Things had moved pretty fast from there. Kyuzo was lounging on the bed in the room he had been allocated in the male dorm building. It wasn't a bad room, and he didn't have to share, for that he was thankful. After the testing he'd had to sit outside the admission directors' office and resisted the temptation to listen in on their conversation. When they emerged, the director had welcomed him to the academy, and summoned a lackey to take him to the stores and then the dorms. He wasn't happy with the student uniform; he'd gotten used to what he was wearing and understood its benefits in a fight. After some haggling he'd gotten something close to the shape he wanted, but he'd had to rip the sleeves off to get comfortable. He was sure they wouldn't be happy about the dark red bracers he wore, but he wasn't about to show off the marks on his hands before he fully understood them. By the time a room had been found for him, the director of classes, a woman he was told to call Akami-sensei had caught up to them and told him to explain how the teaching worked. As he understood it there were 7 classes in each of the four disciplines, and you had to get through all seven in at least three of the four to graduate. A sheaf of papers was thrust into his hands, and the woman was gone, and she called back over her shoulder "Read up before tomorrow."
Amongst the glut of information he found his class allocations. He was unsurprised to be in Kido 1, but the others were pretty extreme; Zanjutsu 7 (that was swordsmanship apparently), Hakudo 6, and Shunpo 6. He surmised that Hakudo was hand to hand fighting and Shunpo was flash steps. Plenty of questions were left unanswered and these he pondered while staring at the ceiling. "What happens when I complete the other three and I'm still on Kido 3? Can I skip? Do I really care about this anyway?" He'd been pretty passive since he'd arrived, and having read through the material he'd been given on the history of Soul Society, the structure of the Gotei 13 and the purpose of the shinigami, that last thought was occupying him the most. "Is it really worth it, to be a glorified policeman? All this structure and bureaucracy?" Thinking back to the testing, the excitement he'd felt facing off against the instructor. Unbidden, the familiar two-tone voice sounded in the back of his mind "You want to fight. We want to fight. Stay." He recognised that what the zanpakutou had said was true. He did want to fight. About the same time his stomach started rumbling a gong sounded over the grounds. Flicking through the papers he'd been given, he saw that was the signal that the mess hall was open, so he went to find some food.
A couple of months later and the shinigami academy was starting to really get on his nerves. He'd been jumped to Kido 2 after a week, Kido 3 a month later and was now in Kido 4. Turned out it really wasn't that hard; pushing aside all thoughts and concentrating only on the words of the incantations, projecting the images in his minds eye, the reiatsu formed around him, following the flow of the spell, and was finally released. It just required more concentration at the higher levels. So Kido was fine. Everything else wasn't. He was well used to being an outsider in school when he was alive, and here it was no different. He was widely resented for being injected so high up the pecking order, his appearance earning no end of mockery, and he couldn't quite let go the feeling of waste. He had been to the lessons, knew how to talk to his zanpakutou, and hadn't even had to ask it about shikai, the words jumped into his mind, and he immediately knew they were right. But still he hadn't demonstrated it to anyone because he knew it would only fuel more jealousy and spite; he could already beat all the others in his class in a sparring match, including those who had used their shikai against him. He didn't care about the hand-to-hand combat because he felt much more comfortable using his zanpakutou. He'd taken to keeping it materialised now, and had fashioned a sling of sorts so he could carry it blade downwards as he preferred, which annoyed his classmates even more. As if all of that wasn't bad enough, several avenues of relaxation were now close off to him; he couldn't go drinking because it was forbidden for students, and he also couldn't stand sake. He couldn't listen to any music – he had none and no means of playing it, and his guitar was still in the living world, no doubt sold or binned. At least he could still fight to relieve stress.
And then there were the flash-step lessons. He found them infuriating because the technique itself was so bad; it was like setting off a bomb behind a ship and using the waves it made to get from A to B. He'd been shouted down when he probed about it. He had a couple of ideas he wanted to play with, but nowhere to do it, and nobody to talk to about it. Despite his advancement in the kido classes, he just wanted a book and a practice room. The lessons were slow paced and he knew he could do better. Things came to a head on the exhibition day.
