A/N: I'm not dead! I promise in the next two months I will update more frequently than this past three month time-skip.

Happy Holidays/Yule/Christmas/Kwanza/Hanukkah! This will likely be the last post of 2014, and I'd say it's been a good year for the revival of this story. I am hoping to keep writing even as I work on my personal WIP. So, I will see you all in the next year, but before that, I hope you enjoy this next chapter. I introduce some characters that will be sticking around for a bit. The blonde is my new favorite character.

If you like what you read, please let me know in the comments section below!


Chapter Eight

~Ren~

There are two kinds of cockiness: the kind that acts as an advantage in battle, and the kind that ends up getting you killed. Ten times out of ten new squad initiates are the second type. So, one thing that the 11th division has always done with the new Academy graduates is for the first eight weeks in the squad we send them out to a kind of "boot camp." Somehow, with the graduates who always join our division, they're the second type of cocky.

It's during these eight weeks that we try to weed this behavior out of them and transform it into the cockiness that might help them survive. If we just released them into the division without this boot camp, they would be dead within their first 48 hours just by picking fights with more senior members.

It's out of mercy, more than anything, that we put them through this training. Mercy, and the knowledge that if we were to accept every cocky asshole that graduated out of the Academy seeking blood and a good fight we'd have no division whatsoever.

Boot camp began eight weeks ago. Today, the final day, Yumichika and I have the unfortunate honor to take thirteen - half the new recruits - into the world of the living to take out a hollow that's been disrupting some rural areas.

"Wait a minute, we've got to follow orders from a girl?"

"Yeah, honey, I'm hungry, why don't you fix me a sandwich! You don't belong out here."

The general theory is that by using this boot camp we weed out the captial-A Asshole cockiness and transform it into something different. However, even with these precautions, there is a one percentile that manages to slip through our careful watch and stay a cocky Asshole. These pupils always have to learn the hard way: either die or figure it out for themselves. We're not freaking babysitters.

"Don't you just love the new recruits?" Yumichika asked smoothly from where he stood next to me.

Generally, it was the fourth and sixth seats to take half of the recruits and the fifth and seventh seats to take the other half. Unfortunately, however, the sixth seat had been nearly decapitated two days previously and was still recovering in the fourth division. That's where Yumichika had stepped in to cover for him and provide assistance to me.

"And you lucky bastard gets to enjoy this twice." I murmured as the pair of guys slapped each other on the back and kept hollering out sexist comments.

"Hey, baby, why don't you open your shihakusho a little wider? I don't think we can all enjoy your body!"

"Oh, and I'm in barrack 12-C if you want a good time!"

Yumichika rolled his eyes with a heavy sigh. "Don't remind me. This is absolutely dreadful."

"How's it the second time around?" I asked, watching the faces of the shinigami surrounding the two capital-A Assholes. They were all stoic, as if nothing was happening.

"I like the other group better."

I smiled towards him, the expression harsh. "Just another perk to being a seated officer."

"But at least we get extra vacation days. And I know how you'll be spending yours." He half turned towards me and gave me a wink. I returned it with a smile, my mind already going to places where it probably shouldn't.

It was then that the raven-haired boy who had started this assault of harassments said something particularly foul. I snapped my eyes to him in time to see the boys around him all cringing away. There were no girls in this bunch of recruits, and from looking at the list of names earlier, no girls had decided to join the 11th division this year at all. If pigs like this ass-hat were in their class at the Academy, I didn't blame them.

"Soldier!" I barked, holding myself at the attention that my seat commanded. "Report your name!"

"Ooh? You wanna know my name? We must be getting somewhere then." He rubbed his hands together, biting his bottom lip beneath his teeth. If he wasn't so young he might be attractive. His jaw had a set definition to it, hard and had a light dusting of scruff. His hair was shorter in the back with longer bangs falling in his eyes. His muscles visibly stood out in his arms and stretched the fabric of his shihakusho across his chest.

The other was shorter with light chestnut hair clinging to his head. His eyes held a certain hesitancy. Immediately I knew whose idea this was.

