Part 3: Buttons

The next morning Tatsuki jogged up the steps of the gym. Despite the recuperative bath she was still trying to work knots out of her battered muscles. She was also trying to come up with an appropriate analogy for how she felt. Like a pinball… no, golf-balled… ambiguous, stuck in a hailstorm of artificially hardened beanbags… too close to reality, like she’d been through a spin cycle with a load of half bricks…could work.

She spotted her ethereal sensei reclining in the tiers, hands interlaced behind her head. Tatsuki thought she looked disturbingly relaxed. The glazed eyes and little smile were especially chilling. Did she kill someone? she mused.

Daring to venture slightly closer Tatsuki cleared her throat and spoke up.

“Sensei?”

“Hmm? Oh, morning,” the woman responded. Still apparently fascinated by a small skylight.

This strange behavior was really starting to make the peppery girl uncomfortable. She’d been excited at the thought of more training, especially involving knives, but she couldn’t do that with a spaced out sensei. A wicked smirk crept across her young face as a thought struck her.

“Have sex last night?” she inquired.

Soi Fong sat upright so quickly she overshot her mark and ended up in a semi-standing position two tiers lower. She stared with wide eyes down at the grinning child.

“Heh, I’ll take that as a yes. You see, you’re smiling and I’m pretty sure you happy equals death or sex. So…”

Soi Fong straightened up and regarded the student with her most chilling gaze. Unfortunately that did nothing to dull the amusement twinkling in the pair of large brown eyes, so she added a smile that clearly showed she was thinking about the former reason.

Tatsuki found herself a little strained to maintain her brash demeanor in the face of a smile one usually only saw in nightmares; rising out of the cold dark deep.

The death god relented when she thought the young girl looked appropriately frightened/respectful.

Tatsuki sighed slightly in relief when the older woman’s face returned to its default look of irritation. Okay… she thought, that was much more disturbing than the first one.

The morning’s training focused mainly on timing and counter-attack, with some anti-Hollow tactics. Soi Fong drilled her student hard allowing little time for breaks or banter.

After a few hours the focus switched. She introduced the new lesson as her charge took a couple of minutes to replenish her energy.

“There have been a few Hollows that infect or somehow control a human’s body. In this instance you want some way to disable the host and, assuming you like them, inflict as little damage as possible.”

Hollows that take over your friends’ bodies? Yes, Tatsuki was very familiar with this kind. She set aside her snack and gave the woman her rapt attention.

“If it was just mind control you could try to knock them out, but that might not work in the case of physical invasion. Another option is to hit a series of nerve plexus that will cause all of the main muscles to lock tight, completely immobilizing your opponent.”

She beckoned for the girl to stand and demonstrated three points.

“Here,” she said gently pressing on a point between the tip of Tatsuki’s left collarbone and her throat.

“Here.” Indicated a point between the right kidney and hip.

“And here,” she finished. Touching a point on the crease at the top of her left leg.

In rapid succession Soi Fong drove her middle and index fingers into all three points.

Tatsuki felt her whole body go rigid. Tears formed in eyes that were barely able to blink. It felt like a vise had been wrapped around her chest, compressing her lungs. Without active balance correction she slowly toppled and crashed to the ground.

Soi Fong smiled politely down at the locked form and continued her explanation in a matter of fact manner.

“You need to hit all three points and preferably in that order if you want them to live. The effect fades on its own once muscles pass the point of exhaustion, but extensive damage and toxin build up will have occurred. Before reaching that point the victim will experience considerable pain, so don’t forget about them. Finish your battle quickly. To release the seizure you need to do this…”

And with that the still politely smiling woman drove two fingers into Tatsuki’s solarplexus, angling under her ribcage to hit a point close to her heart. The girl arched up of the floor with a gasp as air rushed into her expanding lungs. She rolled over on to her side, clutching her chest and clawing for more oxygen.

“H-how…How is that something to do to a friend?” she gasped, after a minute of coughing and writhing.

“Well, my next choice would have been to break your legs,” the dispassionate woman informed her.

