Troubleshooting [Event/Invite]

“You called for me, sir?” a pleasant tenor voice like chorded harp strings echoed inside the room where the man sat in the cold embrace of the night, bathing in the light of the computer he was using to analyze sums of seemingly incorrigible strands of data which represented things that caused concern to the man himself, or at least that was what the troubled expression on his face suggested. Of course, the blonde-haired proprietor tried to hide it with his attempt at a poker face, but the sullen look gave his intentions away almost as easily as reading an open book. It was also a sign that things were as bad as the visitor thought it was.

The young man who came in was an ebony-haired youth not unlike the one who had once graced the shop with his presence way back when. He had paler skin than the latter though, with two hetero-chromatic eyes in a contrast of amber and red instead of the deep vermilion hues which the former had. Physique-wise they were almost the same as well, although a closer examination of their aural signatures proved that the man now was nothing more than an insect whose presence paled in comparison to the walking repository of reiryoku that had been a regular to the quaint wood cabin shop.

Nevertheless, while the two existences were vastly different in so many ways, the two of them shared an unbreakable bond which held strong regardless of how much dissimilarity each held over the other for a variety of different reasons unique to them alone; for it was only natural for a son to have some differences when compared to his father, especially if that aforementioned figure was someone as legendary as the Knight of Swords himself. That likewise begged the question why the eccentric merchant called upon his presence instead of his more esteemed father; something of a riddle for the young man, but he did not question it all the same since he too shared the same penchant for keeping his reasons to himself. It was probably why his family got along with the Urahara family, if they can even be called that.

In the light of the assumption that things have come to a head and the mystery that was his presence here, Grey Holloway cast his two-toned gaze on the watch he wore on his left wrist. It was a sturdy futuristic-looking watch made out of some kind of extremely durable material which could not be replicated by any normal means, with a touch-activated holographic time display and a GPS device and a ‘special’ function which allowed this little thing to be classified as a powerful arcana-tech.

To the untrained eye, the steel-gray watch was nothing more than a glorified trinket; but to those who knew exactly what makes it a merger of style, form, and functionality knew that it was well beyond the skills of even the most accomplished engineer and tech-mage to replicate, if at most to do a vastly inferior copy. What was more surprising was that the man who designed this little gewgaw of a timepiece was also the very same person who called for him to aid in something he had in mind.

It has to be something about the watch, Grey mused to himself then turned his attention back to the man himself who was engrossed in his luminous data sets and tracks as if he found stories with each numeral and arcane jargon that flashed onto the screen. He would reveal his intentions to him soon enough, but as of right now, Grey had nothing else to do but to play around with the theories inside his head like a child fiddling around with a random item in an effort to alleviate boredom. He just hoped it was something he was able to do since, with his limited capabilities as of now, he doubted if there was anything he can do to affect the outcome of whatever it was that was plaguing his thoughts of someone as renowned as Kisuke Urahara.

The air was cool outside, but then again, most nights in Japan were the same way. It was a cold country filled with cold people, with each tending to their own businesses without a care in the world for the woes and pains of those who pass them by. To Grey, the country itself was the pinnacle of apathy and dullness – a nation with a notorious group-above-self mentality where people would rather fill in their shoes along with the rank-and-file instead of foraging their own destiny from overcoming the struggles of life.

Although he thought in that way and somewhat grew bored of the daily grind, the young man knew that he would be lying to himself if he said that he hated the country and its people. On the contrary, he found the place intriguing to no end and eagerly sought out new challenges and new experiences in his day-to-day life with the same passion as he breathed in the chilly air which sent a familiar pain coursing through his lungs. He coughed from the sudden intake but smiled all the while; it was proof that he was alive and that he was still in the country – in the city – which his father and mother fought, struggled, and bled, to protect.

