Fic: Don't Fear the Reapers - PG
Despite my chronic allergy to posting in my own journal (strange but true), I am trying to overcome (grin)
Just what does a consulting detective and his doctor do in the afterlife? Fusion with Bleach
Don’t Fear the Reapers
Smash. Thud. Clunck. Splat. Ching. Dong. Ooof. Argh. Uwahg. Nonononooooooo....
“Strange,” mused John Watson, doctor (former), as another burly tough from the dregs on the Rukongai went flying backwards. “I always thought my death would be very different from my life,” he expertly ducked and spun, wrenching up a grasping hand and arm in a way only someone with intimate knowledge of tendons and nerves could make so exquisitely painful. “This all seems so very familiar.”
A series of grunts from beside him made him turn his head slightly even as another brute charged. John almost absentmindedly flicked him across the jaw with one end of his cane and sent the man flying.
The poor unfortunate had insult added to injury as he suffered a mid-air collision with two of his comrades. The dark blur that was Sherlock Holmes briefly came into focus. “Is that a complaint?”
John shrugged. “Observation.”
“After four living decades and one dead one,” Sherlock thrust a fist into his blind spot, casually breaking the jaw of the last remaining attacker. “I would thank you not to waste what little observational talent I have managed to bestow on you on inconsequentialities.”
“You take a long time to say ‘Shut up and don’t complain, John’,” John grinned at his friend. His tall, gangling, young looking friend. Sherlock, he knew, scoffed at the idea of karma; but John liked to think there was some sort of oblique reward in his appearance in the world of the dead, for a lifetime of service fighting against ignorance and evil. But then, how to explain his own appearance, his voice barely broken? Did divine justice extend to a Boswell?
Really, the only justice he had been interested in getting was finding his friend again after coming here. And he got that, didn’t he? All the others he could have sought - parents, brother, Mary, the Yarders - they seemed as real as smoke in his mind now; phantoms is the halls of his memory, carefully preserved and treasured, but playing a role no more. He had...come first, and after arriving had invested all his time and effort in wandering, waiting for his friend. Strange that those memories should be so clear even now, even though most of the dead’s memories usually faded; evaporating like water in the sun.
“Is that what I said?” Sherlock blinked mock innocently. “You are hearing things, my dear Watson.”
“John.”
“John,” Sherlock grimaced; but he was the one who had said it, hadn’t he? Like rheumatism and sightlessness and morphine and moustaches, some things had to be left behind. “Now. Where were we. Ah!” He jabbed a finger in seemingly sudden inspiration which didn’t quite mask his other hand pointing downwards. John cursed and stepped into shunpo a fraction of a second too late after the “Bakudou 21 - Sekienton!”
Coughing in the red mist, John had more than enough battle instinct to sidestep the quick jab coming from his left and then sway away from the follow up strike to his right. Red, oily curls of smoke billowed and danced as Sherlock gleeful shadow flitted around him, shunpo master that he was.
John sighed; he never was one for subtlety. “Bakudou 62 - Hyapporankan!” Spinning as he cast, the glowing rods shot away in a circle, staking the battlefield in a rough circle and barely missing the now-forgotten attackers who were rapidly crawling away from the two madmen.
Sherlock was crouched just under the line of fire, grinning like a lunatic. “I suppose going to that wretched Academy was good for something.”
“It’s not as if the Soutaicho had a choice, Sherlock,” John rolled his eyes. “It was either let us in a train us on the sly, or acknowledge to the entire Soul Society that you did not, in fact, need the Academy to teach you to wield a zanpakutou. He didn’t get to the head of the First Division by being stupid about monopolies. He reminds me of Mycroft.”
“Nothing like him at all,” Sherlock replied, affronted. “Slow moving, routine addicted and rule obsessed; Mycroft was quick enough to act when needed and used laws as a guideline. Good grief, if not for the fact he allowed us to continue consulting it would scarcely have been worth it at all. And he is stupid, in that special way supposedly smart and powerful men have ways of being. Why go to all the trouble of thinking different Divisions would separate us?”
John had to concede to that. “You don’t like Kyoraku? I thought the Eighth Division all thought you were, to put it bluntly, a hoot.”
“I like Kyoraku because Kyoraku is like Mycroft,” Sherlock’s smirk became more a smile. “Lazy but undeniably intellectually powerful. He likes me for the same reasons Mycroft did; energy and ambition.”
John favoured him with a soft smile. “You might actually be getting sentimental in your death.”
