AN- its so longgggggg

They worked out the terms of the duel the next day, Urahara trailing his Lieutenant into the Academy dormitory like a cautiously optimistic and slightly exasperated shadow.

"Captain Urahara! Lieutenant Sarugaki!" Akio sputtered, eyes wide as saucers and just as pale. "What a surprise!"

"Not really," Gisane snickered, sweeping out of the dorm and brushing past the officers. "We all know who Takanayo's getting her ass kicked by!" She called as she made her way to the classroom buildings. Natsumi scowled and stood from where she'd been reading on her bed.

"It's okay," she said quietly, pressing a hand to her other roommate's arm and pulling her away from the doorway. "It's probably a good time to go talk to Mako." The pale girl nodded furiously and stuttered out a goodbye as she stumbled through the small group at her door. Hiyori and Urahara made their way inside after that, the former sprawling in the chair by Gisane's desk and the latter standing awkwardly by the door.

Natsumi made no move to speak first, a breach of protocol that Akio would probably harangue her for later. She took the awkward moment to study her guests. Hiyori was as confident and unconcerned as she had been the other day, all frown and narrowed eyes. Urahara looked less at ease than the day before, but curiously less burdened, as well. It was as if he was more comfortable officiating ill-advised duels between subordinates than he was actually treating them like subordinates.

"Hey, brat," Hiyori called lazily from Gisane's chair. Natsumi started, straightening on instinct.

"Miss Takanayo," he said, and she got the strangest feeling that he should have a hat to tip, just there in the space between that demure greeting and nervous smile, like he was only half-convinced he was a Captain and still felt like a jailer.

It was an eerie and unwelcome feeling that skittered across her mind like precognition and regret, and for a moment Natsumi couldn't remember her name or what she was doing there because she knew he should have a hat with green and white stripes and she didn't know how she knew, but it terrified her that she did. She wanted this whole affair done and over with so that she could disappear into the unranked masses of some Division, and never have to deal with Lieutenant Sarugaki ever again in her life. Or at least, she prayed that was how things were going to go. She'd be royally screwed if it wasn't.

"When we were told to watch you, I don't think any of us expected quite this level of…" he paused, gaze flicking unconsciously to Hiyori, who was glaring venomously at both of them. "Exuberance."

"Lieutenant, Captain," she finally nodded in acknowledgment, then paused, a twist to her mouth. "Why were you told to watch me?" She made a face. "I'm not some prodigy like Lieutenant Ichimaru, or even Lieutenant Shiba. I'm incredibly average. What would you be watching me for?"

"Raw talent?" Urahara posited mildly, a glint in his eye. "After all, you agreed to a duel with Lieutenant Sarugaki, here. If you were truly average, some would call that overconfidence."

"Some would," Natsumi agreed, matching his tone. There was a flicker of surprise in his face as he met her grave, even green gaze. His eyes narrowed, calculating and shrewd, then a pleasantly taken aback smile spread on his face.

"Are you saying you think I'm less than average?" Hiyori hissed, suddenly standing. She flashed across the room with what might have been shunpo and what might have been a jump, reaching up a hand to fist in Natsumi's robes and pull her down to eye level. "Because I'm not."

"I'm not saying anything," Natsumi shrugged, her only concession to Hiyori's threat being the forward arch of her spine. She was eerily calm, and the still-placid look in her eye was beginning to show that Hiyori's superior position and willingness to do grievous harm to her was beginning to wear her respect thin. "I'm just acknowledging a viewpoint."

"Hn," Hiyori grunted, releasing her, a flicker of something like respect in her eyes, quickly hidden and half-denied. "You sound like him ." She jerked a derogatory thumb at her Captain to drive the point home.

"Really?" Urahara raised a teasing eyebrow. "I think Miss Takanayo has a much nicer voice than myself." The two girls both glared at him, and he raised thin hands in surrender. "But I… could be wrong."