“Karakurachō,” completed Grey just as he closed the shop's wooden door from behind, and in front of him the group of Hollows that had followed the trail of his unusual reiatsu like carrion to the scent of a fresh corpse. They were all of the base class his father had always dispatched with terrifying ease, most of which die just by passing the Knight of Swords whenever they would all go out on a dinner treat or shopping together as a family. Now, however, neither his father nor mother were there to shield him from their wrath, and yet instead of being scared, he was instead delighted to a degree akin to letting loose a child in a game arcade with a fistful of tokens.

Grey thumbed his watch and clicked the hidden button, the arcane mechanisms therein whirring to life as the air around him distorted with the energies contained in such a small device. His smile grew wider just as the Hollows stepped back seemingly out of fear, but he knew better than that; they were beings of instinct and desire without any concern for their own survival so long as they could eat. It was a wonder how his own mother could have come from such feral creatures to become the loving hand which guides and comforts him and his father day after day. They were just checking him out to see if he was worth their time; he would show them that he was because he is his father's son.

"Time to uphold the family tradition."

[2/20]

Just as Grey was about to turn to face the direction where he was supposed to go, another Hollow appeared and made an attempt to slice through his Raizer suit with its long blade-like claws with serrated edges. He was barely able to jump back in time to dodge the attack itself, but thankfully his sharp reflexes gave him the advantage he needed to successfully evade the attempt. While hardly dangerous considering the craftsmanship of his armor, Grey frowned having his suit unnecessarily damaged since he felt somewhat of a special connection with it.

“You really should not have done that, you know,” muttered Grey just as his hands once again balled into fists which raced towards his would-be attacker in a flurry of silver-hued blurs which struck the Hollow squarely on its face, torso, and other parts of its muscular upper body. By the time he was done beating it down, the creature was nothing more than a bloody corpse pockmarked with black and blue spots and crimson-draped bone jutting from limbs which were bent about in horrific angles. For good measure as well, Grey found it appropriate to smash its face in with his foot just in case it was able to regenerate itself from its wounds.

[4/20]

As Grey took every step with military urgency, the young man eventually passed by a group of hooligans who were engaged in a savage brawl with another group, fighting like madmen all the while, near a convenience store where patrons looked in fear that the scuffle would work its way to them. The fray was almost as chaotic as a medieval skirmish, with weapons and bodies slamming and jostling around without the least bit finesse; a disgusting sight which, while unnecessary, Grey could not allow to ignore especially when innocent people were around.

With a quick flick of his wrist, the mechanism on his watch engaged and he was once again in his normal human form, an unarmored figure who wore nothing but a white t-shirt, charcoal acid-washed jeans, and red Mercury free-running rubber shoes. It was not entirely unalike those worn by the thugs in their casual fashion, but the biggest difference lay in the caliber of fighter who wore them to battle. They would not stand a chance, not a single one of them; the situation would be over before it would even start.

Grey’s feet pushed out from beneath and catapulted him into the air head-first into the section of the group where the fighting was the thickest, fists ready and able to disarm and defeat his intended targets with mechanical precision. As soon as he landed, his fist made impact upon the jaw of a thug with a baseball bat before he quickly procured the fallen man’s weapon for himself and struck another on the shoulder with it, paralyzing him. The young man thereafter lurched forward to avoid a swing from a hooligan’s metal pipe and at the same time charge at another’s exposed rib with a well-placed head-butt which effectively knocked the delinquent clean off his feet.

The entire fight thereafter had devolved into a methodical cessation of hostilities through the use of force and intimidation, with Grey dominating all throughout before coming out as the undisputed winner of the all-out battle royal with nary a scratch on him. They were all weak compared to him, but despite that, he respected their desire to take him on even if a majority just belittled his abilities by the way he looked. He would probably show them the light given the time, but first, they needed to learn through pain that what they were doing was wrong.

Bruised, battered, and humbled by their defeat, the men who had once caused trouble lay in injured piles beneath the young man in a cacophonous medley of groans and grunts. The police were probably on the way to sort things out with these hooligans which was Grey’s cue to resume to his original mission. However, it did not mean that there was no time to grab a quick bite to eat; he was craving for some crab meat sandwich and a cold bottle of iced coffee.