This was the day of competition where representatives from the Gotei 13 were present to watch. It was usually just a couple of seated officers sent to scout out the next sessions graduates. As a student in Zanjutsu 7, he had been entered into the freefighting competition automatically; no technique off limits. But the stir came when the news trickled into the preparation area that there were 2 taichous present. He had felt the strong presences from the arena earlier, and recognised one of them as the woman called Sui Fong. The other he didn't know. The presence of two of the most powerful warriors in all of Soul Society only drove up the tension in the soon-to-be combatants. Kyuzo was back in his own clothes, since student uniforms weren't required for this event. He was sat under a tree examining the spectators with his cast out senses, trying to pass the time until he was called; all of the teaching staff, and a large contingent of shinigami, not so close together that their reiatsu signatures were indistinguishable.
"Kyuzo-kun" The mocking voice interrupted his train of thought, and he was brought back to his immediate surroundings. In front of him stood one of his Zan-7 (the student slang for the class) classmates, a particularly annoying brawler by the name of Kaneda Atsura. "Seems like some taichous have come to scout out the talent. Guess they'll be giving you a miss since you haven't even hit shikai. Who knows, if you work hard maybe you can reach it by the time we meet in the arena?" He was being baited, Kyuzo knew. Atsura was in the 7th class across the board, and boasted to any and all who would listen that he was the strongest student in the academy. The only problem was that he'd never beaten Kyuzo in a sparring match. The wooden sworded training exercises where the first hit won, and the no-hold-barred fights that were closely supervised, with healing specialists on hand, always had a clear winner. In their last bout Kyuzo had beaten him without even drawing his sword, just blocking and defending with his sheath, before hitting a winding blow to Atsuras' stomach when the opportunity presented itself, as he had know it would. So Atsura had picked out the lack of shikai, and announced to all present that he was still more powerful. Ever since he had been wheedling Kyuzo for an unsupervised rematch, only to be calmly rejected every time. But now he had his opportunity, in front of two Gotei 13 taichous as well.
Kyuzo ignored a few more insults that were thrown his way, until the announcer called "Next combatants. Kaneda Atsura and Kyuzo, report to the arena!" With Atsura still firing verbal barbs at him, Kyuzo rose and walked past him, never a flicker of emotion on his face. Inside he was raging. This fool had eroded all of his patience, and he wanted nothing more than to kick the crap out of him, see him absolutely, totally defeated and humiliated in as public a fashion as possible. And here he was begging for a fight. The arena itself was a fairly large square, with seating around 3 sides. The surface was a bit torn up already from the previous fights. A few moments later the two were squaring off, some twenty feet apart in the center of the fighting ground. Kyuzo had dematerialized his zanpakutou before entering, and as such appeared unarmed. Atsura drew his own zanpakutou and leered at him. "Tough guy eh? Leave your ugly sword in the dorms or something?" The choice of phrasing couldn't have been more perfect, reminding Kyuzo of the thug who had murdered him in the living world.
"Begin!" It was the announcer. Kyuzo was barely listening. The fury was uncoiled in his chest, like an angry snake. Atsura was charging towards him, then leapt into the air aiming to deliver a vicious downwards strike. Kyuzo stretched out his left arm, and snapped his fingers. Immediately Edge appeared in his hand, ready to block the strike. They met, blade against scabbard, and Atsura pushed his reiatsu into the deadlock, hoping to overpower him. Kyuzo pushed back by unleashing the full force of his anger, all his self-control forgotten. He swung his sword and Atsura was pushed back as far as his starting point. A fair few heads in the audience were looking with concern at the blond haired youth; that had been a serious amount of reiatsu for an exhibition match. For his part, Atsura got straight back on the horse. He got to his feet, and released his zanpakutou, before throwing a quick glance at the spectator stands. He saw the two figures with white robes over the black. And continued the fight.
A couple of fireballs, Way of Destruction No. 31, flew towards Kyuzo who was still standing in exactly the same place. He flash stepped out of the way, and then blurred out of existence again, closing half the gap to his opponent before coming out of the flash space at a sprint. He was attacking from the side, and Atsura barely got his blade across his body to block the wicked slash that came as the blade left its sheath. Kyuzo saw him stagger slightly, felt a brief stab of satisfaction, and hit him in the side of the ribs with his sheath, before leaping back and once again sheathing his sword in preparation for another one of his sword drawing attacks. Atsura took his time getting up from his position on one knee. As he rose, he pointed a finger at Kyuzo and uttered the words "Way of binding, No. 32. Red Creeper!" Immediately the red cords shot out of the ground around Kyuzo, and grappled him. Wrists, ankles, knees, shoulders, waist, all held. Atsura was charging again. Cold fury coursed through Kyuzo as his opponent approached. His reiatsu spiked massively, and the red bonds disintegrated, powered as they were by Atsuras will. Kyuzo got his sword up to defend just in time, and had to give significant ground to avoid the blows from thick curved blade of his opponents released zanpakutou. Eventually the two separated, no blows landed.