"You usually are," Hiyori sniped, turning her ambient, undirected anger onto her captain. He seemed used to it, if weary. She felt sorry for him, just a little, as she watched them rehash what must have been a tried and true argument between them. It must have been difficult, to be made Captain out of next to nowhere and then to have a Lieutenant who so clearly wished not to be. After all, Captains and their Lieutenants were supposed to be working pairs, cemented by deep trust and affection. Natsumi sensed little trust and less affection from Hiyori, but perhaps she was reading too far into things. Or not far enough.

"I get the feeling you two don't get along," Natsumi observed drily, and the other two turned their heads as if there'd forgotten she was there. Hell, maybe they had. Hiyori, at least, was looking off-guard. Urahara retained his perpetually ruffled look, the nervous tension in his shoulders unchanged from the moment he walked in. She didn't think he'd forgotten; she didn't know if he could, after so many years keeping criminals in line. She sighed. Forcefully.

She was not old enough for this.

"Are we or are we not here to set terms?" She asked, and Hiyori grinned again.

"One round," the blonde offered. Natsumi tilted her head. It would certainly be over faster. "First to be knocked out or otherwise incapacitated."

"Okay." She nodded to her sword. "I don't know if you have bankai, but I sure as hell don't, and I don't particularly feel like dying pointlessly."

"No bankai," Hiyori agreed. "You have a place in mind?" Natsumi but her lip, looking out the window and not really seeing it.

"There's an empty field between the training grounds and the Academy itself," she offered finally. "It's got a fence around it, so at least in the beginning we wouldn't have a crowd, and it's usually empty."

"Sounds great. Can't wait to kick your ass in the sweet spring air," the Lieutenant scoffed. "Probably why you don't want an audience, right?"

"I don't even care anymore," Natsumi replied flatly. "One week? Afternoon?"

"I can clear it," Urahara said suddenly, reminding both girls he was still there. Hiyori's scowl deepened, and Natsumi nodded her thanks.

"So that's it," Natsumi said, making a not-so-subtle gesture along the lines of please leave my dorm before I claw my own eyes out . Urahara said a polite goodbye, and Natsumi had the feeling he should have a hat again.

"Enjoy your last week alive!" Hiyori shouted back at her as she strolled out. Natsumi rolled her eyes.

"I'm trying," she muttered irritably.

~( )~

Hiyori was close to ecstatic about the impending duel. She was becoming somewhat insufferable, according to Urahara, who had come complaining to Yoruichi seven times in the last two days alone

"It's like she wants to kill the poor recruit!" He said, incredulous. He paused. "Actually, she probably does, what am I saying."

Yoruichi raised one perfect eyebrow. "And the girl is still willing to take her on? That's strange." She took a sip of what might have been tea, but was likely something stronger. (The Shihouin Princess did not have any qualms about drinking during the work day. It was half the reason she and Kyouraku got along.) "Are we sure she isn't suicidal? Or homicidal, for that matter?" Kisuke considered this, running over the poor girl's decidedly distant treatment of them the morning before, the sheer embarrassment in her face when she'd first bumped into Hiyori, and, most troublingly, the glint of frustration and trepidation and something else he'd caught when she'd met his eyes. Something about it had unnerved him.

"I'm almost certain she only said yes out of frustration," he confided, taking a sip of tea, and shaking off the more troubling thoughts plaguing him. "She's rather well-ranked, apparently. Not the top of her class, but far from the bottom. She probably won't die, at the very least."

"Which is to be commended, with Hiyori," Yoruichi snickered. They clinked glasses.

"There's something off about her," he said, after a silence of several moments. Yoruichi sent him a questioning look. "I can't explain it, but I just know…" he looked out the window, much the same way Natsumi had only a day and some hours ago. "There's something."

"Want any help?" She asked, a serious tint coloring her still-affable face. She was, after all, the Empress of spies and killers. Her joy was dispensable at the merest hint of need.

"No," he hummed, sending her a grateful smile. "It might be nothing."

"If it isn't," she assured him, "I'll be there, and so will Tessai."

I know you will , he didn't say. He didn't have to, after all this time. They were bound, the three of them, by time and choice and the unbreakable bond of true friendship. If any of them called, the other two would come. There was no question, no doubt, no choice.

