Cause, Effect, and Consequences

by Coltsguy

Happy Endings or New Beginnings?

"Let's get going," I said happily.

I pulled Eris out of my pocket and held her out in front of me in my fingertips. A burst of light came forward from her and a hole in space formed out here in the middle of the Brief's expansive backyard. On the other side of the hole was an alleyway that was pretty dingy and dark even though I could tell it was daytime there.

"Alright guys. Looks clear."

I looked on as the contingent of four from Yu Yu Hakusho moved to head through the threshold of the hole- Who am I kidding? I'm calling a shark a fish here. It's a portal not a hole. Anyway, I watched as Yusuke Urameshi, Kazuma Kuwabara, Yoko Kurama, and Hiei go through the portal; each of them giving me their fond goodbyes in turn. Except for Hiei of course because he's Hiei the silent badass type.

I remember what each of them said word for word, and stare for stare in, once again, Hiei's case, but honestly it just felt too surreal. I had memories with each of them. I remembered how Yusuke and I tore up some Adjuchas when we were learning how to properly fight hollows. I remembered how Kuwabara actually helped me learn his sword technique for my own use. I remembered how I sat with Kurama and talked with him about his concerns over his mother and the attachments he had with both the human world and the demon realm. Even Hiei and I got into it when I suggested he talk to Yukina about him being her brother. We tore up a lot of real estate over that.

Even though I remembered it all it felt... I don't know, like it wasn't really me? I mean that it kind of was and yet it kind of wasn't. It was an alternate version of myself that physically experienced all of this, but I had all the memories of the events that transpired which made it feel like it was I who did all of these things. It was, ironically, absolutely what I had always envisioned this little ability to be when I thought it up over and over again in my imagination for years. I suppose in that sense it worked perfectly.

That was really just something I received from my future self. The real good news was that I had found out that after absorbing the Hogyoku, Eris's abilities, power, and capacity had drastically increased. Both Eris and the Hogyoku had contained a lot of energy and when they merged those abilities both merged and were magnified as well. With the power she had at her disposal, she then proceeded to change my body according to my subconscious yearnings.

Still not only had my physical body changed, but my magical ability had grown as well. Everything my spells had done that Discord had used were apparently using a scaling effect. He had only used it to increase my stamina, strength, and durability, and I had done the same by simply copying the effects. I had never even thought about examining them in that entire time. Still, it was too bad I never really had a frame of reference for my strength. I knew back when I was doing the testing with Twilight that I could lift thirty five hundred pounds via levitation, but I never did check the limits of my physical strength past the one time I lifted the ponies with a single hand.

That was, I guess technically, thanks to Vegeta. The whole thing was a massacre. With no real fighting experience I was no match for someone of Vegeta's level. The only advantage I would have had was that my magic was counteracting the change in gravity so that I always stayed at one G. Even so we ended up keeping it at twenty five G's so that Vegeta could get a bit of training out of it without sacrificing any of his skills. Even so we managed to find out several things. Each of them interesting in their own right.

Almost all of my magical abilities had been enhanced in some manner. My shield, levitation, magic blast, durability, and even my illusion spell received an upgrade. The illusions I made were capable of becoming tangible now. They were also about as durable as a shadow clone from Naruto. Slightly better, but not by much and certainly not in the face of Vegeta's attacks. They also faded away instead of poofing.

My invisibility was really the only thing that didn't improve. Yeah, I could cover quite a bit more space with it but that was all. I don't really count that as an enhancement by my standards. Besides, Vegeta could still bypass it by sensing my ki after focusing enough. It was masked well. Just not well enough.

My durability is what really saved my ass. Vegeta didn't pull punches for me. I had originally not felt anything from any of the punches, kicks, elbows, knees, and headbutts that he used on me. I was still getting hammered all over the place. The issue was that I didn't feel any of it. That was, until he upped his game with a transformation to Super Saiyan. According to my memory he had perfected level two by now, but it wasn't necessary as his blows were now registering on me. However, it still just didn't seem to register beyond a mild pain. What was interesting is that it still took a while for me to show any discernible damage. Don't get me wrong, he pummeled the ever-loving shit out of me. It's just that it took over half an hour to start showing signs that he had hit me other than the sounds of me getting my ass beat.