[6/20]

Tomomi Koike carried herself like a traditional Japanese doll with her small shoulders slightly tucked inward while her slightly pointed chin pressed lightly upon her chest. Her ashen-colored hair usually extended down to the arch of her back, but her colleague insisted that she tie it up to a pony tail on this day. While she did not like the idea of tying her hair back, it did, if she even noticed it, accentuate the feminine features of her visage which naturally exuded beauty even without makeup.

Her inherent loveliness, comparable to an idol, was further enhanced by her choice of clothing consisting of: a small colorful rainbow beret to shield her head from the rays of the sun, a white lace polo shirt, denim cut-offs that showed off her long legs and flawless peach skin, and brown open-toe sandals with two inch-high heels. Contrary to her natural good looks, however, Tomomi’s eyes were unusually empty and corpse-like, seemingly capable chilling the very earth that presented itself before the nineteen-year old.

Despite what she had told herself hours before coming to the arranged upon meeting place, the truth was that she did not want to do any of what she was told to do on this particular day, but she had no other choice. She needed a money for her little brother’s disease and her associate promised the one she desperately needed if she were to just use her ‘special ability’. The young woman knew it was immoral, but her associate explained to her that sometimes bad things needed to be done for the sake of the ‘greater good’.

“I… am doing this for the greater good… for Hiroto…,” she mumbled to herself and clutched the leather strap of her imitation brown leather purse which contained, among other things, a small stun gun – newly bought and unused – in order to secure a firmer grip out of fear that it might be stolen by some purse snatcher while she walked towards her destination. Every step she took the guilt on her soul piled up, but she convinced herself that what she was doing was for the one she loved. Her role in everything was only to cause a distraction and nothing more – to meet the client, get the package, and deliver it. There will be no blood, nobody will die; everything will be fine.

[8/20]

The First Township Bank of Karakura was a modern three-story structure that occupied nearly half of the block on the street it was on. The size of its construction, as did the signature ‘First Township Bank’ name and logo – a sun rising over the outline of the two highest mountains of Karakura – tooled in the bank’s titular color, only reflected the vast array of services it offered and the degree of quality all of its employees never failed to champion during their round-the-clock, five-days a week work schedule as part of their commitment to the bank’s motto: ‘The First, the Best’.

From online banking to money transfers; account management to national banking transactions – the First Township Bank did what a bank should be capable of in a world where speed was everything. Despite its services being better than any other bank in Karakura by leaps and bounds, by far the bread and butter of Golden Sun’s services would probably be its safety-deposit box service it provided to only a select few.

From stock certificates, land titles, personal belongings, and even priceless works of art, select clients who were privileged enough to meet the rigid requirements of owning a safety-deposit box can literally ask the bank to store anything, in total anonymity, by using a series of sophisticated but necessarily complex identification verification procedures including retinal scans, fingerprint verifications, and voice pattern recognition, to name a few. It is no wonder Karakura’s rich and powerful sing praises to the golden sun logo; for them, privacy was not a right, but a jealously-guarded commodity.

It was from this bank that an elderly gentleman with a small metal box emerged from the glass doors and proceeded to where Tomomi and Grey were. The former caught sight of the man and instantly recognized him as the contact; a heavily bearded man with graying hair and a black business suit. She knew that, by now, ‘they’ would be watching her movements and that this little interaction with a stranger served nothing more than an additional layer to the mask of regularity. However, it was a façade which needed to end and with that Tomomi quickly pulled out her stun gun and applied it to the neck of young man.

Like a loud crack of thunder, the once serene surroundings became embroiled in a chaotic torrent of hazy colors. Roads cracked and windows shattered under Grey’s fading vision all without explanation, until finally, he was rendered near-unconscious by the powerful jolt of electricity that had run through his body like a colony of fire ants. Those who did not have the eyes to see the truth ran about like ants and in the middle of the fray which caused a commotion that provided a perfect cover for a transaction that went on in secret, too obscure for the eyes of unknown observers.

