Bleach Hereafter RPG

San Francisco, where one might in summer time be a loving pair. Originally a gold-rush city exploded to life by forty-niners in search of fortune, it has since seen its growing pains. From highly destructive earthquakes, to epidemics of drug abuse, SanFran had gone through a lot. Despite this, it continued to maintain its beautiful Bay area charm.

This was not Jessebelle's first night in SanFran. Her father had once brought her here while she was on summer vacation prior to Fifth Grade. They were on business to help the much-beleaguered LA Mafia with its ongoing gang war with younger upstart groups. She remembered observing some of this violence, and opining to her father that it was crude and inefficient. Her father could only agree.

No, there were much better ways of getting what you wanted. But even her violent methods were more elegant and effective than the thug lives lived by the gangs here.

That was many years ago. Tonight, she was now here as her own Donna, on her own business. The LA Mafia was more than ecstatic to hear that the Platinum Rabbit, heiress and head of their long-time allies, the Beauregards, had smuggled in a shipment of assault weapons to deal with those pesky gangs more effectively.

Beyond that, however, she had even more business to attend to, the sort even most of the underworld wasn't privy to.

The Platinum Rabbit strolled into the revolving doors of a luxury hotel, and was greeted by the courteous receptionist, who informed her that no, nobody had left her any messages. Thanking the receptionist, she took the nearest elevator to her fourth floor suite and set her cape down on her bed as soon as she locked the door.

Jesse parted the curtains and looked out to the night sky across the street. There wasn't much to it, of course, but the young woman sitting on the third floor roof of the building directly across from her window said a lot. The faint trace of Reiatsu emanating from her said even more.

The Hotel's lobby was a fanciful one, but it was understandable that it didn't apply to everybody's tastes. So be it, then. Jesse made a quick call to the front desk and informed them that she was not to be disturbed until further notice.

That little matter resolved, the Matriarch of the Beauregard Family swung her windows wide open, and called upon her family heirloom, the Platinum Chip. The precious metal poker chip morphed into a deck holster, the lid already wide open. Cards flew out from within, and formed a stable, if makeshift, bridge from her window sill, all the way to the roof.

It wasn't like anyone would see. No, it wasn't because people didn't look up. It was because as a Mafia Boss, she was doubly careful to keep things hidden. A simple spell to conceal herself from muggle eyes was all she had to do. The cards were spiritual constructs and so invisible anyway.

The act completed, the Platinum Rabbit stepped up to her window sill and crossed the bridge at a leisurely pace, closing the window behind her. With each step she took, the cards behind her disintegrated, until she finally found herself standing next to the one who was presumably her partner.

And how did she know this wasn't someone else? Well... she wasn't here necessarily alone, of course. Others in the Family had been monitoring Reiatsu levels with a one-mile radius of the meeting point. Nobody else had entered this area within the past six hours. If this was an elaborate ploy by some other faction to bait her, they must have been very good to send their agent well ahead of time.

"Nice night for a walk, isn't it?" The wind picked up, causing her cape to billow. That was the code phrase. She would of course have an appropriate response, verifying her identity.

Ah, just the kind of attitude she was comfortable working with. There was professional cordiality, there was grumpy and broody, and then there was this. Just the right amount of humour to give a light moment every now and then.

Not that there was anything particularly wrong with broody people per se, but getting told that your hard work was for nothing, and you were just dust in the cosmic cycle of reincarnation or whatever eventually tended to get old. Jesse had worked with such types before. They were tolerable, but only to a point. It must have been her courteous sensibilities being offended.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," the Matriarch bowed - curtsies were for more feminine attire - and responded in kind. "Jessebelle Beauregard. But I've learned that some people consider that a mouthful, so Jesse will do fine."

As quickly as the introductions ended, her partner got down to business. Good. Neither of them was really hosting the other, and courtesies were more for welcoming guests into your establishment or abode. For places such as this, niceties were best reserved for after the mission was accomplished.

Daddy made sure to plant this in her mind. After all, if neither party owned the place of a meeting, then neither was a guest, and so neither required hosting. The obvious exception would be if they rented out a venue specifically for the meeting, in which case, the funds represented this responsibility of ownership, if temporarily.

