An Arcanist in Karakura Town 11

An Arcanist in Karakura Town
Chapter 11

-VB-

‘I think … I need to tell Orihime about the world she didn’t know about.’

She did know tidbits about it from the few facts I slipped occasionally. While she had seemed curious, it wasn’t until the Hollow Bait incident that she became worried enough - not just curious but concerned about the future - to ask me for answers.

It was Saturday noon, which meant that Orihime’s high school would soon let her and the rest of the student body out.

Ring ring.

“Hmm?” I uttered from the back of my throat as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a flip phone.

Because of the time that I was in, smartphones weren't quite a thing yet, even if prototypes and earlier versions of it did exist. Also, having a flip phone let me actually focus on the productive aspects of my life instead of spending hours doing useless things.

I closed my spellbook, done with today’s brainstorming on spell combinations and new spells. So far, I have done some good work with them, and actually managed to test out a few combos against weaker Hollows.

First off, the spell combination that I will use a lot seemed to be the “Hold Person” and “Shatter” combo. The former would keep my enemies in place for me to be in range to use “Shatter,” a spell that caused area of effect damage at a point within the spell’s range. The downside of this combo was my inability to attack multiple targets.

I could use other debilitating spells in conjunction with Hold Person and Shatter such as Frostbite and Thunderclap. Thunderclap would need to be used very seldomly as to prevent my future enemies from learning about it too quickly while Frostbite could be used a lot.

My main problems were the Shinigamis’ binding and destructive arts. With over two hundred “spells” available, it was a counter to my otherwise weaker if more varied spells.

What I did know was thus: shinigamis can only use one spells at a time while I could - with enough time and resources sunk into the venture - theoretically use a numberless amount of spells at once.

One such tool was already in my possession.

The Tentacle Mask.

I could apply Shocking Grasp to all of its tentacles at once.

It was also experimentation with the mask that got me to think about exactly how I could go about reaching as high as I could of my limit in multi-casting. The most common - and sometimes only - component of spell casting for a sorcerer or wizard like myself was the verbal component but I only had one mouth to speak.

Initially, I thought about speeding myself up, and Haste and Time Stop were great spells to do just that. Unfortunately, it took me no more than half an hour of thinking to realize that while I could use those two spells to speed myself up in chanting, I would still be exposed to the faster fighters in this hellscape. Kurosaki Ichigo, for instance, could end me even before I could finish speaking Haste because he was just that fast.

It was a problem I was still stuck on so-

“I’m home!”

Oh, my mind must have wandered off.

I pushed the chair back and left my workspace, and entered the living room. There, I saw Orihime taking her shoes off and resting her suitcase-like school bag on the couch.

“Welcome home,” I greeted her with a smile. “Had lunch yet?”

“Nuh uh! Are you going to cook for me?” she asked with a wide smile.

“If that’s what you want. How does fillet over the cast iron sound?”

“Oh oh oh! Add some red bean paste on top!”

I chuckled. “Perhaps once the fish is done and in light doses only.”

“Aww…”

-VB-

Our lunch was a heavy affair, but the talk needed to happen, so I asked Orihime to wait at the table while I cleaned the dishes.

“What is it?” she asked me.

“I wanted to talk about magic and the things you might see. The thing you asked me about.”

“The monsters? You were like a hero, even if most of my classmates couldn’t exactly see the monsters or you. Oh! But Chado saw you!”

That would be the half-Mexican Sado, the guy who would use the Giant’s Arm…

Wait, could he use it already? From what I remember, his own arc was disconnected from Orihime so there was a high chance that he could. I might check up on him later.

“Yup. I think I should answer any question you might have, hime.”

She blinked and looked at me with wide eyes. “Really?”

“I also do want to help you get strong on your own, too, so that you can defend yourself until I or Hide comes.”

“Hide-chan knows about that side of the world, too?!”

I chuckled. Hidemasa really didn’t like being called “Hide-chan” by Orihime. “Yes, he knows about it, too.”

“Then then … are there like superheroes?!”

I blanked out for a second before I burst out laughing.

“W-what?! It’s a serious question!”

I just kept on laughing.

It took the whole day for me to lay down all of the facts for Orihime to understand, and there were some concepts I had to crush from her mind like the idea of a redeemable Hollow (at least until they were strong enough and had partially removed the mask to no longer feel the hunger for souls) or the idea that the shinigamis were heroes (they were like anyone else and had more in common with feudal Japan than superheroes of DC or Marvel comics).

“What about Kurosaki-kun? Wasn’t he also out there and helping people…?” she asked, a little downtrodden from her disillusionment of reality. The fact that there were monsters eating souls of people she might have met didn’t sit with her well.

As much as I did not like talking about the guy she had - in past tense, I hoped - a crush on, I did want to give her some good news. “He’s a good guy.”

“Ishida-kun?!”

“He’s the one who started the mess.”

She gasped. “Ishida-kun is a villain?!”

I laughed.

I wanted to see his face when she asked if he was a villain. Oh god, I needed to get a camera!