No, no, no! I did not want this to happen! screamed Tomomi inside her head while her entire body froze once more upon realizing the gravity of her actions. This – everything – was her fault. She wanted it to stop, but how could not; not after what she had done to a man she just met, and who showed her such kindness when she least expected it. If she stopped now, Hiroto was as good as dead; Tomomi did not want that and she would happily sacrifice her innocence just to have the money she so desperately needed to save her brother.

“I am sorry, Grey…,” she mouthed as a teardrop rolled from her eye.

[10/20]

Grey awoke to a stinging pain on his cheek as his eyes flung open into the dark and austere room he had been held in along with another familiar face – Tomomi, the woman who had knocked him out, who sat blindfolded, gagged, and bound to the metallic chair facing him. He, on the other hand, was relieved of the cloths which obscured his vision and prevented his speech only to face the sight of a dreary chamber that had seen more than its fair share of pain, torture, and suffering too gruesome to tell and too sensitive to report.

Its once pristine white walls made out of thick concrete were covered with cracks, mildew, and various scratches made by a myriad of things from knives, metal pipes, and maybe even human fingernails. Brownish stains from coagulated blood, possibly from past prisoners who were brought into the dismal chamber for questioning, replaced the once spotless floor and turned itself into its natural color. There were no windows and only one door that is used to go in and out; a dark and gloomy place where the only source of light came from a simple hanging lamp that looked so old that it would not be far-off to assume that it would fall off its hinges sooner rather than later.

In this place of absolute hopelessness, the figure of a bearded Caucasian man in a white business suit could be seen slightly with the help of the old lamp’s dim luminescence. He stood at the left-hand corner of the interrogation room nearest to the door, with his graying hair tied back in a ponytail with a decorative band, and a scar that ran from his right eye and across his grizzled face, ending down his left lip. Whoever game him that doozy of a mark really knew how to make an already intimidating man even more daunting. Nevertheless, it told Grey to take a mental note to add more to that scar than just a scratch as soon as he got out of his restraints which, by the way the man stared him back with murder in his eyes, told him it should be soon.

“Well now, I see that the little whelp is awake,” the man boomed in a thunderous voice filled with the malevolence of a seasoned torturer before he forcefully lifted Grey’s face by the hair and pulled his face closer to the young man’s own. “Sorry for waking you up, sonny, but the last one died because, apparently, choking people too much kills them,” he chuckled viciously. “Anyway, I have a few questions to ask you about your girlfriend over here,” said the man and pointed at Tomomi.

Tomomi, compared to him, was somewhat well off although it was clear from her ripped clothes, bruised skin, the trembling fear his voice seemed to elicit from the female that the interrogator had some fun with her before he went to him for answers. He pondered on whether to skewer the man right then and there for doing such acts against someone of the opposite sex, but refrained from doing so since he figured that the young woman deserved as much for what she did to him.

Before Grey could further his thoughts, the interrogator forced out a query into his introspection, effectively interrupting his train of thought. “You tell me what I want to know right now and I promise to let you and your friend go,” he said with the tone of deception fresh off his tongue. “Who are you guys working for? Who hired you to steal from Don Calderone’s stash?”

The question came as a surprise to Grey who simply denied any knowledge on the matter asked and was promptly met with another hard right from a ham-sized fist. It was powerful but it lacked form, but even in its sloppy execution the man, to his credit, managed to coax blood from the Inquisitor’s mouth.

“Do not play dumb with me, I saw you chatting it up with the girl before everything went down! I know everything about you, boy! You and that dame are mules set up by the Yoshinaga Group to bring blackmail material so they can take over our rackets here in Karakura!”

