Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. I do, however, own a very large plate of cookies. Well, I did. My stomach owns them now.
The next day, the first rays of sunlight fall across her face and she wakes, but doesn't open her eyes. She hasn't forgotten where she is. Remembering the test, she hastily gets up and gets dressed. By the time a man comes to fetch her, she is shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind.
After the test, she's taken to the clerk again, who smiles, congratulates her – for what? – and gives her a bundle of money, which she nearly drops in shock. The woman who showed her to her room yesterday is with her again, and she laughs this time, throwing her head back. She picks up the money and informs her that she is going out into Seireitei, to get the other things she needs.
'I don't need anything!'
'Oh, really? What about a toothbrush? Toothpaste? One roll of loo roll won't last you very long. Another towel? And bed sheets? Pillowcases? A comb wouldn't do her any harm. Clothes too. You can't walk around in your uniform all the time. Underwear? Books? Shampoo? Conditioner? Soap? A water canteen? A pencil case? Pens? Pencils? Paper? Folders? Rulers, compasses, bags, brushes, ink, calligraphy sets, all have to be bought. Snacks as well – food in the canteen isn't expensive, but food from outside is a bit cheaper, and you might like it better too.'
She takes this to mean that she's passed the test, and smiles.
Then she takes in what the woman has said and gulps audibly. She wonders how much her arms will ache from carrying all the bags.
Loud. The Academy is loud. The corridors are filled with people laughing, talking with friends. And the top class is no different, although the conversation is less exuberant...and somewhat subdued by all the textbooks piled on the table in front of them?
Retsu looks around, bemused, and quietly slips into a desk at the back which also has a pile of textbooks, and, for the first time in her life (that she can remember, anyway) is immediately enraged. Because she can't see over the behemoth pile of said textbooks.
The work isn't too hard in the top class. Challenging, but not even close to what she had been dreading. She plops herself down on her bed after eating lunch in her room and sighs in complete contentment. She smiles a little, and impulsively grabs the textbook closest to her, hugs it to her chest, and closes her eyes. After sitting like that for a few moments, she remembers her next class in ten minutes, and rushes to get ready, throwing books in a bag and straightening her uniform.
She gets to the class five minutes early, takes her customary seat at the back, and waits. Soon enough, a frazzled, frantic, slightly crazed-looking girl sprints through the door, nearly knocking the unfortunate teacher off his feet and makes a mad dash for the seat next to her. She dumps her heavy bag on the table next to Retsu with a loud thunk and grins at her madly as she unloads its contents. Once she's unpacked enough books to shield her whole torso from the view of Sensei, she promptly falls asleep.
Retsu wonders if the girl is storing a whole library in that seemingly tiny bag of hers, and if so, could she possibly borrow a few?
Since Sensei is so deaf that an earthquake could hit Seireitei and he still wouldn't stop mumbling about quadratic equations, she prods Library Bag Girl awake and holds a whispered conversation with her.
Library Bag Girl turns out to be in every class Retsu has, and as it turns out, her name isn't 'Library Bag Girl', but Hikifune Kirio, and she's new too. She too, has had strange women and men come up to her, tell her things and then swish out before she could open her mouth. She too, had woken up in Rukongai, and had been found by shinigami. So Retsu knows she isn't the only one not to have been born in Seireitei. She liked to eat, sleep and read, not always in that order. Her hair was naturally that messy, damnit. Her eyes were the darkest shade of brown (boring). She wished she had Retsu-chan's eyes (so nice and big and blue). Her favourite colour was, as a coincidence, blue. Not the awful shades of teal that people call blue, the colour-blind, duck-butt idiots – but the real blues, the sky blues and the ocean blues and the midnight-sky blues. She stayed in the room two doors down from Retsu. Having had this conversation, she promptly falls asleep again.
Retsu faithfully takes notes for the rest of the lesson. When the bell rings and it becomes apparent that Hikifune-san is not going to wake up by her own accord any time soon, she packs up her bag tidily, sorting out the inside while she's at it – so messy – and gently shakes her awake. The spiky-haired girl blinks groggily, and looks down sheepishly at her stomach, which rumbles in response.
Retsu smiles, and extracts from her bag a small packet of chocolate biscuits.
Hikifune-san frowns, and tells Retsu-chan to stop calling her Hikifune-san (that's for old people, she wasn't old yet) and to call her Kirio.
And the friendship is born.
Of course, they are not without their differences. Where Kirio sleeps, Retsu takes notes. Retsu likes ikebana and climbing the hills around the Academy, while Kirio most emphatically does not, and only tags along to the ikebana classes half-heartedly. She avoids the climbing trips entirely. Where Retsu is all tranquillity and peace, Kirio is crazy. She's got a Demon Glare Of Death™, a savage right hook, and when she wants to really freak people out and send them running for the hills, she smiles a manic, demented, murderess-worthy smile. She talks in her sleep, mumbling things about 10001 Ways To Kill Alarm Clocks™, scolding desks, pillows and lampshades for their repeated impertinences towards her stuffed toy collection, and mixing chocolate and marshmallows together and putting it on cabbage and barbecuing it and it tasting good.
The last one is categorized firmly as a nightmare.
Disturbing imaginations aside, the two girls do have a few things in common. Both of them like swimming, reading, and green apples. Both sit at the back of classrooms and both are not particularly sociable – although for different reasons: Retsu's too shy to be talkative, and people mostly stay well away from Kirio. So soon enough, they become inseparable, (barring the climbing trips) and although Kirio does mostly sleep through classes, she actually learns things, and keeps up quite well.
At the end of the first month, it is announced that evaluations will be held of all the new students, and from this, class rankings will be drawn. This sends the new students into a working frenzy, and even Kirio doesn't sleep as much, shocking Retsu, the class and the teacher with her state of consciousness in class. They are shocked into silence when she gives the right answer, worded articulately, instead of the usual shrug/snore/mumblings on wardrobes and their eating habits.
However, after the exams, what shocks the class and the teacher even more, is to see Unohana Retsu emblazoned in crimson red at the head of a long list of black-printed names, with Hikifune Kirio following directly after.
Some people sneer and think it's a fluke, and that they won't be there next time. But as the year rolls on, and as the two names are consistently up there, sometimes Kirio's in red, sometimes Retsu's, people begin to notice the two girls at the back, one asleep and one taking diligent notes.
Even Ginrei Kuchiki, who has the kind of stoic face that wouldn't be fazed even if Captain-Commander Yamamoto wore a pink tutu, put ribbons in his hair and danced the cancan in front of him, starts speaking to the girls, and even asks Retsu to help him understand some of the more complicated points of shinigami history.
At the beginning of the next term, they are given wooden practice swords for the first time, and must take one specialist class a week. Retsu looks at the noticeboard, and notes that most girls have signed up for calligraphy – a weird choice, she'd have thought they'd go for ikebana – but then, Ginrei Kuchiki's name is heading the list. She sighs at the folly of womankind, looks to the literature list, and smiles when she sees Kirio's hurried scrawl across the top slot. She scans the others. Photography...Music...Art...Drama...Ikebana. She considers it, but then remembers the lunchtime club she attends, and decides to take on something more useful. She catches sight of a tiny slip of paper which has no names on it, assigned to the bottom left hand corner, where is almost hidden by the open door. Healing. She signs her name because there is nothing else that she wants to do, and besides, it might come in useful someday.