Some things just were.

~( )~

Across the complex of Seireitei, Natsumi was struggling. She had her sword laid out across her crossed legs, her eyes closed and her hands fisted on her knees. She breathed in, out. The awareness of her reiatsu swept out, sensing, feeling. She could feel the cranes leaving the river to fly across the sky, could feel the night flowers opening, the sun sweeping beneath the horizon. She could feel the thousands of reiatsu signatures of her classmates, her future comrades, even several darting out in the slums of the rukongai. She could feel the draw of the brightest, strongest of them- the Captains, she'd wager, and she forced herself away. She skipped and jumped around, testing her limits, her range. She danced across the whole of Soul Society, from that brilliant yellow-gold-black beacon in Zaraki to the repressed glittering flame-orange that was the Captain Commander. In between were the countless undeveloped primary-color flat blue sparks of those with untrained and untouched spiritual energy. She skipped through the barracks, looking for Captains and Lieutenants, testing her ability to recognize them. She smiled, feeling them rise up slightly at her touch.

The mixed rose-pink and shadow-black of Kyouraku, the storm-grey and lightning flash of Ukitake, Ichimaru's blinding silver and Unohana's deceptively cool azure-black, Hiyori's blazing tawny aura and Urahara's gentle, fierce camellia-red. She touched lightly on Muguruma's gunmetal grey and Kuna's vibrant orange and lime, Yoruichi's violent violet and Soi-Fon's sharp yellow. She could feel Otoribashi's mournful copper sheen, Aikawa's mellow hunter green, and even further out Aizen's soft brown, tinged with a strange white that felt familiar and cold. Not far ahead was Hirako's warm gold, and at her lightest touch it rose up from where he had repressed it, bound it, contained it, ready and overwhelmingly bright. There was so much power there, held back so carefully, and she'd just wrecked his control for her own curiosity. She felt suddenly, intensely guilty and self-conscious enough at that to stop. She took another breath, coiling her reiatsu back into herself. She brought herself closer, skipping across the lake, grazing the night jasmine and tracing the walls of the room. She breathed, steady, feeling her body, the tensed muscles in her legs, her arms, her fingers, drawing her awareness inwards, reaching for the one thing she couldn't feel, could never feel. Her sword trembled from the force of her grip on it. There was no response.

"Why won't you say anything?" She hissed, face twisted with frustration. "Why won't you even try?" She was reaching out with everything she had, sending out threads to her sword's spirit… and getting nothing. She didn't get a single syllable in return, not even a feeling like it was trying to reach her. "What did I do wrong?" She murmured, tears of desperation blooming in the corner of her eyes. She sighed, straightened her back, and tried again.

She sat, still, as the hours wore on, listening to the silence in her soul, descending deeper and deeper into the darkness of a soul untouched by its zanpakuto. She knew she had one. It had responded to her in the most shallow sense, had charged with her power and honed it to a sharper edge, but it did nothing more. It did not speak to her, did not touch her inner world, did not give her so much as a sign that it could hear her besides its very existence. She'd spent the last three years trying and failing to get her own soul to speak to her, and here she was, graduating and moving forward and she hadn't even achieved shikai. It was a sobering, painful thought, especially in light of the upcoming duel she was supposed to be taking part in.

She was going to die, she mused sadly, a faint touch of amusement entering her mind. She'd never even have a chance. And that was okay.

She wouldn't have a chance against a hollow like this, anyway. Better to be killed in a wayward duel with the twelfth division's Lieutenant than be eaten on her first trip out, right?

She sighed, closing her eyes. She pushed away her impending murder, pushed away her still-awkward guilt at unraveling the Fifth Division's Captain's concentration, pushed away her wonder at what she had felt of Aizen's reiatsu, the way it had almost hummed when she'd touched on it, pushed away everything….

And drowned.