I clenched my teeth and walked through the rows of new shinigami standing at attention until I was directly in front of these two children.

"Shinigami, I said to report your name." I made my voice incredibly smooth and even. Not a hint of hesitation, not a note of nerves.

"You know, I like short girls. It's easier for them to…"

He got halfway through explaining exactly what he liked before I whipped his legs out from under him and had my zanpakuto pressing dangerously into his throat. As he figured out what had just happened, fear slipped into his steel gray eyes.

I turned, still holding Akumu against his throat, to the brunette who had been calling out insults. He had backed into his neighbor who had continued to stand there like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. I immediately liked him. "I asked for names. Or do both of you need to get on the ground for me to get any?"

"I-I… He-He-He… I-I'm -I-"

"Oh for God's sake!" I switched my zanpakuto to casually lean against it, and placed my foot against the boy's throat instead. I forced my reiatsu through it, effectively keeping him pinned down. "Does anyone know these two idiot's names?"

"Their names are Haruto Fukui and Yasu Oshiro!" The neighbor boy immediately said. His blonde hair was long, but thinner and layered, and brushed against the collar of his white shitagi. He was tall and lean; little muscle stood out beneath his uniform.

"Great! Can you tell me the difference?"

"The idiot cowering against my arm is Yasu, the idiot you're suffocating is Haruto. And I'm Jurou Mizuno, just so you don't get us confused." He turned and gave me a smile. It wasn't cocky like these two had been, but offering friendship.

"Let me make this perfectly clear." I announced to the group standing around me, "No one here cares who you are or who you were in the Academy. If I or my fifth seat, Yumichika Ayasegawa, up there asks you your name or any direct question you answer immediately. I do not care what your name is. If you want to tell me your name you can wait until dinner time. I'll take introductions then. Until then, however, you are nothing. All of you are nothing.

"You need to understand this little fact: we could kill all of you and it would be easy."

I looked down at Haruto beneath my foot. He'd given up trying to struggle and instead held a hard look in his eyes, glaring at me. How easy would it be to kill him, this little no-nothing boy! It would be like swatting a fly. I could kill him now, even. With him lying here under my power it would be so easy.

Still, I lifted my foot and sheathed Akumu and offered my hand for him to get up. He swatted at it and jumped up like he hadn't just had most of my reiatsu pushing him into the ground. I knew he would be feeling weak, though. I cocked an eyebrow and turned away.

"I swear, though, if you get in the way, or prove you're unworthy to be here to uphold the honor that is the eleventh division, I will make a direct request to our Lieutenant to have you moved to the twelfth division. I hear they're always looking for new test subjects."

I turned away and began walking back to the front. "And what should we call you?"

I turned on the ball of my foot to see who had spoken. It was that Haruto boy, head cocked back and examining me with a quiet challenge.

I grinned, my eyes meeting his. "Ren Nagasawa. Fourth seat of Division Eleven."

By the time I got back up to the front, Yumichika was laughing. "Always so dramatic, eh Nagasawa-chan?"

I cocked a grin. "I have to be. These kids won't listen otherwise."


The hollow we were supposed to kill in the rural area wasn't just one hollow.

No, it ended up being seven. Seven heads, one body. A hydra hollow. Generally, if it was just Yumichika and I, we could have this beast knocked out in less time than it took to get here. However, with thirteen greenhorns and the need to let them mostly fight it on their own, Yumichika and I could really only give commands and stay the hell out of what was going on. This was the graduate's last chance to prove that they belonged in the eleventh division. Already I could see a few that would need moving. The Yasu boy from earlier was definitely one. He stayed so close to Haruto that he would get himself or others killed sooner rather than later.

Seven heads, thirteen boys. That meant at least one head for every two graduates. It was Haruto that figured this out first. Of course the ass-hat had to be the one to call out this knowledge to his peers.

So, we split into groups of two, Yumichika leading his group of graduates to the right of the hollow, and leaving myself and my graduates to the left. Yumichika had the grand idea of labeling colors to the different pairings of boys as soon as we saw what we were up against since names were still lost on us.