“…oh.”

Tatsuki took a few more moments to regain her composure before struggling to her feet.

“My turn?” she asked.

Her sensei nodded.

“Let’s see how much you can do,” she replied. “Just try not to hit me in the throat or an artery.”

As if I’d miss that badly, Tatsuki grumbled to herself. She closed her eyes and reviewed the experience in her mind. What was the exact placement? How deep had the fingers pressed? What had been the timing between each thrust? Snapping her eyes open she quickly drove her fingers into each of the points.

The look of shock on her sensei’s face as she tumbled to the ground was priceless.

As her head hit the wooden floor the Captain realized this was the second time the girl had caught her completely off guard. There was no way she should have hit the correct points first time. If Soi Fong had had preventative blocks in place she would have been affected for less than a second. In order to release herself now she would have to re-enable about two hundred locked nerves one by one. Such remarkable precision...

Tatsuki looked down at her Sensei’s prone form a little taken aback by how effective her attack had been. Soi Fong looked so young and vulnerable lying there struggling to move. Of course she’d be back to her tiny scary self as soon as she was upright. Should she try to release her or should she wait and see what happened?

She knelt down beside the small woman and gently placed a hand beneath her left breast. Closing her eyes she traced her fingers along lines of ribs trying to remember the exact point. Crap, where is it? She hadn’t been paying as much attention to this one; more concerned with her need of air. After a few moments of uncertainty she found a point that resonated with her hazy memory. She opened her eyes to observe an intense look of concentration on her sensei’s face. What’s she thinking about? Tatsuki thought to herself.

Soi Fong was trying to release all the blocks as quickly as she could. If the girl hit the wrong point this time she might stop Soi’s heart. However she was finding maintaining the necessary depth of concentration extremely difficult. Soft fingers were tracing back and forth across her chest leaving trails of goose bumps, thankfully hidden beneath her clothing. Focusing on her air and throat control she regained the ability to speak.

Opening her eyes she saw the girl drawing back her hand. All she managed was a weak, “no…” before strong fingers drove towards her ribcage.

Tatsuki focused on the point she had found. The depth, distance and pressure required to reach it were all in the front of her mind. It was so close to the heart. She prayed silently that she’d found the right one. Indecision only fogs the mind, she reminded herself and drew back her arm.

She drove her fingers forward in a sharp thrust, focused purely on her goal. Stiff fingers struck soft flesh, she hit the point, paused for a moment, then withdrew. Eyes now moving to her sensei’s face she realized the woman had just said something.

Soi Fong’s body spasmed in release and she gasped as she finally drew a full breath. With a groan and she raised herself to a sitting position.

“You’re okay?” Tatsuki inquired, her voice full of concern. She reached forward to touch her face, but the other woman shied away.

“Next time let me do it myself,” Soi Fong responded in a tight voice.

“You can? Oh… just how dangerous was that?” Tatsuki asked, a little afraid of the answer.

“Very.”

“You know, you should teach with a practice dummy or something.”

“It would have been fine if I’d had some warning,” Soi Fong replied, still angry with herself over her lapse in judgment.

“I asked! What more warning do you need?” Tatsuki demanded, feeling a little put out that she hadn’t been told her teacher could release herself.

The woman gave Tatsuki a very odd look that she couldn’t quite figure out.

Standing with a small groan Soi Fong started for the door.

“I have to go fetch something,” she said over her shoulder, “Have some fun with your knives. By the time I get back I want to see my scowling visage carved out of something solid.”

She ran a hand over her chest where inquiring fingers had lightly touched. I should have recovered far faster than that, she thought. Remembering the goose bumps she wondered, What was that all about?


Soi Fong returned holding a large parcel wrapped in bubblewrap.

“This should allow you to practice and improve the techniques I’ve demonstrated over the last two days,” she said as she placed the parcel on the ground and started to slice away the layers of plastic.

“Oh… so what is it?” Tatsuki asked. Breaking the silence that had developed after the contents were finally laid bare.

The packaging had dropped away to reveal what looked like a small novelty jukebox.