It was at that point that Grey’s face lit up – the Yoshinagakai, the crime syndicate which was the tenth largest group in the entire country, and also one of his father’s close associates since they are in charge of keeping the narcotics and black market arms trade down in Naruki City in exchange for substantial political backing for their legitimate and illegitimate business ventures, along with the occasional ‘white wash’ whenever scandalous incidents were to happen that would damage their reputation.

They were criminals by a strict definition of law, but as persons themselves, they were mostly honorable men who dealt fair with their clients and friends, treated their people and merchandise in a civilized manner, and were often more reliable than the policemen themselves. In fact, an Inquisitor like himself would find it more apt to refer to them as ‘lawbreakers by mere technicality’ since he knew of more government officials engaged in far baser criminal activities than what these gentlemen were running. They have kept to their word thus far which is, by itself, sufficient enough reason for an Inquisitor like himself to deem them as ‘necessary evil’ in order to keep the rogue elements of society under control.

Upon seeing Grey’s reaction upon hearing the name of his employer’s rival, the burly interrogator sent another painful punch which managed to knock the wind out of the bound Inquisitor and stain the questioner’s white suit with sanguine liquid. The man did not care though; he already had Grey by the skin of his teeth – or so he thought.

“I saw that, little man!” he shouted and continued his questions. “So it was the Yoshinagas, huh?! I knew it!! Well, once we find where you and your tramp girlfriend hid the USB, we will be sure to make a house visit to your group’s house and present your heads to your boss as a warning to not mess with the Calderones!!”

Grey let out a chuckle. “Honestly, what a garrulous ogre you are to think that you can up and assume things without even the slightest bit of evidence to support your claim,” he said which sparked annoyance in the man he addressed. Nevertheless, the Inquisitor did not relent in his words despite the growing animosity from the man who seemingly had all the power to decide his fate.

“Yes, I know the Yoshinaga Group, but I have no idea what their plans are nor do I have any idea why I am involved in this little game of cloak and dagger. I simply met with the woman on a whim and decided to share some food with her, nothing more, although I highly doubt that a knuckle-dragging imbecile like you could grasp the importance of socializing.”

Another strike graced the young man’s face, but now that he was unable to grasp his boiling rage any longer, Grey no longer concerned himself with the intricacies of keeping up the act of a powerless prisoner to gain information. This was not his mission and he was not his target; this was a simple detour gone awry and it was time to get things back on track since he no longer had any interest to keep up with this charade any longer than it should.

With supernatural strength flowing into his veins, Grey manipulated his skin and turned them into razor-sharp appendages with effortlessly sliced through his bindings as if they were made of paper. The interrogator was visibly shocked by this, but his surprise only lasted for a mere moment before the Inquisitor’s face smashed through the man’s solar plexus with the force of a sledgehammer.

Unwilling to relent from his fury-driven storm of vengeance, Grey manhandled his mewling captive and repeatedly struck him in the ribs with several well-placed kicks and stomps. Even when the man’s accomplices came in, the young man continued with his act and stopped only when they raised their guns at him with intending to take him down. Unfortunately their reaction times were far too slow and Grey already had already impaled the two men’s throats with his elongated fingers as blood spewed out from their carotid arteries to spray the walls of the room anew with fresh blood.

After having dispatched of the accomplices with the proficiency of a trained killer, the Inquisitor once more turned his attention back to his quarry who was now reeling in pain from having his sides kicked so viciously that his ribs had already been broken in. Grey, however, could not care any less for the man’s suffering since he surmised that he was prepared for this outcome from the moment he had begun his morbid profession. There was no mercy to be had here; for he who raises his fist must also be prepared to have a fist raised back at him.

With mechanical proficiency, the man’s right arm which he used to punch Grey before was raised as, with a quick turn, it was snapped open to reveal the bloodstained bone jotting out from the skin. The interrogator screamed in agony, but the sound only served to heighten the young man’s amusement as he once more turned the already mauled appendage again and literally ripped it off its socket which caused unfathomable pain to the once high and mighty questioner, much to Grey’s chagrin. For such reason, he shoved his left shoe into the man’s mouth in order to smother his cries since he found them utterly dissonant and offensive to his ears.