"Purple and red, go up the center, yellow take it from behind!" I yelled, my voice nearly hoarse on the wind. Still, the shinigami I directed followed the orders as if they had heard them up close, working within their pairings to take down the hollow towering above us.

The blonde boy who had helped me with the two idiot's names from before, Jurou, worked with Haruto in the purple grouping. Even though I had told them to strike from the front, Jurou took it from the side, effectively administering a crippling blow and nearly severing the head. Haruto came from the front as he had been ordered, driving his blade down the hollow's face, but nearly catching Jurou in the process. Their teamwork, however botched, effectively disintegrated the head.

The two shinigami in the yellow pairing were having problems of their own. Immediately I could tell it was lack of communication. While I ordered them to strike from behind, they didn't communicate between themselves, one of them being hit by the hollow head and thrown backwards quite a ways.

Looking over at Yumichika, his pairings seemed to be going much better than mine, with all but one head being cut down already and the group rallying around that point. However, we needed to wrap this up. He and I met eyes.

"Red and yellow, stand down!" They caught my words immediately as I drew Akumu. "Devastate!" I yelled, and she split. In my left hand was her original wakizashi form, in my right hand was the katana form. It was only by her that I had learned to be ambidextrous.

I ran at the hollow, leaping to the air, and spun, blades flying, and sliced through the remaining heads, my blades finding their mark with precision. As I fell back towards the earth, the heads disintegrated behind me, leaving nothing. Looking back over my shoulder at Yumichika, it seems he also had finished the task, leaving the decapitated body to drift away on the wind like ash.

"Fall in!" Yumichika announced to the shinigami, who all sheathed their blades and fell into line.

"Mizuno-kun, stay back here with me, will you?" I asked the blonde as he passed. His gaze fell on me, and he paused. I watched as his face betrayed the hesitancy and guilt he felt, and knew it could only be associated by his actions. However, without a word, he fell into step beside me at the back of the line as Yumichika unlocked the senkaimon.

I turned towards him. "Give me your hand," I said even as I reached for it and wrapped my own hands around his. Holding him there just like that I could feel the monstrous amount of spiritual pressure, all wound up in a tight sphere at the center of his being. It wasn't calm, either. Like angry waves on a stormy sea, his reiatsu was jostled and harsh deep within him.

I glanced up into his eyes, stormy, just like the reiatsu pressure within him, and amber in color. Just being able to feel all that was going on within him I knew immediately what had happened on the battle field.

"Mizuno-kun, how long have you had your shikai release?" I released his hand, letting it fall back at his side and instead rested my arm on the sheathed Akumu. His eyes opened wide, his mouth gaping for an answer that never came. Without making physical contact with him, I would never have guessed that he had reached shikai already. He was excellent at hiding it. Absolutely no extra reiatsu spilled off of his body.

I spared a glance back toward the senkaimon, feeling the others disappear from this plane of existence. "Come, we can talk about this back at the barracks." I reached for his arm to help guide him through the portal, and he let me, still in shock.

Traveling through the senkaimon was always a little overwhelming. It felt like pressure was being applied to every cell and my body was contracting into its center. Like my lungs were being squeezed and the breath forced from my lips. Within the senkaimon, I was nothing, nothing but a speck in this incredible universe.

Immediately were were on the other side - in the Sereitei and within the eleventh division's headquarters. The feeling had only lasted for a few seconds, but it always felt like I would never be released from the senkaimon's grip. As the gates shut behind us, I adjusted my shihakusho, trying to hide the claustrophobic feeling that had overcome me inside the gate. It was over now.

"How long have you had it?" I asked again, and he was looking less and less like a terrified fish and more like a thinking human. "Just barely six months. Haruto got his before me." That was news. I hadn't seen or felt anything from Haruto on the battlefield that would warrant my questioning of his abilities. Although while it wasn't common to obtain a shikai release in the Academy it certainly wasn't rare. Hana had obtained hers at that time, as well as Akemi, right after her. I had obtained it just a few years after exiting the Academy.

