An Arcanist in Karakura Town 63 (Patreon)

An Arcanist in Karakura Town

Chapter 63

-VB-

One moment they were fighting their enemies. Living mortals shooting at the dead. The dead shooting and stabbing each other and the mortals. 

And then, after a flash, southern Pyeongyang turned into a slaughterhouse as everyone turned on each other. 

Byakuya wasn’t sure what happened aside from the fact that it had to be be mortal magician in Karakura Town.

But when he came to, he found himself surrounded by the dead bodies of mortals, disintegrating Hollow masks, and cold, lifeless bodies of shinigamis.

He could only guess that they were once owned by the rank and file of Squad 6. 

He stared down at his own blade. 

It was coated from handle to blade tip in blood.

Blood assaulted his nose with its stench, and he nearly flinched. 

This was very different from what he was used to. Even if Hollows, Shinigamis, and souls bled when cut, he never found himself in a situation where he had been surrounded by ankle-dip pools of blood. 

He let out a sigh of breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Or rather had been panting in exertion.

… Now, his condition was truly horrendous. He started panting after fighting a few Hollows, mortals, and some seated officers? Or was it simply that everything that has happened to him and everyone else left him exhausted? 

Yes, that had to be it. 

He moved and then winced.

He looked down at himself, not just at his zanpakuto.

Oh. He had quite the number of cuts on him. He must have been fighting without … any kind of thinking. Berserk, maybe. If he had even a tenth of his faculties, then he would have directed his shikai at everyone in … whatever had happened. 

He grunted as he took a step out of the bloody puddle into another bloody puddle over the body of a dead mortal.

Where was everyone else? 

He paused for a second and allowed himself to pull upon the reiraku - the spirit ribbons - to find … there were still a lot of Gotei 13 active on the field. 

Good. 

He looked up.

The … mushroom-shaped cloud in the east had mostly dissipated, though enough of whatever that was remained for a faint outline to continue existing. 

He needed to go and find Unohana or other shinigamis to push back the quincies. 

-VB-

I watched the event unfold and … well, I was a little bit disappointed. 

The Insanity Bomb was supposed to make them all turn on each other for about an hour, but the effect had lasted less than five minutes. I wasn’t sure where I went wrong with the bomb, but it went wrong.

But it didn’t mean that the bomb hadn’t done its job. 

Oh no. 

A third of all combatants had died in those five minutes, and at least another third of the survivors of both the Insanity Bomb and the North Korean nuclear bomb would die from their injuries. There was simply no way for them to treat enough of their own in time to save themselves. 

I glanced at the timer keeping track of how long the collapsed dimensions would hold. 

Could I trust that timer now if my prior calculations were off in the Insanity Bomb? 

I realized now that I had a choice to make. 

I could stay and continue to make life hell for the douchebags or fast-track my plan and get out of dodge before another unexpected failure point shows itself. 

“Hey, Orihime, Tatsuki.”

Both of them turned to me.

“You two remember what we discussed before, right?”

“Yes.””Yeah.”

“... I think we should leave now.”

They looked at me and then at each other. 

“Already?” Tatsuki asked with a frown. “Aren’t you taking care of the problem? I thought the plan was to leave after a three days, not immediately.”

I grimaced. “It was three days under optimal conditions. The conditions are no longer optimal,” I said and then started explaining to them what I think was happening. 

The dimension collapser worked to collapse dimensions. This meant that I was fundamentally, if temporarily, altering how dimensions interacted with each other. I then revealed to them that my mostly “super tech” had dimensional components to them, meaning that by exposing them to the space that had its dimension fundamentally altered, I was no longer able to deploy them with my previous expectations. 

I.E. I lost control of the efficacies of my weapons when they entered the collapsed space and all of my plans to get the quincies and shinigamis to kill each other was now no longer viable with me no longer able to control the flow of battle. 

The plan had been for the shinigamis and the quincies to be so weak after killing each other that I would have more or less free reign to prepare more openly, if still securely and guarded against their expected sabotage/retaliation attempts, because they were never going to leave me alone. 

While I had the means to leave already, the girls wanted a bit more time.

So I had acquiesced to their wants.

But I could no longer. 

I needed to use up all of the bombs in quick succession, get us out of here before anyone retaliated, and then severe any traces of dimensional connections I made by opening up the paths. 

Tatsuki didn’t look as worried as Orihime did.

But eventually…

She nodded. 

“Alright. I’ll get started on ending my side of things. Can you go prepare? The button should collapse the entire house into a ball and lock it in time, so you don’t even have to worry about the stew we were going to have for dinner.”

After they left, I turned to Wiggly. 

“Go with Mommy ‘suki, okay?”

My jello eldritch pet wiggled and slid over after Tatsuki. 

As for me…

I turned to look back at the view of Pyeongyang on my screen.

“Sorry, boys and girls. I’m speeding to the end here,” I said before …

Before, well, pressing all of the buttons.