A Spirit with Six Names
El3v3n
All characters belong to Tite Kubo.
"Hey Chad," Tatsuki spoke with a tug on the giant man's sleeve. "Come on. Tell us what you see up there!" She demanded, making her best effort to see through the cracks of the several bodies in front of them.
"There's really not much going on," The shaggy haired youth replied, his deep voice monotone in sound. "It looks like they're still arranging the new students in some kind of order."
"Do you see Ichigo?" Orihime asked.
"Yes. He's at the very front."
Coming down from her toes, the auburn-haired beauty gave up on trying to see over the crowd. With a small sigh she tugged at the front of her ill-fitting uniform. The red shitagi beneath was showing more than it should but thanks to her buxom chest and tiny waist the garment was the best size available and would have to do before she could get one that fit better.
"Quit fiddling with it! You look fine, alright?" Tatsuki scolded. When Orihime pouted, the dark haired girl grinned and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"To think that after all we've been through you could be put off because your shirt's a little too tight." Tatsuki laughed. "We made it, Orihime! We're going to be Shinigami!"
At her words Orihime felt her heart swell with joy and pride. A hundred years ago, she hadn't much more than a pair of crystal hairpins, a gift from her late brother, to claim as her own. All of that had changed the day Tatsuki tried to pick a fight with Ichigo who was, unknowingly at the time, the heir to a noble family.
When the scowling red-head discovered that both impoverished Rukongai girls were starving because of their latent spiritual powers, he brought them back to the wealthy Kurosaki estate and they never turned back. Having already adopted Chad, the family's head, Isshin Kurosaki, was quick to welcome the girls into his life and referred to both as his daughters from that very day.
Those days spent on the streets scrounging for crumbs seemed like another lifetime now that she was standing proudly in Academy robes. Though she'd never forget her brother Sora, she looked brightly ahead to the future, knowing he'd be proud of her accomplishments.
"Are you three Yasutora, Tatsuki and Orihime Kurosaki?" An intimidating man dressed in a Shinigami uniform approached.
"Maybe," Tatsuki replied snappily. "Depends on who's asking." The elder man scowled.
"Nobles are to stand at the front of the student body to greet the Captains' arrival." He announced loudly, earning a flood of whispers from those surrounding.
"Oh, we're not really Nobles." Orihime piped in, "We're adopted." She explained with a bright smile.
"Is or is not Kurosaki your surname?" He demanded.
"Uh…" Orihime paused to think. "Is?"
"To the front of the group!" He roared, jutting his index finger ahead of him.
After several apologies and blushes upon running into others, Orihime and her two adopted siblings finally made their way to the front. Pausing next to Ichigo, the Kurosaki heir looked to her briefly before turning his glare upon Tatuski beside her.
"Told you."
"Shut up." The fiery girl ground through her teeth.
Standing before the towering building with no one to hide behind, Orihime became self-conscious once again. Looking forlornly down at the constricting kosode pulled over her large breasts, she snapped to attention upon feeling Tatsuki's disapproving gaze.
"Stop." She ordered.
"Don't tell her to stop, she isn't doing anything!" Ichigo hissed in Tatsuki's direction.
"She's worrying about her uniform."
"Why?" He asked, shifting his amber eyes to look down on the frowning girl. "You look nice, Orihime. Don't worry so much." She paid him a soft smile in response to his reassurance, but her attention was quickly commanded by the sound of approaching footsteps.
Spying the white of their haoris she immediately recognized the Captains, having learned their names and faces from photos before having ever set foot in the Seiretei. They all paused in a row, standing in numerical order of their squad number. The man she recognized to be Head Captain Yamamoto exited the building last.
His stern presence quieted the chattering crowd behind her. With narrowed eyes the elderly appearing man passed his gaze slowly over them, and Orihime felt like jumping out of her skin when he briefly studied her. The future Shinigami stilled in awe at the presences of such incredible reiatsus in one area. The Captains of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads were the greatest Death Gods in Soul Society. It was hard to believe she would soon begin training to serve and fight under one of them.
"Welcome to Shinō Academy," Yamamoto announced, his voice gruff and firm. "If you are here today, wearing a Shinō Shihakushō, it means that you are the best of the best. You have been selected to be trained for the most important duty that will ever be; given a responsibility in which you must never fail or falter." The bearded man paused his pacing with a clack of his staff against the ground. "Many of you will attempt and fail to graduate from this academy, and some of you that do succeed will not survive your first assignment…that is the way of the Shinigami."