That darkness surrounded her now. The sound of her own heartbeat swelled in her ears like a drumbeat, the pulse of blood like a steady, eternal tide, realer than life and godlike in its magnitude. She could smell rain and fruit, like afternoons after classes at the Academy, fond memories of people she had almost called friends and days she almost called good. She tasted blood and steel. She opened her eyes to her own soul, and found a vast black nothingness. Still nothing. The damn sword didn't even have the decency to give her a look at her inner world. "Where are you?" She whispered, voice echoing off the ragged places in her soul. "Where can I find you?"

There was no answer. She snorted. Figures. The personification of her soul would be a stubborn, temperamental bitch.

When she woke the next morning, legs still twisted and sword clutched tightly in sore hands, she sighed. One week. She could do that.

~( )~

She could not do that. The more her sword refused to answer her and the closer it got to the day of the duel, the more nervous she got. She nearly blew her hand off in Kidou class on Thursday, and the teacher had to tell her she was still on fire when she hadn't moved for a good minute or three.

She was going to die . Why the hell had she thought this was an idea worth considering? Why had she gotten herself into this mess? And, perhaps more importantly, why didn't she try to get herself out?

And yet, some part of her, muted and small as it was, insisted that she could do this. That silent sword or no, she was a deft hand at kidou, that she was fast, that she could use a sword sealed better than half of them could unsealed. She wasn't lacking skill. She was, apparently, simply lacking sense.

Because her opponent wasn't some schoolyard bully trussed up in the Academy uniform, deflated easily with a solid kick to the head. Her opponent was a skilled, experienced, brutal fighter with at least a century of experience and killing on her. And she had agreed to this. Willingly . She was considering simply capitulating to what she was beginning to suspect were Hiyori's actual wishes: just going in and telling her that yes, she was a coward. Yes, she was a self-preserving idiot who'd rather suffer endless humiliation and schoolyard jeers rather than get the crap kicked out of her by a Lieutenant for what was, essentially, no good reason, and potentially die in the process. Yes, Hiyori had won by default and she could hold that over her for the rest of time if she wanted.

But that voice… that achingly persistent part of her reminded her that she wasn't helpless. She didn't need anyone's help or mercy to win a fight. She'd done it before and chances were good she'd do it again. Whether or not she'd win this fight wasn't based on experience or fate. The wind could blow a piece of Hiyori's hair in her eyes and give her an opening. It was all chance in the end, and she had as good a chance as anyone else to win any given fight on any given day. Why should this one be different?

That was what she told herself every time she woke in the middle of the night, the sight of Hiyori's blade coming closer and closer to her eyes fading too slowly from her memory. That's what she told herself walking between classes, while she was eating, when she would look up in class and see any mention of fighting and promptly lose half her brain cells.

She could not do this.

But she was damn well going to try.

So when dawn burned the sky to clear blue on Saturday, Natsumi took one look at herself in the mirror and sighed. She looked like hell. She bent over the sink, pressing her face to the cold glass. Then she stood up, ran the faucet, and began to get ready for the day.

An hour before the duel, she gathered her sword, silent as it was, and picked up a short note. She had left two similar ones on her desk, one for each roommate, and a third was currently circulating the Division mail system, making its steady way toward Captain Urahara. A small apology, should she die and cause trouble, and another in case she should do something even stupider, like win , and cause trouble. The fourth, clutched in her trembling hand, was the only one she felt she should deliver in person.

She owed him an explanation.

The Fifth Division barracks were, charitably, a mess. Whether that was because they were naturally so or because some crisis had occurred, she couldn't say for certain, but the fact that the Lieutenant and Captain were each calmly in their offices spoke to the former. She took a deep breath. And another. And ano-

"Miss Takanayo?" Aizen's voice was concerned, calming. Almost unnaturally so. She realized, looking up with wide, shit you caught me eyes, that he probably felt her last week, too. She had spent a tad longer with him than the others, mesmerized by that glimmering pearly white mixed in with his own soothing brown.

"Lieutenant," she said, finally, inordinately grateful that her voice neither wavered nor cracked.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, concern twisting over his kind face.

