The next eight months were a time of revelation for me.

First was the revelation that medical recovery was torture. I spent the first few months of my time as a guest at the Urahara shop either sitting in a back room going over my archive. It wasn’t bad at first. The sheer amount of knowledge at my disposal was fascinating and I dove in with a passion trying to learn as much as I could.

As a result, I learned the basics of elemental manipulation, spell structures, enchanting, device creation, bounded fields, and so much more. Actually practicing everything was harder, since it's generally a bad idea to shoot fireballs inside a wooden structure when you can barely walk.

Just coming up with spell formulas for the other half of my combat abilities was actually pretty fun for a few days even if they probably weren’t super practical, but the lack of a device eventually made the process frustrating since I couldn’t test any of them to see if they actually worked the way I wanted them to. So I would lose focus after a while and switch to a new topic. Only to have something similar occur when I either needed additional equipment or it was unsafe to practice in my condition.

The second revelation was that the ability souls made for super quick training improvements. I knew that there was some increase in ability comprehension from my short fight with the Hollow, but by the end of the first month I was bullseyeing nearly every target I could see from the shopfront and I could now directly project enchanted weapons.

Nothing even close to noble phantasms, something still eluded me there, but lightning arrows, fire swords, water whips and the like were all easy enough for me by now.

The third revelation was something I wasn’t very proud about. Simply put, a bored Alex leads to reckless decisions. It started annoyingly enough with Jinta. Mostly just grumbling about the additional work needed to take care of the ‘freeloader’ which I ignored since I did cause more work for both him and Ururu with my limited mobility. But after a few weeks of this, and running into another roadblock with the archive, I cornered Tessai and demanded a position in the shop that I could do even while I was in recovery.

Something I learned about Tessai was that he could be the epitome of patience in most cases. He could easily deal with Urahara’s moods, Jinta’s antics, and Yoruichi’s behavior, she refused to break the cat act around me even when I heard her talking with others the next room over, without blinking an eye. So when I confronted him about this, he calmly informed me that even if I wanted to help, it would take some time for Urahara to actually make a gigai for me.

The problem was, I wasn’t going to wait. So I immediately shifted Atralization from ‘Spirit Form’ to ‘Physical Form’ right in front of him.

So, uh, yeah. One of my more unique abilities just kinda out in the open cause I was bored and wanted something to do. The look on Urahara’s face when he found out was almost worth it though.

Even still, oops!

The final revelation though was that there was no chance of me skipping dimensions before the main events kicked off. I was only as far along as I was learning how to build a dimensional transport due to the downtime caused by my injuries and even without that actually building my escape ticket would be a multi-year endeavor. With that in mind, my plans for the future were mostly set. I would train, study, build, and train some more so that when the Quincies made their move I would be strong enough to survive without relying on a teenager to bail me out!

-o-

While my new resolve to improve myself was nice, it still left me in the same position I was in when I asked for a job.

Well, not exactly the same position. One of the things I started searching the archive for once escape wasn’t feasible was healing spells. I wasn’t going to be reattaching arms or healing life threatening wounds, but speeding up my recovery was within my abilities.

Five months after my first brush with a Hollow, I was all healed up and in top shape again! Which meant I was wandering the east side of town looking for another to test out some of my ideas.

One of the perks that came from working with Urahara was the real function of his shop. While he did sell candy and treats to the living, he was also something of a bounty/supply shop for Souls and Soul Reapers.

See, while fresh dead might not cross over immediately and run the risk of turning into a Hollow, it turns out some of the better off Souls in the Soul Society can cross back over into the World of the Living for what is basically a vacation. So the store sells equipment, tour locations, souvenirs, and deals with bounty rewards and local reports of Hollow sightings as a service to the local Soul Reaper. Supposedly you can rent gegais as well, but the cost of that seems to be so high no one has actually done so while I’ve been here.

But the advantage for me is that when too many Hollow reports come in, seriously there can sometimes be two or three in a day, I can divert some for myself to go hunt them down myself.

Which is why I was running across the rooftops in my combat outfit, on the lookout for a murderghost to kill. I was keeping to the high ground because despite many of them being around 10 feet tall, Hollows can be sneaky when they want to. And the last thing I want is to deal with Yoruichi’s smug face mocking me for getting ambushed.

Oh yeah, that's another thing I learned recently.

For all that I am a spiritual being, I can barely manipulate Reishi or Reiryoku. Which means I can’t use either Soul Reaper abilities or Kido and my spirit sensing was nearly useless. It actually kinda bummed me out that I couldn’t take advantage of the three high level Soul Reapers I lived with for instruction other than the occasional beatdown from Urahara or Tessai but I figured I could compensate when I learned more magecraft and got a proper device working.

Stopping on the roof of the tallest building in the area, I scanned my surroundings for the Hollow that was supposed to be in the area. Nothing towards the north, same with the west, east has a sneaking Yoruichi making a half assed attempt to look like a normal cat, south has… oh.