Sherlock scowled. “Hardly. I manipulate more the better I know them. Now, sir, I do believe I owe you a solid thrashing.” Sherlock reached for the plain long sword strapped to his back. “We did come here to train, after all, before we were so rudely interrupted by would-be robbers.” The smirk was clear on his still shockingly unlined face and clear incisive grey eyes. John had never known Sherlock in his youth, but his aquiline face would have stood him in good stead, no matter his age.
“Oh?” John grinned, raising his swordstick, the back of his hand unblemished by time and sun, taut and sensitive as they had been in his own youth. “Is that how you deduce it will go?”
“Far be it for me to assume otherwise,” Sherlock sniffed haughtily. “Even if you are Fourth’s best and last hope for gaining any kind of what they call a kick ass reputation.”
John snicked. “Number one; you spend too much time around those louts from Eleventh. And number two,” he held the swordstick before him, one hand fisting around the small pommel. “You have clearly never seen Captain Unohana in a mood.”
They smirked at each other. Sometimes John would blink stupidly in the mirror at the strangers face in it still; but Sherlock was always good to look at.
John drew a breath. “Ri-“
A deathly scream raked talons down the souls of everyone present. John jerked to a halt mid-incantation.
Sherlock’s face, by contrast, brightened like the sun. “Just as I thought.” Then he vanished.
Cursing, John Shunpo’ed after him. “Just like you thought what?” he demanded.
Sherlock’s face had a slightly unfocused look he got when letting his body take care of itself while his brain bubbled away. “Strange, sudden deaths in the Zaraki district; bodies found badly mutilated and then posed in the most horrendous fashion, in trees or in houses. No trace of defensive reiatsu or Kido whatsoever. Lots of Hollow presence.”
John scowled. “Anyone growing up here would at least know enough to survive; but they didn’t use it?”
“Just so.”
They dodged and flitted from tree to tree, path to path, avoiding scrambling, panicking souls that weren’t even screaming anymore; the only thing on their faces was a grim determination to run as far and as fast as possible. They trampled the slow and the unlucky in their haste.
“That was a Hollow we heard, Sherlock. Hollows don’t pose bodies like human killers.”
A sardonic smirk met John’s insistence. “Not if you believe the rumours floating around the taverns in the area. New Hollow types. Demonic fighters. Not interested in devouring souls, but torturing them.”
“Not interested in devouring them?” John gaped, astounded as they effortlessly moved hundreds of feet in seconds. “That’s preposterous! That’s impossible!”
“Indeed. And you know what I used to say about impossibilities.”
“If impossible as stated,” John repeated the fondly remembered mantra. “Then we must somehow have stated it wrong.”
They cleared the last embankment and flashed off the branches of a very old and twisted tree, landing in what was left of the tangled wreck of a town - barely a town in the first place; more like a huddle of shanties holding up a feeble flag of civilization in the brutal chaos of the Zaraki district.
Much less of one now with the hideous, twisted and vaguely reptilian shape towering over the wreckage, scrabbling about in the wreckage like an immense stray dog, it’s double mouths drooling and spitting from it’s gaping, flat toothed maw.
And around it - black and red tasselled men with what looked like pronged livestock prods harried and jabbed at the creature. John thought at first that were trying to drive it away, but as the monstrous thing turned, the man holding on to the red leash attached to some sort of elaborate halter and muzzle locked over the Hollow’s bony mask became visible.
John’s jaw dropped. “They’re...they’ve made a Hollow a pet?”
Sherlock was looking grim and cold now. “More like an attack dog,” he said flatly. He held up three fingers. “Forgetting all assumptions, there were three inescapable facts. One; that the bodies had been tortured to death and posed. Two; there was clear essence of Hollow around them. Three; no attempts at defensive measures. How does one reconcile these facts? By not assuming the obvious. The Hollow attacked them, but did not kill them, because Hollows don’t kill in such ways - but did manage to exhaust their reiatsu. Humans killed them, after they were too exhausted to fight. They posed the bodies to make the killings memorable. The perpetrators used the Hollow as an excuse and a cover; it was not surprising to find that most of the dead were either considered powerful warlords or their family members. A few rumours about new, worse Hollows later, and any gang in this area able to capture and subjugate the new ‘monsters’ would rise to the top by default. Clever; using fear and protection both to ensure obedience and silence. Note the muzzle,” Sherlock pointed it out. “A very ancient device, for when Hollows were used to kill condemned criminals. They supposedly had the power to put a Hollow into a dormant state temporarily for transport, or so Urahara was kind enough to explain to me.”
“I wondered why you were in such a good mood after using the senkaimon yesterday,” John muttered. “Good grief, I can’t tell who would be a bad influence on who between you both.” John’s eyes narrowed as Sherlock snickered. “Aizen.”
