Chapter 30: What's Normal, Anyway?

[madimpossibledreamer]

 

Talked over the science here with Beta Senpai and it is so cool—so the lack of ambient reiatsu is like the thin air of a mountaintop. Sound doesn’t carry in space because there’s little to no air, but the lack of air actually slows down sound at high altitudes, where there’s less air.
In places like Karakura or Soul Society, where they’re a reishi source, of course you can feel threats across town or fights going on. Just like sound carries, that feeling also carries. In a reishi sink like Sunnydale, you might not notice something until you’re right on top of it.
Demons are drawn to the Hellmouth because that’s one of the only sources in the area (apart from, well, humans, which is why a lot are human eaters, but even then most of the humans are used to operating on a lower level of reiryoku). And it’s only a source because even shut it’s what’s causing the sink, absorbing reishi from the environment. If it ever opens, it’ll probably use that power to keep itself open, so it can probably do that pretty indefinitely.
Also, Urahara is absolutely testing the Sunnydale Syndrome thing. Because there’s a similar thing going in Karakura. He’s asked Yoruichi and anyone else he can rope in to do weird things and seeing if he can narrow down the cause, only he hasn’t bothered to explain to anyone but Yoruichi why. “It’d ruin the experiment if I don’t run it half-blind.” I called it “experimenting” like it’s not a valid scientific approach. It is. He is also bored and likes messing with people, so he jumped at the chance. Most of it is people second guessing themselves—either the reishi is too small to feel anything, so when they do they’re like “nah, nothing’s going on, I’m imagining things” or it’s too high so there’s a lot more noise than signal, so when they sense something above that, they’re like “nah, nothing’s going on, I’m imagining things”. If you know that something is, in fact, going on, you ignore that voice. It’s a phenomenon that happens in a lot of places (all the people who are told they’re spiritually powerful and write that off as silly superstition), for instance, but it’s more focused in Karakura & Sunnydale (and also because of the respective landscapes, a lot more weird stuff does actually tend to be going on).
Urahara is absolutely also considering collaborating with human magic users, particularly fellow shopkeepers, because he hadn’t bothered learning about it before but now that he knows is curious how all of that works.

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Bleach (I Hope Tomorrow's a Better Day)
Chapter Summary: Shunsui and Ukitake discuss what they learned from their new allies, and the responses to their reports.
Word Count: 575
Rating: Teen

        “Can’t sleep, Jyuu-chan?” Kyouraku asks into the dark. He knows it’s a rhetorical question, but it’s perhaps a bit of a ritual.
        “I’m surprised Xander-kun actually has an Asauchi, and that Nimaiya-san didn’t want us to retrieve it immediately.” Yamamoto-sama probably would, but given that he’d probably be happier if he doesn’t know the exact details of what they’re doing currently, they decided to only send a single message to Soul Society with the Hell Butterfly. The sword had been stolen, although it hadn’t been elaborated upon whether the incident occurred during Maemi-chan’s exile or at a different time, falling into Xander-kun’s hands after the fact.
        Shunsui doesn’t find it so strange. “Mah. Guess he’s impressed with how the kid’s treating the sword, or maybe he just wants to see what’ll happen. I do wonder, though, what these kids have been through that they’re arguing about the plural of apocalypse.” Because it’s not like either of them knows the details, but it’s clear they’ve been fighting on the front lines for most of their existence, despite basically being children.
        Ukitake hums in agreement. “As much as I want to protect them, though, we can’t simply take them with us. If anything, dangerous as this place is, they may be safer here than in the Seireitei. And we can’t simply fight all their battles for them, either.”
        “More’s the pity,” Shunsui agrees with a sigh. “Still, if their reikaku is better than ours, are we really going to find anything they missed?” With some testing they had confirmed that, yes, practically everyone in the room had been better at sensing reiatsu than the two Captains, though if it was a matter of getting used to the magic or whatever phenomena happened to be causing this, perhaps that would improve over time spent in the town. Kisuke-kun (who they had contacted on the basis that his expertise would be valuable, he would actually give answers, and not judge) seemed to think so. That the longer they’re in Sunnydale, the more they’ll adapt to the desert of reishi, particularly their reikaku, though they still might experience some other side effects and please keep drinking the tea, and maybe send some feedback about that, hmm? In the meanwhile, he’s going to look into the mechanisms behind Sunnydale Syndrome, see if he can’t come up with a solution. Ukitake is...slightly concerned about how Kisuke-kun is planning on doing that research, but, well, he’s not in a position to judge. The only thing, besides the fact that this tea really does seem to be helping and that Jyuushirou is considering taking an entire supply back when they return, is that the children or, rather, the magic shop in town, seems to have independently come up with the same solution, if a slightly different blend, a fact that had greatly interested Kisuke-kun, as much as he’d attempted to hide it behind amused indifference.
        “I hope so. We have centuries more experience, and a better idea of what we’re looking for. If we find nothing, we’ll just have to get creative.” Which just happens to be one of those skills he’s had a lot of practice in, being resourceful in cases where he can’t manage the usual approach.
        “Always thinking on the bright side, huh. It’s one of the reasons people like you, Mr. Popular,” Shunsui teases, which serves as a good signal that it’s time to actually attempt to get some sleep.