“Um…It’s supposed to be a battle simulator,” her sensei finally replied.

“It looks like a jukebox… A jukebox that only plays Kylie Minogue.”

“Yeah and it probably doubles as a karaoke machine,” Soi Fong replied with a disappointed sigh. “Let me figure out how to turn it on.” Silently she growled, If this involves any kind of singing I’m going to shove it piece by piece down his throat.

After a few minutes of investigation Soi Fong managed to figure out most of the controls including 3D-solid projector, demo settings and how to cut power to the superfluous speaker system.

"No don't touch it yet,” she cautioned. Grabbing Tatsuki’s wrist as the girl reached for a button. “This is something Urahara built, which means we have to run through every setting before I'll leave you alone with it."

The machine seemed normal enough. Different Hollows, with different skill sets and the option to choose at what level of injury to the user it shut down. Soi Fong would have guessed they were about two thirds of the way through the options when a scenario appeared that made both women turn white.

"Uh.. D-do Hollows u-usually do that?" Tatsuki stammered. Eyes unwillingly fixated on the scene before her.

"..."

At the lack of response she managed to tear her eyes around towards her teacher. Soi Fong's posture was completely rigid and her skin had turned a deathly grey.

"S-sensei?"

Soi Fong blinked, drew a shuddering breath, turned off the machine and closed her eyes. It was a long moment before she finally responded.

"Um... No... Usually they just want to eat your soul."

"Oh... good."

Soi had seen Hollows with tentacles before, but what kind of sick mind thought that was a viable solution to a combat scenario. The dark skinned damsel in distress had been too disturbing for words. He will suffer excruciating agony, she thought. Pulling out a dagger she managed to neatly destroy setting number 8 despite her trembling hands.

Moving on all but the final setting were relatively unremarkable. After a few minutes of the demo Tatsuki was struggling to stop herself from gagging. Eventually she had to turn away, hands clamped over her mouth so she wouldn’t be sick on the wooden floor. Soi Fong let the Demo play through to its conclusion. At the end she stood with a sympathetic eye towards her young student who, through great effort and personal distress, had managed not to make a mess.

“The rest of the machine seems fine,” she said. “It’s time for me to be returning to Seireitei”

"Wait!” Tatsuki croaked, shakily raising herself up to her knees. “You destroyed setting number 8, but you're going to leave THAT?"

Soi Fong fixed her student with such a frozen glare that Tatsuki physically recoiled.

"Understand this child," Soi Fong uttered in a voice like ice. "You may be young, but you are NEVER too young to die. A real battlefield is just like setting 13. Those will be your limbs, or the limbs of your companions, writhing on the ground." Silently she thought, He even included the smell…

Her features twisted back into her old sneer before she continued tauntingly, "Are you scared? Will you still fight?"

The taunt had its desired effect. The girl’s spiritual energy, though small, ignited and she raised her head with a renewed fiery gaze. Slowly she stood and squarely facing her teacher simply said,

"Yes."

"Hmm?" Soi Fong quirked her eyebrow in a request for further elaboration

"Yes, I'm scared and yes, I will still fight. Never question that."

Soi Fong smiled in a way that was both predatory and approving. How she liked the flame within this girl. She reached up a hand and ruffled the girl's hair in an open display of affection that surprised them both. Smiling awkwardly Soi gestured towards the equipment.

"When I return I expect you to be through quite a few levels of that machine," and pointing towards the wall that was scarred from repeat dagger attacks she continued "and don't make my eyes so big. I look like some kind of insect."

Tatsuki chuckled slightly, but managed "Yes Sensei," in an appropriately consolatory tone.

Enough said, Soi Fong spun on her heel and headed for the door. Once outside she sighed gently into the evening air. She would actually feel sad when this one died, which was more than could be said of her own flesh and blood. However she understood what it meant to live to protect another. Smothering the girl's desires and breaking her determination might save her life, but it would be killing her just the same. She allowed herself a small hope. After all, the girl's princess was a healer and could sometimes be strong. There was a chance she might survive.