City of Light, City of Magic [Joli, Mura]

The Pacific was huge! Mura had only traveled to China, so the rest of the world was still just images in an atlas to him – the North- and South American continents, the Eurasian Landmass, Africa and Oceania, it was all still far and wide to his existence. His world was small… but props to Sabriel. A lot of stress went down the drain, and Kyūken wasn’t bothering him nearly as much as before. He’d gotten… domesticated. By a scolding, gothic Arrancar temptress. The irony.

But now, from the plane he was on, the Pacific was a marvel… even if it was mainly sea, sea, sea, blue, and more sea for most of the flight. Mura wished he could travel by his own means, such as with… uh, Veralia could open freaking portals to and from random places, that’d be cool to possess. Speaking of, why didn’t he just ask Sabriel for a helping hand?! He could’ve saved money on the ticket! IDIOT!!!

Cool, cool… just live with it.

Once he landed, he walked, stood, waited, walked some more, and finally found himself in a fucking wonderland – the buildings were blinding white, almost as if reflecting the rays of the sun itself. He was far from used to this much white, taking a few minutes to adjust his eyes to the sheer marvel of the view. This was a city? From the plane alone, he could tell it was the size of a region! Even a country!

But uh… a guy as intent as him quickly got his word out, even by just talking with passers-by – soon, word of a disabled, indigenous, young man from Japan wielding a rusty, old sword seeking aid from the Vandenreich would spread about while Mura approached the center of the City of Lights at high speed. Though, he was limited to just running past people on the street, jumping over the occasional bridge until he was physically blocked by a sudden change in… pressure.

This area… the sheer concentration of Reiatsu physically braked him in his tracks. Mura had never felt this much power focused in such an area before. It was all new experiences to him, but it felt vastly different from the light but threatening auras in Hueco Mundo. It felt much more… dense, intense, and unrelenting. Pure.

Just like Meninas’ aura. And Stella’s. It left the one-armed swordsman, clad in his orange jacket and jeans, with Harukami strapped to his back for lesser hostility, simply glaring ahead of the gap with waters beneath, in the distance central buildings and halls located. At this point, he’d already been snooping around the City of Light for 2 days, and a few people had recorded his antics of casually sprinting past people here and there. Without Fa Jin, he sure looked like a potential pocket thief trying his luck at the riskiest place to ever rob someone in.

His lack of white apparel probably, maybe, likely, kind of didn't help much, did it? The only white thing on him were his prayer beads, neatly wrapped around his neck with huge, white beads expressing his tense focus at the area far ahead of him. If Stella's right, that's their base, eh? Nothing like a physical introduction, leave a good first impression, increase my chances at joining. It worked all the time back home, why not here?

”Eh?”

Mura was genuinely dumbfounded when someone shouted at him, turning his face back to see a blonde woman with a rather annoyed expression – clearly something to do with what he was doing at this particular moment, but he was no detective. Why’d she just up and tell him to… mind? Wait, was he doing something wrong?!

“… Am I- uh… am I bothering you?” he asked, his eyes comically blinking loudly, while his only hand occupied itself with pointing at himself. The prayer beads around his neck turned bright yellow. “I don’t remember bothering anyone here. Please, don’t just shout at me out of nowhere…”

Super rude. Mura wasn't going to tolerate being shouted at for absolute bogus.

Huh… don’t… worry about it.

Mura was confused. Had she seen a ghost or something? Wait… maybe she meant Kyūken! Turning his head around, Mura tried to establish stern eye contact with the plus chained to his sheathed tsurugi, but Kyūken wasn’t doing anything weird. He was just… floating. Silently. Rather uncharacteristic, but he’d been this way since they met Sabriel.

She looked a bit mortified, mentioning that he had flexed his spirit something- did she mean his Spiritual… his Reishi? She could sense that? Why’d it shock her that much, then?! He wasn’t that… oh.

Mura couldn’t help but throw a side-eye at Kyūken: “And you have the nerve to call me weak?”

“B-Be quiet…”

“Tch. Suit yourself…” Mura ended the conversation with the ghost real quick, turning his gaze back towards the blonde. “Sorry, I do possess Spiritual Energy, if that’s what got you worked up… I wasn’t flexing, though. Not even sure you can do that – it’s not a muscle, it’s just energy.” Mura made it somewhat clear that he had no damn clue what she meant by ‘flexing’ – he was just a human with Reishi. A lot of Reishi, especially for the average human, but he wasn’t doing anything extraordinary with it. He wasn’t expressing it or powering up or anything – he’d never powered up or flexed anything. He had his energy and made use of it the moment he’d draw his blade, but beyond that… meh.

“Wait, you can flex your energy? If you know that… are you from the Vandenreich, too? I’m just here to visit.”

Oh… so much for assuming, you foreign bigoted Ainu weirdo. Still, she talked about ‘pressure’ as if it was expected trivia – everyone knew what this spiritual pressure was about, right? Just like everyone knew what 2 plus 2 equaled.

“Gravity… I think I get it now,” Mura responded, thinking back to the day he met Akira back in China. He felt the air tightening when he breathed, and his skin was shivering in the heat of battle, but he chalked it up to the sheer adrenaline rush from combat. To think that there was an actual, tangible pressure from their spiritual energies…

He did look it up in 0.2 seconds from his phone per her request – being one-handed meant he had to practice small, handy habits like these a lot more, so he was quick with typing and stuff. “I mean, that’s partly why I’m here – Vandenreich must house many experienced combatants with more knowledge in Spiritual Pressure than what I can find back home in Japan… w-why aren’t you a member, though? You’re a Quincy too, right?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mura… just because she grew up with a family of Quincies – her words – didn’t mean that she was one. But sure, fine, continue assuming shit. “Between Meninas and Stella, the Quincies are really talented with Spiritual techniques…”

Huh… so she wasn’t in the Vandenreich… and she wasn’t a Quincy… so…

Was she just a… normal human, then? Like him? Was ‘normal’ even the right word to use here? Certainly, Quincies were humans too… okay, now he sounded really weird- y’know what, keep those weird speculations to yourself, Mura. “… Hmh,” he hummed in deep thought, “So it’s more than just heritage?” It could be a family tradition for all that he knew, but thinking back… Meninas did express it as if it was a trait.

The mention of Arrancar did make him remember Veralia, causing a soft blush to travel across his face before he shook it away. “… Mhm, seconded,” he agreed on that, “Actually, I haven’t met any Shinigamis myself… I thought they were more elusive than that. Are they also here in Vandenreich?”

He holds up a hand to gaze upon the large center of Vandenreich beyond the bridge, hopeful for his future within their ranks. “Now I got to join them… I mean, you may not be a Quincy, but what else’s stopping you from joining?”