Yamamoto continued speaking but Orihime's attention drifted away on a journey of its own. Being gifted with a high sensitivity to spiritual presences she was fascinated with the elite specimens several feet ahead of her. The Head Captain's reiatsu was incredible as expected, but some of the other Captains had even more interesting ones that pulsed and were patterned in unique ways.
A towering man with spikey hair, Kenpachi of Squad Eleven was his name, she remembered from the pictures Rukia had brought them. He had little control over his reiatsu. It clung to him but seemed wildly unstable. She momentarily worried about it ripping loose and tearing down everything in its path.
Captains Kyōraku and Ukitake also presented extremely interesting spiritual pressures, she had learned that behind Yamamoto they were the longest standing and most experienced Officers of the thirteen squads. Curiously moving her keen senses over each one of them her eyes fell dead when they paused on the Captain of Squad Five.
She shivered and her mouth fell open slightly upon detecting the presence of his staggering reiatsu. What was his name again?
Sōsuke Aizen.
In sheer size it rivaled Kenpachi's in enormity, but it wasn't anything like a mad force of destruction threatening to come free from its hinges. The flowing power was wound tightly against him with barely a fraction escaping. Those who didn't have Orihime's sensitivity or know better might have been fooled into thinking he wasn't formidable at all. It was uniquely colored and behaved, of all the Soul Reapers she had seen before she hadn't ever encountered one with a violet hued aura.
Widening her focus she looked to the face of the man who caged the beast within so elegantly.
The color of his eyes was shielded by the sun, naturally gleaming against the surface of his glasses. But the smile on his face was gentle. It left her feeling warm, calm, and inexplicably safe. She remembered Rukia describing Captain Aizen as a very kind man, but she had neglected to mention how handsome he was in person. The photo hadn't relayed that, he had been waving in the distance to the camera, his smile barely visible beneath a mop of tussled locks and wide-rimmed glasses. A tinge of a blush spread along her cheeks at the revelation, but Orihime was quickly knocked from her thoughts by a yank of her hand and her body being forcibly hinged in a bow.
"Understood!" A chorus of voices rang around her. Glancing toward the source of the hand held onto hers, she gaped toward Ichigo who was smirking as the two came to fully stand.
"Thank you, Ichigo," Orihime said bashfully when she reclaimed her hand. The other students around them began to cheer upon their formal admittance to the Academy.
"No problem." The Kurosaki heir replied with a glint in his stare. "I knew you'd be day dreaming." Feeling the heat rising in her face, Orihime tried to respond but was but was yanked into a massive bear-hug before a single word escaped.
"My little girls! All grown up and becoming Shinigami…I've never been so proud…or so sad!" Isshin Kurosaki, the brawny head of the family, exclaimed through floods of tears.
"Ah! You're choking me!" Tatsuki howled from where she was embraced tightly in the man's other arm. He withdrew his hug only at the protest of two high pitched voices coming from behind him.
"Yuzu…Karin!" Orihime cried happily, allowing the two young girls, her little sisters, to embrace her with glee. When they moved to greet the others, she turned to Isshin with a wide smile.
"Lord Kuro-" she began but quickly stopped when he scowled. "I mean- most Honorable Father," she corrected with a short bow and the black haired Shinigami leapt and clapped joyfully, grinning like an imbecile. "You and the girls came all the way from the Royal Realm to come to our induction?" Isshin threw his head back and laughed heartily.
"Head Captain Yamamoto wanted me and Mr. Know-it-all to appear alongside the Captains, but if I had done that then it would have been a lame surprise!" He spoke loudly.
"Know-it-all…" Orihime repeated to herself.
"Ishida." Tatsuki leaned in to quickly whisper in her ear. Sure enough, Orihime spotted Ryuuken Ishida, the head of the noble Ishida clan and like Isshin, a member of the Royal Guard. He was standing stiffly before his son, Uryū, a spitting image of himself only with dark locks instead of purely white ones. Orihime had only met the Noble heir a few times, and those incidents were hardly pleasant. Ichigo and Uryū didn't get along, at all.
"We are grateful you've come to support us, Honorable Father." Chad spoke up.
"Of course! No duty could keep me from being here today! I have cherished watching you all grow up and learn…although some of you are ungrateful little snots!" Isshin roared, turning his attention upon the scowling family heir.
"What in the world do I have to be grateful for?" Ichigo challenged, drawing away from his little sisters' embrace. "We've already been taught to fight - to use Kidō…you could have used your Noble status to have us become Shinigami without Academy training and yet - here we are!" He roared, sticking a finger in his father's face. Isshin lunged and took a swing at his head, which Ichigo dodged with ease.