"Still lacking that shikai boy. Now I'm gonna make you regret that!" taunted Atsura. And something snapped in Kyuzo. "Why should I hide it anymore?" He put out his left arm in front of him, zanpakutou still held in the familiar reverse grip. Even as he started speaking the words, his reiatsu was increasing enough to stop Atsura in his tracks; "Sever every last bond, Edge!" Before he was finished the metallic parts on the scabbard had started to writhe, expanding and coalescing into a solid mass, which eventually formed itself into another blade on the outside of the sheath. If he hadn't been staring so intently at Atsura, Kyuzo would have noticed the small black slightly translucent tendrils that slid out of the marks on his hands, and straight through the bracers he wore. Only a couple of inches long, they looked like the leaves of some underwater plant swaying in the currents. Everyone else was too far away to see them. Pure hate flowing through his veins, Kyuzo jumped into the flash space, feeling the desire to hit flowing out of the zanpakutou in his hand. Instinct brought the sheath, now also a blade to the right position, instinct put his feet in the right place, instinct drew the blade at the perfect time, and landed a huge slice across Atsuras chest, from low on the right, all the way up to the left shoulder. The slash cut clean through Atsuras zanpakutou and sent the boy flying. To all the observers, Kyuzo had simply disappeared and reappeared about the same time as Atsura went flying, blood gushing out of the deep wound across his chest.
Atsura was coughing up blood on the floor several metres away. His reiatsu still blazing in fury, and his eyes burning red with hate, Kyuzo stalked over to his fallen opponent. He was still conscious but was too busy trying to keep breathing to say anything. "Pathetic" Kyuzo spat out, and raised his blade, unaware of the unease that had descended on the arena. The announcer was screaming "Enough. Stop this now!" but Kyuzo wasn't hearing any of it. All his attention was fixed on the floor in front of him, every iota of his existence looking forward to sinking his sword into the top of Atsuras head. He had swung about an inch when the two figures blurred into existence next to him. The two white coated forms having left the audience to intervene.
Sui Fong held her blade to his throat with one hand, and had seized the wrist of his left hand with the other. That same left hand still held the shining second blade of his released zanpakutou. The second taichou, a slender and almost fragile looking man with flowing white hair caught his right wrist fractions of a second after he began what would certainly have been a fatal blow to the student on the floor. He laid a calming hand on the shoulder of the furious student and said soothingly; "That's enough. You are the clear victor." As soon as his predicament became apparent Kyuzo dropped his grip on both the swords he held, which immediately faded out of existence. When it became apparent to the two taichous that it was no longer his intention to kill in cold blood one of his fellow students, they released their collective grip on him, but nevertheless took up a position between him and the prone form of Atsura, now surrounded by shinigami from the 4th Division.
"What were you thinking? You could have killed him, you fool!" It was the 2nd Division taichou that spoke first. Kyuzo remained silent, certain that there was nothing he could really say. Before Sui Fong could continue her admonition, the second taichou laid his hand on her shoulder. She looked round and he shook his head imperceptibly, then turned to the student before them, still immobile where they had left him. "I am Ukitake Jyushiro, taichou of the 13th Division. And you are just Kyuzo. You are the reason I came to this event today, and I have not been disappointed." He could feel the anger literally boiling out of Sui Fong next to him, but he knew the disciplinarian in her would be too much. The boy would simply retreat further into the shell he was in now. Ukitake continued; "What did he say to you? What was it that made you lose your temper? From what I have heard of you, that has not happened once since you came to Soul Society." The tension obvious in the students' posture lessened slightly. "He said exactly the right thing." Before the two taichous could question further, their attention was stolen by one of the healers; "Excuse me Sui Fong-taichou, Ukitake-taichou. We must move Kaneda to the 4th Division headquarters for further treatment." Sui Fong answered the man with a dismissive gesture and an impatient "Do it." When they turned round, Kyuzo was walking back towards the preparation area. Ukitake spoke, in a voice that was clearly not a suggestion; "Let him go." Sui Fong stopped mid footstep. She didn't protest, instead opting to stalk away.