I honestly think that was why he never stopped in disgust. I was a tricky punching dummy that didn't show any signs of a beating. I barely made any effective moves against him. He could tear through any illusions. He slapped aside a blast that felt even stronger than the warp kamehameha I used against Discord like it was nothing. He literally bitch slapped me to the floor after I turned invisible. Anything I conjured was taken care of with contemptible ease. And my shield spell was punched through like tissue paper. Short range, rapid teleportation was pointless as he was fast enough to get to me before I could do anything. The only two things I managed to do at all was grab him with my levitation spell and toss him into the wall and the free shot he gave me before he turned Super Saiyan to test my power. In short, even with my power up Vegeta still managed to knock me down a peg before I ever had the chance to notice that I had gone up one.

I took this beating, as well as Vegeta's verbal abuse, for close to an hour before we stopped due to an interesting ability that surfaced during the bout. Remember I punched the air in Powerpuff Girls and I made a hole in reality? Well, I managed to do it again right then. I didn't have to punch the air to generate the effect this time though. Instead during one particularly nasty combo from Vegeta where he just started punching my face in repeatedly, I held out my hand to the floor and a portal opened up that we both fell through. The other end of it led to the room I had been resting in. After falling through that, the beating- I mean the tests were called off.

This became the focus of all the new tests. Turned out that the ability which I couldn't really use freely to open portals between locations was stabilized by the Hogyoku's natural ability to break down barriers to form a stable portal at my own will. That invariably led to the other helpful discovery. If the Hogyoku could sense it and I could create the way then combining the two with a boost in power meant that I could open portals to other dimensions.

That led us to the now as I closed the portal after some more goodbyes were made between the four, if you include Hiei which is dubious, and a few of the allies and friends they made. I was capable of sending everyone home. The four of them elected to go first and as I had no pressing concerns other than the fact that I had to leave before future me got here I was content with doing so. We also decided on them because we didn't need to undo my hypnosis for any of them. Unlike the plethora of shinigami, none of the four of them had been subjected to the effects of Kyoka Suigetsu. It made sense really as there were far fewer of them than anyone else. Even the people from the T.S.A.B. numbered higher as the crew of their ship made up the majority of the support staff of our operations.

Of the other three groups that needed to return home only the Strawhat crew needed my help. Some of those from the Bleach contingent could technically come and go from here as this place was now an established location that they could travel to with a senkaimon. Don't ask me how it worked because no one decided to explain it to me. Or they weren't allowed to I should say. It was made into a secret that only the captains were made aware of and only they were capable of opening them successfully. All I was told was that it took a considerable amount of reiryoku to accomplish. They had to create any senkaimon that anyone else could use to get here. Except Kisuke Urahara, of course, because it was only natural that if Soul Society figured something out then he would have some miraculous method of doing the same. He didn't tell me either. Of course.

As for the group from the T.S.A.B. it was much simpler. The rift was still jamming their ability to leave. It was the same thing that drew them here. In fact they could tell there was another rift before I knew anything at all from last time. Unfortunately it also acted as a trap, or more accurately a one-way door. Dimensional travel into this location was easy. Leaving was impossible. Thus after we seal the rift they will be capable of leaving.

Of course, there was an interesting problem with that.

"Nanoha, are you ever going to climb off of my back or should I see a doctor about removing you surgically?"

Nanoha had become... unhealthily obsessed with me. Now that the fight against Aizen was over the only thing keeping her here was the rift. This wasn't the only factor as I had been thoroughly reminded. Apparently she had taken the words of future me in that video seriously. Especially the part where he told me to 'see if one of those babes are still willing to pop your cherry'. The problem was that we were always around at least half a dozen people plus Twilight when she spotted me and decided that she would fill that role.

Now don't get me wrong here. Nanoha was sexy as hell. In fact, every single woman I saw during my time in this world was either a nine or a ten. I, as a man, would bang any woman here if they offered under normal circumstances. This, sort of like Robin and Nami, was not normal circumstances. Nanoha was still under my hypnosis and future me had sworn not to have sex with any of them as long as they were in that condition. There was also the issue that she hadn't suggested to find a room. She was perfectly willing to strip and mount me in full view of the dozen plus beings around there and I was not having that. Would it be worth it? ...Probably I suppose, but I wasn't willing to risk the mental baggage I might make for myself.

"I don't wanna," she purred into my ear.

Turning her down was proving not to work out, however. I told her that I didn't want to do it because she wasn't really herself. I told her that I was willing to go through with it if I removed the hypnosis and she was still interested. In that regard she turned me down. She didn't want to risk her feelings for me changing due to undoing her hypnosis being removed so, in a bit of a childish move, she proceeded to jump onto my back, wrap her legs around my torso, and wrapped her arms around my neck. Except for the feeling of her breasts smooshed into my back and her rather appealing fragrance it was kind of awkward. It was also a smart move on her part. The feeling of it kept me from acting and apparently everyone had standing orders never to interfere with weird events like this unless it turned either violent or sexual and in the case of the latter even then only if one party or the other didn't give full consent.