Val revealed her Fullbring, a useful device, it seemed, and used it to provide optics to the both of them. Jesse followed her directions and stared in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge, and along the way, a plume of smoke.

And where there was smoke, there was fire.

Metaphorically speaking. Hollows were at work, causing trouble like they usually did. No doubt innocent people were in danger, but knowing Red Lotus, their dog in the fight was the newly awakened Fullbringer who was fighting for their life as they spoke.

While Jesse didn't exactly see muggles as beneath her - after all, the Family used many of them to serve their interests - there was nothing for the Family to gain by going out of her way to save these bystanders.

Val then asked for her opinion on the approach. If one had to ask, she would not mind getting her hands dirty. The problem was doing so in a way that didn't attract attention. And with this disaster going on in an urban sprawl as this, well... "While I don't mind the direct approach to such matters, I would prefer it if we didn't end up on the nightly news. Even fifteen minutes of fame would be problematic for one of my private disposition. Let us begin with stealth, and resort to roughousin' only when deprived of options."

Nothing like a good sense of humour to get you through an otherwise potentially unpleasant situation. Privacy was Jesse's policy, at least when it came to the dirtier aspects of the Family business. Oh sure, she would stand at the doors of her casino to welcome in customers. But casinos were legal in New Orleans.

Smuggling weapons, on the other hand, certainly wasn't. The last thing she wanted was to appear on any camera, news or phone or otherwise. Which was why as soon as they started to make their way toward the objective, the Matriarch of the Beauregard Family whipped out her phone and made a number of calls.

Never mind that she had to make some excuses for why she sounded like she was parkouring over a number of roofs along the way. Her connections were swift to act, and get in position, widening the area of the restriction. The only people who might see were now within this cordon... and it seemed that other than the new boy they would be picking up, that number was scarce.

Either eaten by the hollows, or scared off. It seemed rather unnecessary to take up her precautions, if there was no one around to take videos, but it was better safe than sorry.

As soon as Jesse saw the spell activate and move to protect its intended target, she understood what to do. Not a split second passed between Val giving the signal, and her swooping in to pick up the boy and running him up the roof of a building with another pack of cards that spiralled into an ephemeral staircase.

Much like the bridge earlier, each step shattered into fragments of spiritual energy as soon as her foot was done using it. Quite the show, if you possessed enough spiritual awareness.

"Hey, wai... wha?"

"You're safe up here for now, Champ," Jesse set him down on his feet and shuffled another deck of cards. On the final flick, it exploded into what would normally be a scattered mess and a complete waste. Instead, the cards seemingly took a life of their own and swarmed down toward Val, placing themselves between her partner and the hollows. "Excuse me for a moment, if you please..."

Should the latter look around for the dealer of this deck, the Ace of Spades would get her attention before darting up in the direction of its owner. And if the Hollows tried to strike, each card would serve as a reasonably good one-time shield to take the blow.

Fortunately, as she could sense, there weren't any Haley Joels around, and the muggles were all gone. Perhaps, if they really had to, they could clean up this mess before the Fire Department got here...

Jesse only smiled as she watched her partner make excellent use of her provisions, doubling down on the misdirection by using a defensive move of her own. She certainly knew what she was doing. "You certainly know how to load the dice, Val. I'm glad that both of us aren't on our first ride."

Once again, Jesse grabbed the new potential recruit by the wrist. "You heard the lady, Champ. Get ready to ju-"

One of the Hollows rose up from the alley between this building and the next, gathering spiritual energy into an unmistakable ball at its mask. "Ah, it seems we'll have to nip this one delinquent in the bud."

She grabbed the card deck holster from her thigh and tossed it up into the air. A flash of light later, and it landed on the roof, changed into a slot machine that resembled an old western train robber. "This One-Armed Bandit should teach y'all a lesson in courtesy."

For just a moment, her eyes seemed to slant in just a brief hint of irritation. "Jumpin' in other people's way, you see, is extremely rude."

The Platinum Rabbit pulled on the lever. The slots rolled for a few seconds, before lining up in a trio of 7's. A stream of silver dollars burst forth from the bandit's mouth, the endless barrage of spiritual coinage overwhelming the creature until its head bent over backwards under the weight.

