. When that attack landed. 

And now, she looked at a child that couldn’t be older than Yuzu screaming because he no longer had any skin while laying on the ground in agony. 

Her foot slid back and then she unintentionally took more steps.

People were screaming all around her. 

BOOOMMM!!!

Her head snapped back up. The captain-commander and the captains were still fighting the quincies in the sky, but even she could see that both sides had been shattered and tattered by the attack. The quincies, actually, lost most of their attackers, leaving what felt like captain-level fighters on their side standing. 

And then she heard sobbing. 

She looked.

And the more she looked, the more she saw hell on earth. 

‘Why did this happen?’ she asked herself as she stumbled forward. Away from the wrecks and ruins. Away from the screaming humans. Away from the sobs and cries. Away from the splattering blood and falling organs. 

And then she stumbled. 

She tried to roll with it but utterly failed and smacked into the pebble and debris covered ground with her face. She felt … pain?

Genuine pain? 

She pushed herself up and …

Was that … was that blood? 

She touched her face.

She was bleeding.

Her, a lieutenant shinigami, bleeding from a fall to the ground. 

She gasped… wetly? 

What was happening? 

“Rukia!” 

She looked up. One of her eyes wasn't opening. With her one good eye, she saw Renji dropping down. He looked a little ruffled. 

“Renji…?” she mumbled. Wetly. Why did she sound like that…?

Why was everything heavy?

Renji quickly knelt down and scooped her up.

And that’s when she saw it. 

A bloody tabi covering a foot wearing a geta that didn’t have an owner. 

But she knew that geta. It may be slightly charred, but she couldn’t not recognize the sakura wood geta that many Kuchikis wore. 

As did she. 

“Oh,” she muttered. “That’s my foot.” And everything turned dark. 

-VB-

Things were finally dying down.

I couldn’t have that. I needed both sides utterly crippled. 

I adjusted some of my gadgets and then sent my next bomb.

This one wouldn’t hurt anyone directly. 

It would just temporarily turn everyone in its blast radius, uh, insane for a lack of a better word. 

-VB-

A/N: even shinigamis aren’t immune to nukes, especially when they aren’t protected by being in another dimension. For reference, Rukia was just at the outer edge of the severe damage zone of a 10 Kt nuclear bomb. Had she been in the light damage zone or elsewhere, then she wouldn’t even feel the effects or get rad-poisoning at all because she’s, well, a rather powerful shinigami herself.

But she got hit almost directly. If she got hit directly, then that’s a grave for her.