Grey smirked devilishly while he looked down at his sobbing victim. “Not much of a talker now, are you?” harassed the Inquisitor in a calm and soothing voice then forced his foot deeper until the man began to gasp for air while he choked on the rubber shoe that was inside his mouth. It only took a few minutes for the once powerful man to lose consciousness from asphyxiation before Grey, out of habit, brought down his heel upon the man’s head to cave in his skull.

After the Inquisitor had dealt with his captor, the young man approached the bound woman who had gotten him into the situation in the first place. He contemplated about killing her as well since she was the proximate cause for his unnecessarily long detour, but since her guilt was not yet proven, Grey was honor-bound to give her the benefit of the doubt. Thus, with a reluctant hand, he stripped away the cloth that held her mouth shut and afforded her a chance to defend herself.

In the instant Tomomi felt the cloth give way, he knew exactly her position in the current state of affairs. Her life was no longer her own but hinged upon whether or not the sweet person she had shared some laughs with before would find it in his heart to spare her life. While she could not see it, it was clear to her that the young man was an extremely capable fighter who outmatched any average person untrained in the finer arts of combat and correctly surmised that resistance at this point would be futile.

“To consort with a criminal is to endanger one's purity, but to lie to an Inquisitor is to forfeit your life. However, I will give you one chance to prove your guilt or innocence to me – with just one word, I want you to tell me what drove you to commit these acts.”

Tomomi froze in her seat as the once warm and friendly voice turn into a cold and hostile tone. The feeling of dread washed over her like being doused with a bucket of ice water; the young lady was literally shaking from fear as she desperately thought up of an answer to the man’s seemingly impossible question. To explain with a single word the depth of her sorrow, regret, and desperation was to ask for the moon, but in the end, Tomomi managed to crow out the only thing her mind had ever since she agreed to do the task assigned to her.

“Hiroto!” she shouted as if it were her final declaration before execution. She shouted it over and over again like a mantra, tears falling down from her eyes like a torrent of profound sorrow as if doing so would erase the pain in her heart for resorting to such means out of love for her young brother who was ill.

[Penalty]

The young man’s eyes squinted with the arrival of the Yoshinaga man who was poised in such a way that he seemed to not be bothered by scene of carnage that was before him. Grey expected no less from such people though, for while they were honorable by heart, they were no strangers to the filth that accompanied their line of work. Moreover, that he was stopped by one of them meant that something was going on, and for that, Grey held off the urge to tell the man off for his unwelcome intrusion.

“Explain yourself,” commanded Grey knowing full well that the man knew better than the one he had just killed as to who he was exactly since he knew that his father was tied with the Yoshinaga Group as allies.

Without saying another word, the newcomer fished out a silver USB from his breast pocket, its sleek form shining in the glow of the dim light. That such a small thing caused so much death was in itself a clear indication that the information it held was well worth killing a few people for, and even unknowingly, was enough reason to raise a hand against an Inquisitor for the Lex Aeterna. What a scary thing that is, Grey thought to himself and stood up from his squatted embrace along with Tomomi just in time for the man to explain the reason for his desire not to involve the proper authorities in this incident.

“Young master, this thumb drive contains data for various bank accounts from the Calderone family and several public officials here in Karakura. The Boss wanted us to secure it in order to force the foreigners into respecting our pact with your father, but since they knew of our members, we had no choice but to resort to using someone else for the transaction.”

Grey looked at Tomomi then returned his gaze back at the man. “What of this young lady then?”

The man shook his head. “Just a person desperate enough to offer her services for some money for her ill brother’s operation. Since we already have what we wanted, the money will be transferred to her account as compensation for her services, plus a bonus for the endangerment she was put in by reason of the same.”

[12/20]