"Just have something to tell the Captain," she offered, waving the folded note like a flag of surrender. "Before, you know, I meet an untimely end." She tried to smile, and felt it come out halfway between a grimace and a wince.

"I don't believe you will meet an untimely end," Aizen said simply, before going back to his desk and his work. "In any case," he said, sitting and looking up at her with keen brown eyes, "Good luck."

"Thanks," she murmured, her own eyes narrowing at that sudden sharpness in his face.

"You!" Hirako exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "Last week! You!"

"Yeah," Natsumi winced, holding up her hands defensively. "That was an accident."

"An accident," he scoffed, spreading a hand on his desk. "I never met anybody who could project their reiatsu halfway across town and then unravel a guy's wards like that by accident ." Natsumi shrugged sheepishly.

"Nobody's ever noticed me doing it before," she explained, still feeling deeply guilty and vaguely sick. "I just like to see how far I can go, and sometimes I can track people down, so I was looking for all the Captains, and then your reiatsu did that thing and I freaked out, so I came back and I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt anyone, I just-" Hirako put up a hand, trying desperately to just stop the flow of words. He gestured to the chair across the desk from him and she sat, somewhat chastened and somewhat put out.

"Kid," he began, rubbing his other hand over his forehead. "What do you mean, you like to see how far you can go?"

"I can project my reiatsu," she said, confused. "Can't you? Can't everyone? In Kidou class, Goyonagi was talking about how it's possible to control reiatsu that's outside your body, so I tried it and I've been doing it ever since."

"Yeah, some reiatsu," he stressed, gesturing at her. "Not your whole…" He waved his hand. "Consciousness."

"Oh," she said, struck dumb.

"I thought everyone was talking about how average you were," he grumbled, still not quite ready to let go of how she'd broken his wards. "You must have a hell of a lot of reiatsu stuffed in there."

"I mean, I guess," she shrugged again. "I can project out to the eightieth district now." A strange, proud smile crossed her face, then. "I guess that's far, huh?"

"Kid," Hirako groaned, leaning over his desk. "You've got no idea." He rubbed a hand over his face. "You really don't." He looked up, then, a suddenly crafty look on his face. "You ever thought about which Division you want into once you've graduated?"

Natsumi raised one eyebrow. "Why Captain Hirako," she said primly. "Are you trying to seduce me into your division?" He smirked.

"Do I have to try?" He asked, something like satisfaction in his eyes. She tilted her head at him, just looking. Her cool green eyes passed over his face, tracing the curve of his grin, the set of his eyes, the way his hair fell over his shoulders. His grin faded as she examined him, something more earnest taking its place.

"We'll see," she said finally. He smirked again. "Stop that."

"Stop what?" His grin grew. She shook her head.

"I came here to apologize, you know." She looked up at him sheepishly. "Before Lieutenant Sarugaki murders me and all." Something flickered in his eyes, but she didn't see. "I try not to touch too hard on any one person's reiatsu. But you just…" she waved a hand, looking for a word that didn't exist. "You shine , you know?" She met his gaze, earnest and sad. "I hope I didn't do any real damage. I've never done that before, so I didn't know what it meant. I still don't, really." He scratched the side of his head.

"Well nobody got hurt, if that's what you mean," he said thoughtfully. "You just scared the hell out of me. It ain't often someone has enough power, let alone an actual method, to break through my wards."

"Why do you ward yourself?" She asked, half-certain of the answer.

"Same reason you broke through them," he said, not looking away from her face. The look in his eye sent a cold snap down her spine. "Cause there are things I can do not everyone can, and if I do 'em, even by accident, I could hurt people."

She nodded, then.

"You should go," he said, nodding at the clock. "It's about time, if I heard right." She stood, handing him the note as an afterthought more than anything else. He took it gingerly, reading it as she began to walk away.

"You still haven't said it," he called, just before she reached the door. "That you're sorry." She turned, a flash of a rueful smile in the corner of her mouth.

"I am sorry," she said, hand gripping tightly around her sword's handle. "I'm sorry for hurting you." He opened his mouth to deny it, but there was an understanding in her face, sad and tired and at home there.