“Oh yes,” Sherlock nodded carelessly. “Or Kurotsuchi. Or Moriarity, as I doubt even hell would actually subjugate the likes of him. Any one of those madmen could have discreetly passed such valuable old objects into the hands of such men.”
John’s fists clenched. “Why?”
Sherlock shrugged cynically. “For knowledge. For power. To see if they could. Because they could. Such men seldom require reasons, so much as excuses.”
John gritted his teeth. He never told Sherlock, though he suspected his friend had the same nightmare - Aizen and Moriarity coming face to face, brain to depraved brain. After all, they’d yet to find Moriarity. John hoped he was rotting in hell. He hoped, but he did not know.
Sherlock smirked, back on the case. “One unfortunate flaw in the muzzle design is, apparently, the ease at which the dormant state can be shattered - enough high level reiatsu in the area can do it, which is why they keep their activities well away from the Seireitei.”
John turned to him with a look. “Training my ass.”
“Really, John. And you say I spend too much time mixing with Eleventh.”
There was a shattering scream - a human scream - from the catastrophe ahead of them. Both tensed as a woman was dragged, shrieking and crying from the wreckage by the leashed Hollow.
“That’ll do! That should keep it happy for a while! Gods, what the hell woke it up?!” one man commented in disgust, heedless to the wailing pleas for help and mercy from the captured soul.
“Shall we?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow.
John just inclined his head. And then he vanished, his only sign of progress through the gang of was the cries and gurgles of pain as his still sealed sword did its work.
Sherlock was a mere step behind him, slashing lightning fast at whatever opponents popped into his field of vision, expertly swivelling clear of John’s blinding white Byakurai as it was cast.
His progress was halted by the clash of a sword, tangling with his own. Sherlock grinned as he looked up.
“Who dares defy the ways of the Clan of Darkness?” the big, heavy sword wielding leader boomed in his face.
Sherlock calmly wiped spittle of his face. “Someone who believes in clever nom de plumes. You, sir, and committing a serious offence against original thinking. The Clan of Darkness? Really?”
There were cries of pain from the watching rabble as John cut a savage path to the Hollow, cleaving the muzzle free in one neat swing.
“No, you fool!” the so-called leader bellowed, too late. The Hollow thrashed and shook its massive head, trying to shake free the last remnants of red.
But in its efforts the Hollow had dropped its victim into John’s waiting arms. She struggled briefly, a furious burst of near in incoherent speech wailing out over whoever was left standing. John released her long enough to throw herself onto the wreck of a wall, scrabbling frantically at broken timbers. John took the opportunity to drop another four of the Clan in the vicinity.
He scarcely needed to bother, though, because whatever was left of the Clan was suddenly faced with a howling and enraged Hollow, suddenly free of its chains. It cleaved down a swathe of men in one blow, screeching in fury. Not a powerful Hollow, it nevertheless knew exactly what it wanted. Death to those who dared cage it.
In the destruction no one noticed the woman digging a squirming, crying bundle out from under the timber. John grabbed them and flashed away. Sherlock turned on the leader, who was fish belly white as it watched the Hollow decimate his numbers like a fire in a tissue paper factory.
“You know, it’s almost poetic,” Sherlock smirked at him. “Leaving you at the mercy of that monster as you did to so many others. A well deserved fate if ever there was one.” Sherlock used the leverage of his sword to shove the leader away. “Count yourself lucky, sir, that we are not at your very low level. John?”
John had reappeared, hostages now safe, his face grim. “Very, very lucky indeed.” He growled as the Hollow charged at him.
John neatly evaded the foot long claws of the creature, bringing his sword stick out before him. “Rise across the darkest horizon,” he intoned. “Sol Tempestae.” In a flash of light his swordstick transformed into an arming sword, glittering glass balls on each end of the four pointed guard, instead of the normal two pointed one you normally found on an arming sword. The blade was beautiful, a perfect mirror brightness. As John brandished it, the glass balls released a storm of glittering motes into the air, which whirled around the monster like a swarm.
“Magnificent, it’s it?” Sherlock said idly as John’s sword glowed, and in an instant a dozen or more flashes of light crashed into the Hollow, cutting it from all angles like, as if the lights had bladed edges. “It channels sunlight into a blade; anything around the enemy that reflects light, it can turn that light into a blade. It must be very difficult to fight an enemy that can come from all sides at once.”
Sherlock then ducked as the leader tried to cleave his head off with his katana. “My, my.”
“You think I am just some low level scum from the rukongai?” the leader sneered. “You’re in for a surprise.”
