Scheming (109)

Sora did not spare any expenses for his guests. After all, they were here for a mission—what kind of host would he be if he didn't offer them a place to stay, free of charge?

Sure, they would have to work 100 years to pay him back, but they were like ghosts, and from the looks of it, they could live hundreds, if not thousands, of years. So, you know, working hard to pay off something in 100 years shouldn't be too bad, right?

...Not like Shinji owed him 100k yen... Sora would let it simmer a bit until the man owed him 100 million, then go ask for the money back.

He was no greedy businessman—he just wanted to test out his best money-hungry, zero-to-low-morals when it comes to taking money from people impression.

TL;DR, a bank.

Each of the Shinigami had their own spacious room. The beds were ridiculously comfortable, and the food—oh god, the food.

The food was bussin' bussin', probably because Sora made it in his adapted form, even imbuing that good Reishi into it. So eating it could heal you and help you passively get stronger.

Though to Sora, the buff was negligible, to a regular person, eating that food for a week would have them running like Usain Bolt and doing things they never thought they could ever do.

Sora sighed a bit. He now had decent control over that black thing—it was his right arm now, and all of its sentience was robbed away. It was nothing more than Sora's arm.

He said that, yet sometimes he felt like it was trying to speak to him.

After giving them a place to stay, he went to Urahara for some stuff... definitely not some info on how Gigai work.

He was 100% not trying to make sentient clones instead of clones that listened to programming.

After he left, Renji took a bite out of some food left in the open. In his mind, he had already imagined it—the food was probably bad. He was already on prime hater mode.

...

He ate everything.

Like, everything.

"Seems like you enjoy Sora's cooking."

"It's aight," was Renji's reply.

The plate was clean, mind you.

Like clean clean.

Like nothing left level of clean.

Meanwhile, Ikkaku's eyes gleamed as he explored the training area.

The room itself was well-equipped, but what truly caught this bald man's eyes was the machine in the middle. He felt like this was his calling. Maybe he could get some entertainment here after all.

The writing on the machine read:

"Pour your Reiryoku into it for a training session."

"Heh. Sounds interesting." The man had a smile on his face. So this machine could be useful.

The fashion man next to him could smell the danger—and that machine smelled like danger.

Sora was strong, strong enough to make a clone that could force their Head Captain to use his Shikai.

So any training dummy Sora made had to be hella strong.

"...Ikkaku, maybe don't mess with things you don't understand?"

Ikkaku, completely ignoring him, placed his palm on the machine and poured his Reiryoku into it.

He saw a fade, and his bald ass wanted it. Mr. Clean-looking ass...

A new prompt appeared:

Select Difficulty:

Uryu

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

Extreme

We advise first-timers to pick Beginner.

Ikkaku, however, didn't care. His momma didn't raise no bitch. Who was he to choose Beginner? He wasn't pussy. He wanted action.

He slammed his palm on Extreme Difficulty.

"You absolute dumbass." The fashion man could feel the beatdown his friend was about to receive.

And then—

Boom.

The entire room shifted.

The air itself became heavier.

Ikkaku immediately felt a massive force pressing down on his body, as if gravity had tripled—no, quadrupled.

Before he could even process what was happening, the training dummy activated.

A simple, humanoid figure of energy manifested before him.

Ikkaku smirked, cracking his knuckles. "Alright, let's see what you got—"

The dummy vanished.

No, wait—

It didn't vanish.

It was just too fast for him to see.

BAM!

Shit felt devastating—felt like getting backshots from Shaq himself.

CRACK!

His ribs screamed in pain as he was launched across the room, slamming into the wall hard enough to leave cracks.

Yumichika watched with half-lidded eyes, arms crossed. Yeah, he expected that.

"...Yeah, I saw that coming."

Ikkaku gritted his teeth and pushed himself up. He was determined to fight back—

He, however, forgot one thing. The second he chose Extreme Difficulty, fighting back was no longer an option. He would have to stand there and take it all.

Just like that girl would do with Shannon Sharpe... no comment.

The next second, the dummy flash-stepped behind him and delivered a spinning kick to the side of his head.

CRASH!

Ikkaku tumbled across the floor like a ragdoll.

This wasn't training.

This was a public execution.

The dummy looked at the beat-up bald man, who was on the verge of breaking—yet the man had a smile on his face.

"Grow, Hōzukimaru!"

Yeah... that, in fact, did nothing.

Since he and the clone had about the same level of Reiryoku—you know, the clone kinda scaled with the person it was fighting. The whole purpose of the man putting his Reiryoku into the machine in the first place was so that the clone would match his level at Beginner difficulty.

Sora played a lot of games known for being hella hard, so his definition of Beginner Mode would be other people's definition of Hard Mode... so when the man chose Extreme?

It was like choosing to go to Epstein Island... as a minor.

Meanwhile...

So while Ikkaku was getting his gut rearranged... no Diddy... Rangiku was, well—

She was having the time of her life.

"Ahhh, this is good," she sighed in pure bliss, sinking further into the luxurious sauna.

The warm steam, the perfect temperature—everything was just so relaxing.

Honestly?

She could get used to this.

She might visit the human world more often just for this.

Elsewhere...

Toshiro, ever the curious one, found himself browsing Sora's bookshelf.

At first, it was nothing special—just some normal books.

But then, his gaze landed on a particular one.

"Hm?"

He reached out, picking it up.

Sora must not have had time to clear out everything because this one was still here.

Opening it, his eyes immediately narrowed.

Aero...dynamics?

He blinked.

The hell was this?

Flipping through the pages, his confusion only deepened.

Thrust coefficient? Drag force? Fluid dynamics? What—?!

What kind of nonsense was this?

What was Sora even studying?!

The fuck was any of this? This looked like math... why so many letters?

A While Later...

When Sora came back home from his visit to Kisuke about some stuff—and how his machine turned Kishi into Reishi...

Some negotiations had been made.

When he came back, what he saw was an odd sight.

Rangiku looked completely relaxed, sitting comfortably in her revealing bathrobe.

Renji?

Renji was perving.

Ikkaku?

Ikkaku was covered in bandages, lying on the couch with a blank, dead-eyed stare—looking like he had a train run on him... literally.

Sora blinked.

"...Who beat you up?"

Ikkaku groaned, lifting a single thumbs-up.

"...A worthy adversary," he muttered.

Sora raised an eyebrow before his gaze drifted toward the training area.

His training dummy?

Completely destroyed.

"...Yeah."

That tracked.

A/N I wonder why Sora couldn't be fully trusted.