Its energy blast fired off, but this too was held down by the pile of coins, which glowed crimson as they refracted the light into a monochromatic strobe and absorbed the rest of the energy. Certainly not the flashiest move, but that was the whole point.

The Hollow growled as it struggled, but Jesse had had enough. She snapped her fingers, and the silver dollars, still glowing red, started to melt into the creature's mask. Why they didn't do so earlier, Jesse never bothered to learn the physics of. After all, communicating with the souls of objects wasn't exactly something that science was rather into.

Coins began to drop out from the back of its head, their energy spent as they burst into tiny showers of sparks. She would have eaten it, but this was neither the time nor the place. The Goodfellas had enough trouble trying to keep the authorities out of the area with the fire raging on. There would be other Hollows to eat for sure.

The slot machine morphed back into a deck holster and attached itself to her thigh.

Without any delay, the Platinum Rabbit resumed her previous course, and with the young champ in tow, leapt over the alley onto the next building. "Time to outrun them, then~!"

"W-wait, can we-"

"No time for that, just keep your eye on me and Val over there!" She began another sprint to the next rooftop. Already behind them, she could hear the rest of the Hollows continuing their pursuit.

Jesse, of course, had a lot of experience of being on the run. From rival families, to general thugs, about the only human dangerous group of humans she had yet to get in trouble with was the police. Sure, you could talk about bought judges, but a low profile simply meant ensuring you never became a suspect.

One such method of being able to shake her tail was to learn to multitask, keeping one eye on the escape route, and the other at the pursuer. From this, the Matron could very well tell that Val had their getaway covered. A number of Hollows fell to the eradication by her Fullbring, a curiously thematic combination of a rifle and a scythe.

It wasn't long before her partner was able to rejoin Champ and herself as they made their way to a conveniently abandoned industrial zone, which made for a perfect spot to lay low. The Goodfellas would know where she was, anyway. They'd be able to tell where she went easily enough.

But for now, it was the perfect opportunity to address the new kid's understandable concerns. To which Val asked if she would prefer to tell the story herself. "This is a rather equal opportunity, I have to say. And for such occasions, I believe that a fair arbitration is in order."

The card deck holster shifted back into that signature Platinum Chip, which she held up for both to see. "I call heads." And just like that, she flipped the little metal disc up into the air, catching it with the precision of a seasoned gambler, and slapping it onto the back of her off-hand.

With that sweet smile, she lifted her dominant hand off, to reveal the reverse side of the Chip, clean from the signature decorations of the Family's most successful casino, the Lucky 38. "And it appears that the privilege of explaining Champ's situation falls to you!"

This should be an interesting opportunity to see how Val saw things as well. Unless she explained everything by the book - which still said something about her personality - Val would put a bit of herself into this little lecture, and it would be interesting to see...

It wasn't entirely unexpected. Lady Luck was a fickle vixen, after all. Val's explanation was not wrong, though it was clear that she was struggling in some regards. Jesse couldn't say she was a very good teacher either, but as she did have a position of leadership in other fields, perhaps that experience could help fix this up some.

"Simply put, yes, this is an anime plot." Straightforward was a key to proper communication. Anything that would risk complicating the exchange of messages would make things more difficult. "I'm assuming you've seen your share?"

"Not much outside the Big Three," he scratched his head. Karuto, Pieces Eight, Clorox... you know the ones."

Jesse nodded in understanding. The most amazing part wasn't that she understood all those references. After all, she did make use of pop culture in her own daily life, with "muggles" for completely unaware humans, and "Haley Joels" for those who could see spirits.

The most amazing part was that those three were still running after all these years.

Fortunately, she at least knew enough to have some frame of reference with the given choices. "This might sound silly, but our situation is Clorox, with some differences."

"Well I'm definitely not a pirate or a ninja. Sure, I get the idea, but that don't make it any easier to swallow."

"The 'kidnapping?'"

"No, it's the whole anime dea... wait, so you really did just kidnap me?"

Jesse smirked teasingly. The momentary chills running up his spine were palpable. Then she just laughed. "Oh, Champ. We didn't kidnap you. We've removed you from danger! The Hollows are after you. We wouldn't want your family or friends to get hurt, now would we?"

