Chapter 1: It Begins
It's time, isn't it? All I have hoped for and dreamed of for the past decade and more is going to start today, in less than six hours.
Teisatsu Shien rose from his bed and began to don his old shirt and trousers for what would be the last time, so long as he made it through his years at the academy. The belt was a new and temporary addition, solely to let him wear his Zanpakutou. A quick glance to the side caught his own image in the small mirror he had been allowed while in the dormitory, waiting for the new academic year to begin. Straight, blue-black hair kept short enough to stay out of his eyes, brown eyes behind thin-rimmed glasses, a short nose and thin lips quirked up into a half smile looked back at him.
The eyes are telling, Plus Souls from across the mortal world end up in Soul Society, and the resulting mix of features would seem out of place anywhere else. There, though, where everyone spoke the same language and lived the same kind of life… well, it wasn't at all unusual for an American man and a Japanese woman to get together. I was born in one of the poorer areas, and even there I knew that.
Even as urgent and important as the day would be, he still took time to find his journal and a pencil. All else set, he briskly started out the door while sketching down a few of the morning's thoughts and impressions. Once through the twists and turns of the halls, he stepped outside to a bright and beautiful spring day, one so like that one almost exactly three years before.
One minute I was standing on a corner selling water, the next I was diving for cover behind my cart as a Hollow found its way into this realm. Mere moments after, a Captain of the Gotei 13 and support from his squadron and the Kidoushu were there to take it down. All I could do was hide and write, since it was far too dangerous to leave cover. Blades flew like cherry petals, and words thundered like the wrath of the heavens. Had I not been exactly where I was, I would never have started training my own spirit.
Shien hurried to grab breakfast before most of the Academy awoke. He wasn't a student, not yet, and there was no guarantee that he'd find anything but water left if he delayed. While that would sustain someone here, it would not ease the hunger he felt after practicing what little he'd managed to teach himself. That skill was everything to him, now, and he could ill afford distraction.
I made it home that day almost unscathed, but for a few abrasions and a bruise where I'd landed wrong while diving for cover. I discovered among my own notes the words to two of the most basic Kidou chants, and there found the key to leaving that meager existence on the fringes of Rukongai. It took me a long time to get anything to even remotely work, but when I felt hunger as well as thirst some six months later, I knew that I was on the right track.
He lingered over breakfast, savoring the transient peace along with the good food. He sat and he studied the words to a third basic chant, found in the library and written down in his journal for just such a time. It was only when the slow trickle of early risers turned into the inevitable roaring tide of hungry students that he stood and walked back out into the sun, slowly making his way to the hall where his life would take its next big step.
I had eventually managed to get some very minor results from my blind training, barely enough to make it worth the hunger and expensive solid food needed to satisfy it. One day, some guy tries to take by force what he could not afford from my cart, and ran. Instead of running after him, I found the words to one of those two chants on my lips. Seconds later, I sent him tumbling into a ditch by magic alone. Had I stayed out in Rukongai, nobody would likely have ever bothered me again. Instead, the next morning I wake up to find a Zanpakutou lying sheathed beside me.
As Shien approached the hall, one of the guards looked up, momentarily ready to stop anyone from entering. Then his eyes took in the look of the person approaching: no uniform, but wearing a Zanpakutou at his side, with an admittance ceremony set to begin in under two hours. Shien's purpose was obvious, even before they saw his face and recognized him from his earlier explorations of the Academy halls.
It's just like when I first got here three weeks ago. A long walk through better and better districts, then I find the North Gate, guarded by a giant. When I tell him I wish to join the academy, he asks to see my proof. I didn't have to say a word, just pull out the Zanpakutou and I was let through. I'd expected something more than that, but I guess it makes sense. None but the Shinigami can carry the empathic blades.
Again in the dim and quiet, he sits and studies, waiting as the time approaches when the line of his thoughts and the line of his day would converge. Slowly, more new students come in and find their places. Most wore clothing a cut above of Shien's own, being from the Seireitei or one of the nicer districts outside of its walls. A couple were already wearing Shinigami uniforms, being able to afford their make without relying on the academy. At least one was worse off than Shien, obviously just in from one of the outer districts. All sizes and shapes and colors, all walks of life and both genders were there united by one thing alone: the Zanpakutou they all wore. All of the twenty-odd people were Academy hopefuls, here to take the first step in their new lives.
An old man, scarred and bent but projecting strength, steps onto the platform. Some few of the small audience take a sharp breath as they recognize his uniform as that of a Captain of the Gotei 13, and only one such looked like this. Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryusai, the Captain-General, leader of all Shinigami and the person solely responsible for the establishment of the academy more than two millennia before stands before the new students, taking a long look at the newest faces to join the classes there. He takes a breath, and begins to speak in a voice roughened by time and battle, but still holding the power of his personal strength and position.
"Welcome to my academy, all of you. Those of you who do not know who I am will doubtless hear the stories soon enough, I will not waste time on them. All of you are here for one thing: to become Shinigami. All of you felt in your souls the desire to be the best you can and bring forth the truest power of yourself and your Zanpakutou. I will tell you now, the time will come when you doubt your decision. You will be tested in the harshest fires I and many others can possibly come up with. You will be run into the ground only to be picked back up and told to do it over again. You will live your days wishing only for the blissful oblivion of sleep and spend your nights dreading the start of the next day. Some of you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams and graduate in a mere four years. Most will take much longer than that, in some cases it will take decades for you to achieve what you are all working towards.
"But for all of this, know that there are only two ways to fail. The first is to quit, in which case you will leave your Zanpakutou here and return to your life. The second is to so something so heinous as to convince us all that you will never be fit to be a Shinigami no matter how long you spend here. In that case, you will be executed as befits the crime you committed to do so. In more than two thousand years, we have only had to execute twelve students. I hope to never have to do so again, but I know that I will have to. May it not be any of you.
"And now for the last of my words to you this day. All of you, raise your Zanpakutou in salute and think hard on your purpose here. Even if you never do so again, be honest with yourself now: what do you want out of your time here? Why are you becoming a Shinigami?" Though unrehearsed, all of the new students unsheathed and raised their Zanpakutou as one and closed their eyes in brief meditation.
I… I think my purposes here are more complex than to just get away from my old life. I had that the moment I cast a spell, I didn't have to come here to do it. I think, instead, that I am here to learn. Learn what, I don't know yet, but I think I'll find out. It was my curiosity and observation that brought me here, and what are they but the tools to learn? Wait, what is this sensation? It's like being in a crowded room where everyone is staring at you, but not minding it at all.
All in the room felt it, as twenty-four Zanpakutou awoke. None released, by any means, but each finally got a sense of its wielder. Each became bound with its purpose in that moment. Captain-General Yamamoto smiled as he turned and stepped off the stage, and the student director replaced him. The ceremony was over, the new students were set on their new path, and all that was left this day was the administrative side of things. In two days time, the real trials would begin.
Instructor's note:
The newest generation of students seems to show a good bit of promise. I do not sense any new Captains in the making, but I have been wrong before. The stories here have played out both ways in the past, and if two thousand years have taught me anything, it is that only the test of time will show what cloth these students are cut from. Even the brightest rising star can turn out to be a shooting star instead: Impossibly bright for its first journey, only to fall to nothingness before it can do anything at all.
- Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryusai, Captain-General.