"Unlike those fancy pants Kuchikis, and those creepy Shihōins, we do things right in this family! You will attend and graduate this Academy just like I did, and everyone else!" Silently praying neither Captain Kuchiki or Suì-Fēng heard his outburst, Orihime froze when a powerful reiatsu stopped just behind her.
"That's at least one sentiment our families agree on." Ryuuken approached. "Uryū will be attending the Academy as well." He spoke, gesturing to the son at his side. The dark haired Ishida seemed all but pleased at being reacquainted with his father, but readily nodded in agreement.
"I'm more than willing to fulfill all the normal requirements of becoming a Shinigami. I'm expecting that it will take me no less than a year to graduate without my father's good word. Perhaps you should work harder, Kurosaki, or maybe you're afraid you won't be able to cut it." Uryū's insult was as placid as his gaze. When Ichigo fumed, he calmly pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.
"What in the fuck did you just say to me?" Ichigo roared, rushing forward to stick his face into the Ishida's.
"Are you deaf? I can repeat myself though it wouldn't be of much use if you've so drastically lost your hearing."
"You idiot! Why does everything have to be a competition with you? Are you really that threatened by me?"
"On the contrary, why would I be threatened by a so-called warrior who is deaf?"
"Ha! Well at least I'm not blind, four-eyes!" In an effort to interrupt their banter, Orihime turned to Isshin and smiled sweetly.
"Thank you so much, Father." She spoke genuinely toward the man who had earned that title in every way. "If it wasn't for you, me, Tatsuki, Chad, even Ichigo wouldn't be here today. We owe it all to you, and I really don't know how I can express that enough!" At her words the bickering halted, even Ichigo's eyes softened when he looked to her. Quelling the waterworks, Isshin poured his emotion into his embrace, as he gratefully took the girl into his arms.
"Oh Orihime, we missed you so much!" Yuzu cried as she latched onto one of the girl's side.
"Yeah, putting up with this guy all the time without you all has gotten old fast." Karin chimed in as she too reached in to the embrace.
"You're so welcome, Orihime. I should be thanking you!" Isshin said, holding back sobs. Momentarily lost in the warmth of the love surrounding her, Orihime peered over her father's shoulder only to catch the eyes of another passing by.
Brown. His eyes were a very unique shade of brown.
Walking and conversing kindly with some of the new recruits who had approached him, Captain Aizen's gaze met with Orihime's ashen hues. They lingered there, but only long enough to be considered just a little bit more than brief. Paying her a pleasant smile, he returned his attention to the ones seeking it. Staring into his trailing back, she couldn't help but focus on his violet reiatsu again, pulsing and weaving flawlessly around him.
If Captain Kenpachi lost control of his wild spirit pressure, the consequence would be vast amounts of damage to both buildings and people, but a being with equally great power, who could control and manipulate it as he wished…
Orihime's thoughts became cloudy as the noises and laughter around her became echoes in her head.
If Captain Aizen directed his reiatsu toward an object or a person with such fine control as he exhibited now…
The results would be… devastating.
Vigorously shaking her long locks, she retrieved her arms from Isshin and joined in conversing and rejoicing with her family. She tried not to giggle too much when both generations of Kurosaki and Ishida by birthright argued in similar fashion. Orihime directed her focus to Yuzu and listened intently as the young girl told stories of their lives in the Royal Realm, it had been many years since she had seen the girls or the eldest Kurosaki.
There was nothing to worry about, Captains and the Royal Guard were chosen for other merits than power, all had sworn oaths of loyalty to their purpose. She wondered where her dangerous revelation had come from, anyway.
I was going to wait longer to post this, but I've been suffering from some evil loss of muse lately, for some reason, probably stress.
Obviously, this is an AU story retaining the elements we all love about Bleach! I visualize this as a story where Orihime is the main character chronicling her trials and adventures in proving herself to be a worthy Shinigami, a big part of that being a special relationship she develops with one of her teacher/mentors…;)
It'll be rated T for now, and M later though it'll most likely be awhile before any M content. I'm also trying to take a more literary minimalist approach to this story, in attempt to keep it more light hearted and with shorter chapters.
Is it complete and absolute blasphemy to make the Ishidas Shinigami? (Let alone, one of the Royal Houses) I really like Uryū and wanted him to be involved so bear with me! Quincy do exist in this story so I'll try to work it in.
Please review if you're interested in me continuing this! I've started a fan-manga that is loosely based on the idea behind this story. But this site is being really funny about links lately, but if you're interested my name on deviant art is "Kochou-hime"
Thank you for reading… :)
~El3