Jesus Motherfucking Christ what the hell was going on with future me?

...Oh right, the smooshy feeling may have been a contributing factor on him as well. At least nobody was paying the display any mind with the exceptions of Bulma, Twilight, and Law. Everyone else seemed to be upbeat and chatty with each other.

"Nanoha I told you I wasn't going to do it unless I removed the hypnosis and you still consented afterwards."

"But I probably won't then."

"And what does that tell you?"

"That your hypnosis is really good."

"It tells me that you aren't in love with me and in reality you're just obsessed with me."

I couldn't see her face but the long pause and the look from Bulma who was in front of me told me that she was definitely having some kind of dilemma with what I said.

"That's what this is isn't it?" she said softly.

I wanted to say yes, but her tone was of someone who realized that they had been doing something wrong and didn't like it. Oh shit she's tearing up. I had to say something quickly. For lack of anything helpful to say on my own, I just decided to go with some lines I once heard that applied well to the situation.

"Nanoha, I know you care about me right now. I care about you too. The issue is that since you were made to think that way is going to stick in the back of your mind and mine as well. As long as it's there you're going to have doubts. You may not have that many, or any perhaps, right now, but for every action you take you're going to have to ask yourself if this is really what you wanted or if it just is what you've been told to think you want. Eventually all those questions are going to weigh you down and I don't want to see you hurt like that. You've already been under this hypnosis for too long. Let me undo it okay?"

I heard her sniffle as I waited for a response. This was way heavier than anything I ever had to deal with. Well, except that intervention my dad had when he handed me that handgun. Still don't think I'm over that one. Fortunately, Nanoha climbed off my back and I turned to meet her gaze. Her eyes had gotten puffy, but she was holding back the tears I saw a minute ago.

"Go ahead," she said quietly while casting her gaze towards the ground.

I thought about putting her under like I had with Rainbow Dash. She was definitely emotionally distraught enough for it to work. This time was different, though. She knew and I didn't want this to be the last she saw of me, since I was going to head to the rift after this, and I didn't want her to think any worse of me.

I placed my hand on top of her head and sensed around. It didn't take too long. The energy that was mixed in with my magic was the only complicating factor in it. That was the reiryoku left by Aizen's Kyoka Suigetsu. The taint he had placed in so many. Easily something I could become if I wasn't careful.

Just before I began I had something cross my mind that I wanted to try. I knew my future self was incapable of removing Aizen's reiryoku. In fact, he seemed to give up on trying pretty quickly. He was incapable. He gave up quickly. However, I had better magic at my disposal now than he did we he had attempted it. Why couldn't I do it?

I looked around for a moment to see if any shinigami were still around. I was in luck as captain Komamura was still nearby. It took a few moments but I got his attention and he slowly walked over to the little group I was in.

"Did you need something doppelganger?"

"I'm going to be removing my hypnosis on Nanoha. I want to attempt something else conducive to that and someone well versed with reiryoku would be appreciated to observe it."

He snorted and looked back to where he was when I waved him down.

"Captain Kuchiki, Captain Unohana, would you please join me for a minute?"

I hadn't even noticed the two of them. I just asked him since he was the first shinigami I saw. Regardless, the two of them soon joined us.

"What is it you require?" Byakuya asked in his noble tone of voice.

"It seems as though the doppelganger is going to remove his magic from one of our allies at last. Though he has asked for observers familiar with reiryoku to witness his attempt. I decided to call for the two of you since you both have an excellent grasp of reiryoku as well."

"I see," Retsu said. "I admit that I'm curious to see this in person."

Geez now they were staring at me. No pressure or anything.

First thing's first, I felt around for any foreign energy that I might have missed. Not sensing anything amiss, I started to pull upon the foreign energies. After I began I noticed quickly that only my magic was being extracted. I halted the process and took a moment to feel Aizen's energy. I had figured, which that moment then proved, that my magic had bonded and then suppressed Aizen's reiryoku in her body. When I tried to extract it, the magic separated and then moved to be reabsorbed. The whole thing felt kind of surreal to me as I had never really been able to sense things like that before, but I digress.

From what I could tell if I wanted to remove Aizen's reiryoku then I would have to either flood her with magic, which I was certain would damage her own ability to use magic to an extent I couldn't determine, or I would have to pull out the combination of the two simultaneously. That would be tough. I had to pour over my knowledge of the stuff to figure out a method.