"Don't forget to consider the Fifth," he calls after her as she leaves, and the quiet laugh that echoes back into his office is more of a reward than it properly should be. He stands behind his desk a moment more, feeling the unnerving hum of Aizen's aura at his own desk and the echo of an apology ringing in his ears.

If I do 'em, even by accident, I could hurt people, he mouths the words again and wonders when he started giving himself away so easily.

He finds no answer.

Natsumi was a mess of emotion and chilling nerves by the time she got to the assigned field. Her conversation with Captain Hirako was meant to be closure, meant to be a simple apology and nothing more. Instead, it was like a hole had been opened in her heart. There were a thousand things running through her mind. Hiyori was older than her. Stronger, too. Captain Hirako didn't blame her. Hiyori was going to tear her apart and then probably laugh at her. He understood. She didn't even know her sword's name. He thought she was strong. She wasn't strong enough for this. He wanted her in his division. Oh crap, she hadn't even considered which division she might join after graduation. If she made it to graduation. He liked her enough to try and persuade her.

She was going to die .

Hiyori met her on the field, usual scowl in place and Urahara trailing like his usual hesitant self. There was a new addition, though, a sleek woman with black hair shining purple in the sun. She was dressed in casual clothes, so Natsumi didn't recognize her at first, but that was Captain Shihoin . She trembled. Just a little. If being killed by Hiyori alone on a training field was murder, then being killed like this was a high-stakes gladiator fight, watched and cheered by the elite. She had read books about gladiators, growing up. How they'd starve lions for days before letting them into the ring to tear apart the poor man inside of it.

Hiyori was the lion.

Natsumi felt rather like running and hiding, but that was no longer an option. She reached out a hand instead, tightening her grip to match Hiyori's and feeling a minute rush of smugness when she heard bone crack and didn't feel it. She could be fierce, too.

They walked the requisite ten paces, turned, and bowed. Hiyori raised her sword, and growled.

"Kubikiri Orochi!" There was a hissing noise, and her sword lengthened, widened, and Natsumi pushed off the ground furiously to avoid the first strike of the cleaver. She flipped herself back, landing behind Hiyori and managing to swing one foot into her right side. Following through with her momentum, she rolled into a crouch, sword still sheathed. Hiyori rolled, too, her sword making a handhold as she stood, wrenching it out of the ground swinging it back in preparation. "Come on!" She shouted. "Aren't you going to even try to fight me?"

"I don't know," Natsumi smiled, something harsh in the curve of it. She flickered out of existence, touching down behind her opponent with the sound of a single footstep. Hiyori turned at the sound, only for Natsumi to deliver another kick to the stomach, sending her flying backwards. "Are you going to try?" Hiyori made a noise something like a snarl, but this time didn't move at all, only tightening her grip on her sword. "Is it strong?" Natsumi asked, nodding at her sword.

"Stronger than that," Hiyori huffed, gesturing to the sleek katana the other girl was drawing from its sheath at her hip.

"Maybe," she shrugged, bending her legs as if it to prepare for another burst of shunpo. "Maybe not." She disappeared. Hiyori grinned, turning already to face her back, where the girl did indeed come swinging, bringing her sword down on Hiyori's with a sound like a bell.

"You think I'd fall for that?" Hiyori laughed. "I'm learning your pattern."

"Pattern?" Natsumi snorted, mentally measuring the distance between Hiyori and the fence. "I'm just playing games." She stepped away, flashing to the center of the field, absently noting the reach of her opponent as the other girl's strike pushed forward and out with the loss of opposition. Hiyori smirked at her.

"I can do that, too, remember?" She called, appearing behind Natsumi, who turned on her heel to block the shorter girl's downward stroke, catching it before it could hit her face. They struggled for a moment, the tension between their swords too great to break off alone.

