"Delicious."
"So this is what rich people eat?"
"Yu, I am so disappointed. You actually hid that you're loaded."
Kurosaki Yuzu, Kurosaki Karin, and Kurosaki Isshin devoured the spread while lodging grievances.
Tachibana Yu could only sigh. "Pretty sure I told you this house was mine."
The Kurosakis' mouths twitched. He had said it, but who would believe it?
"Kurosaki-san, Kurosaki-kun, Yuzu, Karin, there is more if you need seconds. I will bring dessert fruit..."
Inoue Orihime came forward, cheeks pink, a tray in her hands.
Yu's mouth tugged. He scooped a token bowl for himself and headed upstairs.
"Do not come in."
Kuchiki Rukia shouted miserably from inside her room.
"Relax. I am not smacking your butt this time."
Yu said it offhand and pushed. The locked door gave under gentle pressure.
"Out, you rotten brat!"
Pillows flew. Yesterday the brat had pinned her and spanked her without warning. Worst of all, she could not beat him.
Yu set the food on the bedside table. "Not my fault. You sprayed that thing at random and now my life is chaos."
He still had no idea what memories Orihime had gained. She was acting exactly like a girlfriend.
Rukia coughed twice, guilty. That part was on her.
...
"Say, Yu, are you rich?"
On the way to school, Kurosaki Ichigo eyed him. Rukia and Orihime looked too.
"No. Just an ordinary household."
Yu shook his head.
"Then your house..."
"Oh, that."
Yu thought a moment and said blandly, "Five years ago I crushed a few gangs and used the money I took to buy it."
Ichigo: "..."
Orihime: "..."
Rukia: "..."
...
"What!"
"You're living with Yu?"
The classroom erupted, all eyes on Yu and Orihime.
Blushing, Orihime nodded.
"How did this happen? Orihime, why would you cohabit with that womanizer? Did he threaten you?"
Arisawa Tatsuki glared at Yu. "If he did, say the word. I will beat him black and blue."
"No," Orihime said quickly, face scarlet. "Yu-kun... confessed. He wanted me to move in."
"Eh!"
Tatsuki gaped, a sour pang stabbing her chest. That womanizer confessed? So he really preferred figures like Orihime's...
Rukia sensed trouble. She stood, slipped for the door, then broke into a run.
"Hold it."
Yu was already there in Soul Reaper form, giving her a look. "Where are you going, Miss Soul Reaper?"
Rukia swallowed. She straightened with forced dignity. "Yu, see how good I am to you. I not only made you a Soul Reaper, I even let you have such a pretty girlfriend..."
"Heh."
Arms folded, Yu smiled without warmth, inviting her to keep digging.
Seeing this was going nowhere, Rukia shook a tiny fist. "Do not think I cannot beat you. I simply chose not to stoop to your level. If I get serious—"
"Kya!"
She squeaked as he scooped her up around the waist.
"If you get serious, what happens?" Yu asked with a smile that was not a smile.
Cold sweat slid down Rukia's temple. "What happens?"
"Heh heh. You get your backside soundly walloped until you do not dare sit."
Yu's grin turned wicked. "Hold it in. Do not yelp in front of the class. That would be awkward."
"Wait, Lord Yu, mercy..."
Rukia squirmed hard. She did not want to experience whatever that was.
"Do not even think about running."
In the middle of their scuffle, Yu stiffened. A heartbeat later, so did Rukia.
Both looked toward the classroom door.
Like a walking tower, Sado Yasutora entered carrying a cage with a platinum-feathered parrot.
Ichigo noticed too and came over. "Yu, Rukia, what is that?"
He stared at the bird, unease prickling at his skin. His Soul Reaper sense said something was off.
"A human soul."
Yu narrowed his eyes, memories of the anime surfacing.
A depraved murderer had slain a mother and child with grotesque cruelty. The killer had fallen into Hollowhood and remained utterly evil. He told the child's soul: survive three months as a parrot and I will revive your mother.
But the dead do not return. He only wanted to toy with the child's spirit, killing anyone who tried to protect him, feeding despair.
Yu snapped his gaze to the window and cast out his sensing thread.
His range spread and spread.
One hundred meters.
Two hundred.
Three hundred.
"Nothing..."
He squinted and opened his system.
[Available Points: 697]
[Spiritual Power: 48,800]
[Strength: 5,142]
[Speed: 842]
[Zanpakutō: 100]
[Rei-link: 100]
[Soul Control: 100]
[Reiatsu Burst: 100]
[Reiatsu Armor: 100]
[...]
In two days of absorption he had banked more than six hundred points.
Time to use them.
"System, dump them all into Rei-link."
Numbers raced upward.
In the same instant, he saw a sky full of red streamers, each a human's spiritual thread.
Among them, one was black.
"Found you."
Yu whipped his head toward a distant unfinished tower.
He vaulted through the window, sprinting for the site. At eighty meters out he swung inside his body, unleashing a world-splitting cut.
SWISH!
Silver flashed between earth and sky.
BOOM!
The derelict high-rise exploded under a single stroke.