“It takes a lot to surprise me, sir,” Sherlock smirked. “You are a former Shinigami, yes? Low level, no one much noticed when you were gone, and indeed failed to notice you took an asauchi with you when you washed out of the Academy. Right so far?”
The leader snarled. “Crush! Juuryokuoh!” His heavy sword transformed into a heavy iron mace, which he slammed to the ground.
The ground collapsed under the weight of it, forming a crater around Sherlock, who was driven to his knees. The world felt like it was being crushed under a huge stone.
“Surprised yet?” the leader smirked. “My zanpakutou increases the gravity wherever it hits the ground. None may fight where they cannot move.” He raised the mace for a killing blow. “Prepare for death!”
Sherlock sighed. “I really do hate using my blade against one so crude.” He shrugged with difficulty under the crushing weight, and reached for the long sword strapped to his back. “Raise your voice to the skies,” he intoned. “Chanteur d’Ombres.”
Sherlock’s long sword transformed into a very odd looking sword indeed. It was like a rapier, but two pronged with an extremely narrow strip of space between them. He raised it above his head as the mace came down.
Some Shinigami told their blades to sing. Sherlock actually sang, a clear note from a tuning fork. Around him the shadows rippled and vibrated, jerking this way and that, irrespective of where the light shone.
Jyuuryokuoh shook in its master’s grip, the shock so great that the rotund former Shinigami nearly dropped it as he backpedalled. The crushed weight eased.
“All things are a matter of resonance,” Sherlock smirked as he advanced, wielding his shikai. “Enough opposite resonance in the right direction can cancel out any kind of attack.” He raised the two pronged rapier again. “And enough power at the right frequency...” He flicked his fingers on his blade, which gave him a slightly higher note. Shadows coalesced along the blade while under their feet the shadows there shook and rattled again.
The leader gave a cry and rushed him, raising his ponderous Shikai. Sherlock calmly swung his own blade to meet the seemingly much heavier weapon.
This note was deeper than the others - it made the ears throb and the breastbone shake. The Juuryokuoh withstood the terrible rattles for an instant, before shattering in all directions, and a tide of shadows washed over the leader, knocking his backwards. He hit the ground, and was still.
Sherlock turned just as John dispatched the Hollow, cleaving it’s mask in two with a well placed thrust. “It would have been quicker to use your bankai,” he commented, amused, as the Hollow dissolved.
John wiped his face and sheathed his Shikai, resealing it. “The Sol Incendia is not for such enemies,” he shook his head. “Any more than you would use the Chanteur Mortel on one such as him.”
“True,” Sherlock grabbed a handful of tattered muzzle. John moved to assist him. “The Sereitei will most likely find this very interesting. And Kenpachi will be grateful.”
“Kenpachi asked you for help?”
“Technically, his lieutenant did. And you know what she’s like...”
“God, yes.”
“I wouldn’t usually, but Kenpachi takes an inordinate amount of interest in my bankai and this may grant me a few months of reprieve.”
“Well it is shaped like a...”
“Shut up.”
“It’s a bladed violin’s....”
“Shut up.”
“You just can’t get away from your Stradivarius, can you?”
“Shut. Up. And hold your end more tightly.”
Two men - now half boys, strange yet familiar - vanished, leaving the destruction behind.
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Appendix and Authors Notes
Translations:
Sol Tempestae: Sun Storm - because John always was a soldier of deserts and a conductor of light
Chanteur d’Ombres: Shadow Singer, since Sherlock’s art was always music; though trust him to have a blade as odd as he is. His blade creates an opposing resonance to an opponent’s attack. He also can make use of the shadows around him.
Jyuuryokuoh: King of Gravity - enough said
Sol Incendia: Sun’s Burning Fire - a long, sharp, thin, straight, double edged blade; I suppose much like his swordstick. No guard, just a hilt with a fist sized clear glass pommel. The pommel is unique, as it has some healing properties. An incisive, useful blade for a doctor.
Chanteur Mortel: Death Singer; in my head, this was a blade shaped like a violin bow; one long razor sharp blade with a second, reverse blade branching off and doubling back about three quarters of the way up, with taut wires in between. You don’t want to know what Sherlock can do with it. (grin)
If the French or Latin translation are off, my apologies. They’re the result of online translators. The Japanese one should be fine, because I’ve actually studied that language. I gave John’s sword Latin names because of his medical background, and Sherlock French because of his bloodline. Who says all Shinigami blades have to have Japanese names, eh?
Which incarnation of Sherlock Holmes is this? I’m not actually sure either. Closer to the book than the BBC, closer to the 2009 movie than the book. Not exactly any of them, though.