"Six months," I mused. "So I'm guessing you're not that great at controlling it or the reiatsu that comes with it yet?" I pulled him into a small space between two buildings where we could have some privacy from passerby. It was just enough space for two people to stand comfortably.

He shook his head slowly, eyes still transfixed by something far away.

I watched him for a long time, watching him process my discovery about him. "That was why you went against my order, correct? Was your zanpakuto communicating with you?"

He raised his head slowly, wide eyes finding my own. "I don't know if I would call it that, but it… it just felt right. I-I don't know of any other way to describe it." His voice was soft, vulnerable. I had just yanked open one of his deepest secret and letting the light hit it. Of course he was going to be vulnerable.

"That makes sense," I assured him. "Your zanpakuto is the flip side to your soul. A direct reflection, but at the same time another entity altogether. Sometimes it's there for you to fight alongside, and sometimes it's there to lend it's advice and wisdom. I'm guessing that's what happened today?" He nodded. Even though he was a recent graduate, he didn't seem as young as the rest of them. To be honest, he looked older than most of them, and something guarded held in his eyes. I could tell he had definitely seen his fair share of shit.

"He told me how to approach the hollow, and I followed what he said."

Jurou pulled his hand through his hair, letting it flop back down into his eyes. "I know I messed up today." He sighed, letting the breath out in a huff. "I'm sorry about that."

I crossed my arms, trying to gauge just how sorry he was. It seemed like he meant it. It didn't seem like he had purposefully gone against my order. Still, we couldn't have a loose canon in the squad.

"If I set something up for you to better control that reiatsu of yours and that zanpakuto, would you do it?" I asked, still watching him for any hesitancy.

Immediately he caught my eye, his amber eyes fierce. "Yes." He didn't need to say anything else. I could tell just from the fire that lit within him that he would.

I nodded, trying to get my words together before I spoke. "I have a friend who has a similar spiritual pressure to you. Same density, if I'm reading yours right. I'll talk to her and see if she can meet and train with you."

"That would be amazing, thank you!" He sputtered, the words tumbling from his lips.

I nodded again and jutted my head towards the barracks. "Go and get cleaned up. The welcome party starts in a couple of hours." He quickly jogged away from me, but before he was too far away, I yelled out, "And tell Haruto I'd like a word with him as well!"

I watched him stick a thumbs up into the air as he kept jogging, likely thrilled that he was still part of the division. As for Yasu, I would need to figure out exactly what do do with him. Him, and the boy in the yellow pairing. Maybe Yumichika or Ikkaku would have an idea.

However, upon finding them in one of the spare rooms that are laid out across the division, a third person was with them. A person I never thought I would ever see alone in the eleventh division.

Of course she wasn't alone, though. She was surrounded by Ikkaku and Yumichika and they were laughing like old friends getting caught up after years apart.

She might have them fooled, but in her eyes, in her tense body posture, in the way that she picked at the edge of her arm guard, she was panicked and held a sadness so deep, it chilled me as soon as I saw her.

"Ren! Hi!" Akemi greeted me, her eyes falling across my own and trying to hold up the smile she was giving to Ikkaku and Yumichika, but I knew better. I knew my girl.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" I asked, trying to keep my voice light. She looked so fragile, but it was incredible that she was actually here, in the eleventh division, without someone having to drag her here. That was the first signal to me that something was terribly wrong.

"I just wanted to catch up with you. I've been missing you lately." She smiled, her eyes lost some of their luster for just a moment. So quick, and then it was back as Ikkaku said something that made the three of them laugh again. I didn't catch it, nor did I laugh as I was transfixed on Akemi.

"Sure, let me get cleaned up real quick and we'll go find some privacy." I forced a smile even though I wanted to close the distance between us and pull her into a hug.

Akemi nodded, a forced gesture, but keeping the smile there. I turned away.

The second signal was that I had not seen her so close to a breakdown since Zephyr died.