South has three hollows. Interesting. Guess that’s why that damn cat let me see her so easily

I take a moment to consider my options. I could just rain down arrows, but that seems like a waste. Maybe use each one for a training opportunity? Yeah, let's go with that.

Tracing my bow into my left hand, I take a deep breath then burst into action. A swarm of swords appears around me before launching themselves at one of the Hollows as I take aim at the second. My arrow catches it in the middle of its head, killing it instantly. As I land in front of the final Hollow I dismiss my bow and summon my twin broadswords, Kansho and Bakuya, to my hands. A few swings later, and the Hollow is in pieces.

Whew, that went pret-

I drop to the ground as a thickly muscled appendage passes where my head used to be. Fucking tail! Turning quickly, I see the heavily wounded form of the first Hollow. Damn, looks like my barrage failed to hit anything immediately vital. Oh well, this is what training is for.

“That wasn’t very nice!” I shout as I rush forward. Another swing decapitates the Hollow leaving me alone in the street. Well, alone with a smug cat that followed me.

Yoruichi wanders down the street waving her tail mockingly.

“It wasn’t even that close to hitting me!” I complain, knowing I made a mistake not being sure all the Hollows were dead before lowering my guard.

All I get for my protest is a smirk as Yoruichi turns and vanishes down a side road. I have no idea why she insists on pretending to be a normal cat around me. Hell, I’ve heard her have conversations in the shop with the others, but as soon as I enter the room she goes mute! It’s starting to drive me up the wall, and considering I have a hunch that is why she is doing it, I may have to start using her as target practice when I’m out here.

I could use the stress relief if nothing else.

I dismiss my swords and dust myself off before leaping back up to the rooftop. No other Hollows have been sighted in the area, but might as well keep looking around since I took the time to direct the local Reaper to the other side of town tonight.

-o-

“What’s with the long face, Alex-chan?”

I groan as I turn to face the annoyance behind me, “Nothing is wrong, I just feel like I wasted my time running blindly around town.”

“Not satisfied with three takedowns, I take it? That’s pretty impressive improvement from the first few fights you got into.”

It was true. I had gone from struggling to deal with a single Hollow to easily taking down three of them. Something I was told was impressive for low to mid ranked seated officers in the Soul Reaper ranks. The main issue was, I was hitting limits in nearly all of my areas of growth while trying to remain under the radar, and it was making me feel pressured knowing what was coming.

I simply couldn’t go all out without drawing attention in a live combat situation. The underground training room was nice for testing things out, but there was a relaxedness there even when I sparred with the others that made everything seem bland. Well except for the time I got Urahara to release his shikai. That sparring session almost resulted in more injuries on my part and a large area destroyed by exploding arrows.

And the tech side of my abilities was constrained by just a lack of supplies. Despite being considered an exile from the Soul Society, Urahara was the largest source of rare metals and tools available to me, and getting bulk amounts of material that was useful was still difficult. Even with him allowing me the use of his second lab, I kinda freaked out when I saw the main one (half assembled gigais all over the place), I was still in the process of making tools to make the tools I needed to make more useful magitech. As it was I had barely enough to scrape together a single device that was able to monitor one spell function, even if it needed to be preprogrammed and only had a set output.

“It’s not that, just frustrated that my best form of stress relief is so hard to track down. You sure that you can’t get one of those spirit cell phones the Reapers use?”

Urahara gives me a dry look, “You mean a Denreishinki? I know I told you they are different than a cellphone.” I just roll my eyes, they really aren’t. “And I can get you one, but the tracking data is monitored by the Soul Society directly. So you wouldn’t avoid detection when their monitors discover there are two signals in town and only one active Soul Reaper.”

“Yeah yeah, any other reason you needed to talk to me Urahara-san? Or just harassing the workers like normal?”

“So formal Alex-chan, I’m hurt! You know you can relax around me.” Urahara exclaims, not really bothered by the look of it. “But yes I do have something I need you to do. I know you leave most of the dealings with Soul Reapers to the rest of us but in a month, we will be getting a shift rotation and I need you to make sure the area introductory paperwork is updated.”

That made me freeze up. On the one hand, I thought I had more time before I needed to get caught up in the plot. On the other hand, I couldn’t really prepare more than I already had without drawing attention to from Soul Society. At least once Aizen made his move I should be free to openly practice my flashier abilities, so I guess this is fine?

“That’s fine, I’ll have them sorted in a few days. Anything else Urahara-san?”

“Nope! That should be it for now.”

As my boss wanders off, I start thinking about what this means for me.

Two months until things properly kick off. I need to prioritize my remaining training time for immediate usefulness. Things are going to be intense for a while so dimensional research will be out, though maybe I can sneak into the science division and make off with their data, but learning how to project Noble Phantasms has jumped even higher in priorities. I don’t think I can tackle captain-class without a trump card like that.

Still, after months of preparing for this I’m about as ready as I can get. Should be fun!