"Can you do this?" Natsumi smirked, raising the hand not holding her sword to press against Kubikiri. "Hado #4," Hiyori's eyes widened, and she pushed back just as Natsumi finished. "Byakurai." The blast of energy was diluted by distance, and no longer being focused on Hiyori's zanpakuto deprived it of any real target, but it still made an effective distraction as she darted across the field to come up once more behind her opponent. Kidou class homework, she swore in her mind, was something she'd never disparage again. She could only thank whatever god was listening that Hiyori seemed to be the kind of person who didn't strategize so much as react. The whole situation, she felt, could have been much worse had she been up against someone like Aizen, for example.

"That was a dirty trick," Hiyori called, coughing on the dust still rising through the air. "Completely underhanded."

"Oh I'm sorry," Natsumi called back, back pressed to a tree, trying to catach her breath after darting in figures around the field to avoid being hit in the dust. "Were you expecting me to play fair?" Hiyori made a disgruntled sound and she couldn't help but laugh. "Should've specifies that in the rules!" Seeing the dust being to clear, she picked out Hiyori's figure and broke away from her hiding place and into the branches of the tree itself, using her momentum to land a light stroke against Hiyori's arm, taking first blood in the game.

"I thought you said you were average!" Hiyori yelled, searching for her opponent in the trees, now.

"Average doesn't mean weak," the graduate called, voice traveling in waves across the field. "Just means I'm not fantastic at anything."

"Like hiding?" Hiyori asked, slamming her sword into the side of the tree and catching the side of Natsumi's thigh in the process.

"Like hiding!" The now-also-bleeding girl laughed, twisting around to Hiyori's other side to jab her uninjured arm with a quick move and then proceed to flash across to the other side of the clearing.

"Why won't you just fight?" The blonde snarled, appearing right in front of the other girl. Their blades locked again, tension trembling in both of their arms.

"I don't want to die," Natsumi told her conversationally, once more lifting a hand off of her hilt… only to slam it back down, forcing her sword to move down the flat, open length of the cleaver and scrape harshly across Hiyori's hand. As her opponent shouted and switched hands, stabbing her in the leg, she twisted under her opponent's arm, around her back, and swiped her sword down the length of the other girl's back, forcing her reiatsu into the blade to drive it further.

Hiyori fell onto her knees, blood slowly seeping through the black robes. Natsumi brought the hilt of her sword down on the back of the other girl's neck. Hiyori fell forward, hearing her opponent's final words as she drifted away.

"I'm strange like that," she finished, other hand clasped over the wound on her arm. She stumbled back, the blood dripping down her leg reminding her of her other wounds. She fell to her knees, too, wavering with blood loss and emotional exhaustion. There was a roaring noise, harsh and strange. For a moment she thought it was a hollow. Then she looked up.

Somehow, neither she nor Hiyori had noticed the crowd gathering around their fight, nor the jeers and cheers aimed at them throughout. Nevertheless, there was a veritable mob of students and teachers alike gathered, all cheering, some for her and some for Hiyori, but all cheering.

She smiled wryly. A draw wasn't half bad.

Then, she passed out, too. She wasn't awake to see Urahara and Yoruichi exchanging glances, to see Aizen watching her with a strange and distant gaze, Hirako with open admiration and worry for both of them. She wasn't awake to know who carried them to the Fourth division, or what happened there.

She didn't wake up for three days.

AN-

1) Hiyori only loses bc Natsumi fights dirty and smart. That's it. In a Kenpachi-type battle, she's the kind of person who'd win, but when it comes to people like Natsumi, who will literally stab you in the back to end the fight, direct and confrontational isn't your best bet.

2) I am firmly of the opinion that Shinji, like Hitsugaya, is one of those people whose powers kind of overflow. Sakanade is not a kind or easy thing to live with. This will likely be elaborated on in the future.

3) Natsumi is a lot like Ichigo in that she has a ton of reiatsu and a lot of dedication, but not always the control she needs. She can funnel it into things like her sword, and she can reach out and feel through it because there's just so much of it it's like having an extra limb, but without a functioning zanpakuto, she's basically left with, well, an extra limb. Great and terrible at the same time.

4) Shinji is my fave. I don't know if I've ever said that. But like. He is. I have no shame. He's my fave.