That was where my idea took hold.

I moved the magic I had around once more to make sure that all of the reiryoku was bonded with it again. I then used the properties of my magic to change the reiryoku and converted it into reishi. If you're not sure what I just did I'll use different terms. I converted spirit energy into spirit matter.

You heard me. I changed energy into matter. I told you physics was turned on its head.

There was still work to be done, though. You don't convert energy into matter and just let it be. You add matter to existing matter and it will not be pretty if it's alive. Luckily for me, my magic was still bonded with it so I was capable of keeping it separate from her living body. Unfortunately, I still couldn't extract it in it's current form. If I tried, her soul would absorb the reishi as it tried to leave her body. That would cause terrible damage at minimum. Reishi doesn't exactly mix well with atoms.

Thus began the next stage. Bit by bit I converted the reishi with my magic again. This time I used the same principle that went into Urahara's Reishi Henkan-Ki only in reverse. The little gate he used converted kishi into reishi, or living matter into spiritual matter. Using additional magic I converted the spiritual matter into living matter. I had to do it bit by bit though because there was no way I could just start adding living matter to her body on its own all at once. There was enough energy to fill her entire head. I was not going to give her a second head's worth of matter. Her head would literally explode. I couldn't just remove the damn stuff either as I would essentially be ripping tiny bb's out of her head bit by bit and that would have the same cumulative effect.

Since I didn't want her dead I had to continue to one last step. I had to convert the living matter into something she could expel harmlessly. After giving it some thought, I came to a conclusion. I managed to slowly move all of the living matter throughout her body. I then separated my magic from the matter and let it flow back into me while the living matter expunged itself in a sort of wave. Thankfully, it worked and she had enough surface area to literally sweat out everything. That's right. She was now covered in sweat that used to be reishi that used to be reiryoku that powered Aizen's Kyoka Suigetsu. Actually, drenched would be the more accurate term.

I had never felt so damned impressed with myself to come up with a crazy solution to something that needed to be done. It really felt amazing. I removed my hand from her head and gave it a little shake to get some of the sweat off of it.

"What did you just do?" Retsu asked me.

"I just converted all of the foreign reiatsu in her body into sweat."

Unohana and Komamura looked shocked, but Kuchiki looked straight up agast.

"I'm sorry. I thought you said you converted all of the foreign reiatsu in her body to sweat," Retsu said in a sickeningly sweet voice as she looked at an utterly drenched and confused Nanoha.

"It's brilliant right? I had to locate every trace of it and convert it step by step and move it around her body to make the process work, but that is what I did!" I said getting pretty excited.

"You've just made a mockery of the cycle of souls. How could you be so happy with yourself?" Byakuya asked.

"Made a what now? I didn't-"

I cut myself off as I realized what he meant. I had converted reishi into kishi on a small scale. The only issue I had was that it was foreign to her body and subsequently any body it was in. If it wasn't there I could, in theory, convert a soul entirely and probably all at once. That flew in the face of their reincarnation cycle.

I didn't get farther than that. Nanoha took that moment to give me a hug. A small, very wet hug. I heard an 'aww' from my left, but I ignored it. Instead I simply reciprocated the light embrace.

"You feeling more like yourself now?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"You only interested in Fate now?"

That earned me a punch in the side. I guess I wasn't immune to gag violence. How that functioned still eluded me.

"Oh well," I stated with mirth. "I'm just glad you're back to normal. I hope you don't hate me," I finished a bit somberly.

"I don't," she said as she stepped away; much to my relief.

"Captain Komamura," Retsu began, "inform all the stationed shinigami about this development. Now that a method is available to us we should take the opportunity to remove Kyoka Suigetsu's hold upon us all."

"Agreed. The method may be unorthodox, but if it works then we shouldn't be complaining," he said before disappearing.

Was that a shunpo? Cool. I wish I could see these speed techniques. Hell, I wish I could perform these speed techniques. Eh, I shouldn't be complaining. I can teleport.

I looked over to Twilight who had been very quiet the whole time.

"I keep trying to get out, but they keep pulling me back in."

"If you're taking the time to help these people then I'm okay with waiting for a bit longer."

"Good thing because I think this is going to take a long time."

I paused in thought for a second before just blurting out something.

"You think Isane would like to go on a date once she's fixed?"

"I wouldn't push your luck," Retsu said in a scary, yet sweet tone.

"Fair enough."

Comments

[Not so New Brony]

Except for Hiei of course because he's Hiei the silent badass type.

Agreed.

[SuperUltimateBrony]

One pony left.