CH6: The Abnormal Captain Proficieny Test

"Alya Maréne, are you ready?"

A flashback struck her. Alya Maréne, are you ready? .. You have two options. One: to be put to death as a murderer of 30 men. Two: to become a soldier and work for us. ..Are you ready, her superior had asked before striking her with his katana-

"Alya Maréne?"

She was drawn back to the reality from her memories. Stay the hell out of my head. "I guess so", she muttered. The old man's eyes were open again, and they pierced right through her.

"Are you still suffering from that illness that bothered you back then?"

"Yes. There's no cure." Saying that was a lot more easier than it had been. But she knew how her face would look like: emotionless. Her eyes were his eyes again.

"What sickness?" Hitsugaya claimed to know.

Maréne looked into the eyes of the 1st Squad's Captain, and the old man nodded slightly. "For me it has been... 11 years or so. I was infected by an alien matter." Her fists clutched, but she relaxed her muscles. "No, let me rephrase that... I joined a company which needed soldiers to protect them and their ... their inventions. We, their dogs, were part of their inventions. Human experiments."

Silence had fallen upon the room.

"I'm part of the results. There was a creature, with... strange but great powers. Cells of that creature were ... well, we were infected by them. And then they showered us with the energy they had found, energy formed by hundreds and hundreds of dead souls... Our minds were merged with their memories, and those who survived gained an elite soldier's status." She took a deep breath, her eyes cast on the ground. "Those who couldn't take it.. their voices.. their pain.. their sadness... well. They became... vegetables, if I may say. They got lost in the stream of the dead's memories.

"Sometimes our bodies try to fight against that energy, and that's when .. the sickness occurs. And there's more to it." He. "There was a soldier... far greater than any other. We.. were to become his clones. So that, in case he'd die, he would claim our bodies and switch places with us; our personality vanishing, his remaining."

Hitsugaya's eyes were wide, and everyone else in the room looked horrified as well. "I see", he finally said, retreating back to his place. Maréne nodded, her head still bowed. "But doesn't that make her even more dangerous to Gotei 13?"

"Sephiroth's dead", the woman suddenly said. "It is true that he might come and claim my body for himself... but that's most unlikely, since he's a male and I'm a female." Her smile was more of a frown than a grin. "And there's a way to force him out of me." She tilted her head to the left, her eyes shining with the energy she had been showered with. "He doesn't like wounded tools. Would take too much of his own power to recover." For some reason her grin reminded Hitsugaya of Zaraki Kenpachi, the Captain of 11th Squad.

"So you're ready to hurt yourself to keep him off?" Komamura confirmed. The woman simply nodded.

"I see", said Yamamoto. "Alya Maréne, there are a few more questions before I recommend you a Squad. Have you finally accepted the loss of your right arm?"

The woman rose her head, astonished by the question. Everyone except for Ukitake and Kyoraku startled, and turned their eyes back on the woman. Her eyes were filled with... fear. Hatred. "Well", she said, her voice trembling, "as you can see-" she lifted her right arm "-I've learned to make this. So I'd say no, I haven't accepted that." And she broke the spell covering the truth of her right arm. It was a metallic one, with fiver fingers and a logo carved on its side. "'Tis the arm they gave me as a replacement", she said in a rather bitter tone.

"Replacement?" Hitsugaya repeated quietly.

"Alya Maréne, this might be unnecessary to ask, but have you accepted what the company you used to work for has done to you, including the experiments done to you and the loss of your arm?"

"What?" The Captains and the Vice-Captains looked confused. The woman seemed angry, and disappointed.

"..Sometimes... I think yes. Sometimes... not."

"Wait", Hitsugaya interrupted again. "The company you used to work for... they...?"

"...We elite soldiers were becoming too great for them to handle. There were seven of First Class SOLDIERs. Four were .. executed, and erased from the database of the company. My arm was cut off; Sephiroth was driven into madness by letting him know the truth of his origins; and Zack... was slaughtered by hundreds of other soldiers." Her voice was dull, as if telling that all meant actually nothing to her.

"What kind of company did she work for?" Kira Izuru, the Vice-Captain of the 3rd Squad, whispered.

"The last question, Alya Maréne", Yamamoto suddenly said. His eyes were open again, shimmering with feelings no one could recognize. "If you receive the hayori of a Captain, will you be able to think of yourself as a human again?"

Maréne's eyes widened, and were filled with tears.

Yamamoto Genryuusai leaned forwards. "Will you be able to, as long as you act as a Captain, not to refer to yourself as a killing tool?"