Sure, you could kidnap someone who lived alone, but it was less of a risk of tripping up to assume he had more than just an apartment to return to. Assuming it wasn't burned up or anything...

"So I can go home after the Empties or whatever are destroyed? Or is Little Red Reaping Hood serious about me being drafted into your secret society?"

Jesse could only stifle a chuckle. That one was actually pretty good. It wasn't long before her face went back to its serious demeanour. "Val is correct. Think about it: So long as your powerful spiritual signature is here, Hollows, what Clorox calls 'Empties', will come for you. This problem will just repeat itself, and we won't be here next time."

"But can't I like... just train after school or something? Tamago was able to protect his family, you know?"

"Unfortunately, things work differently in real life. Not everyone can master their skills as quickly as Tamago." So how to make it not look like a kidnapping? "Don't worry. I'll arrange for your family and friends to be taken care of. I'm rather well-connected, you see."

"Champ" looked her up and down with a skeptical eye. Well she did dress like some sort of princess. So who was to say she wasn't telling the truth about that? "I wanna see these arrangements."

"Consider it done."

"And I wanna go home after my training."

For someone like Jesse, that wasn't hard to agree to. After all, her surviving family accompanied her to the training. After that, they were allowed to go back to America and rebuild their operation. "Speaking from experience, I'm sure that can be arranged."

"Really? That's it?"

Jesse turned to Val. "There anything else I'm missing with regard to Red Lotus protocols?"

Jesse nodded through Val's brief summation, chuckling at the bit about tastes. While she didn't consider herself an otaku, the Matriarch of the Beauregard Family had a rather eclectic collection of titles. From recommendations, to things that had interesting trailers, she considered herself to have seen a fairly balanced assortment.

"Trent. Trent Asher." Trent tried to strike an impressive, "strongman" sort of pose. With the oversized Fullbring taking centre stage, it probably would have worked for some.

Jessebelle thought it somewhat dorky, if earnest. "Pleased to meet you, Trent. This li'l ole lady is Jessebelle Beauregard."

She would wait for Val to introduce herself before continuing. "Now that introductions have concluded, I have made arrangements for our trip to Tokyo."

Trent's face took on one of those "you've got to be kidding me" looks at the mention of the city. "Look, lady, you're straining my willing suspension of disbelief here. Tokyo? Aight, fess up. Am I being Punk'd or what?"

Jesse only chuckled. What a cliche place for a secret society of anime-esque superhumans to have their secret base built, indeed. Perhaps the resulting disbelief would make the suspicious think twice. "Well you be the judge of that once we get there~"

After all, it would only be so obvious.

Jesse led the trio to one of the back doors of the warehouse. At this point, her phone rang, her ringtone an old Kenny Rogers classic. She answered post-haste. "Br'er Rabbit. Yes, we lost the bears. I can hear y'all pullin' up."

The sound of several vehicles rolling up outside the door, the lights leaking through the outline of the door. Soon the engines went silent, and doors opening sounded off, followed by footsteps.

Jesse knocked. Three quick taps, four slow knocks, three quick taps.

The person on the other end responded in kind. Three sets of two quick taps, before a single loud knock.

The matriarch smiled and opened the door, revealing a tall pale man in a white and teal suit.



"Cousin Bucky Bo," she half-curtsied. "How nice of you to join us."

"Always a joy, Ma." Bucky Bo bowed in response, then stepped aside. Five black SUVs sat parked in the narrow alleyway behind the warehouse. A number of men and women in dark suits and sunglasses stood at the ready. "Rabbit's Foot is the one in the middle. We'll switch up to Figure Six on the way out."

"Mighty fine plan, Cous." Jesse motioned to her associates to come with. "I can't guarantee a completely safe ride, given there are still a few Hollows out there, but I can guarantee a comfortable one."

She motioned to the SUV in the middle of the convoy.

"Guests first."

Trent whistled as he looked at the transport. "Weren't kidding when you said you were well-connected."

Jesse only smiled as she waited for the guests to get in, assuming they did, anyway... "It has its perks." If they did, then it was a matter of buckling up and stretching their feet as the convoy packed up and rolled out in the direction of the airport...