I own NOTHING. Kubo Tite made Bleach. Some other ideas from other manga and anime were used.
Wanted: A beta reader. You dont have to be professional. I just need a second eye to go thru my story. English is only my second language.
I dont know japanese. I look up cool names in the internet ;D
Chapter 12 – Don't kill my dream
Byakuya didn't expect the girl to recover before next week. Captain Unohana was a very skilled healer indeed, but even with her healing it would take the muscles and bones time to completely recover.
Which is why he was, to say the least, astonished to see her waiting in his office next morning.
She was sitting in his chair, and leaned backward so that the chair stood on two legs while her legs rested on his desk. Her hands behind her head, she was chowing what looked like one of his brushes.
He was so surprised to see her fully recovered after less then 24 hours that he didn't even feel angry at her disregard for his working space.
"Oh Byakuya. I mean captain. What's up?" she said, removing her legs and letting the chair fall back on all four with a thud.
She got up and put the brush on the desk, smiling weakly.
"Sorry about that, but I saw you have hundreds so I'm sure you'll be fine." she said, walking away from is desk.
"What are you doing here?" he said when finally he found his voice "You are suppose to be in the hospital.".
"Well I got up really early so that Retsu san could release me quickly. She checked and said that everything's fine and I can go." Kaya said and rolled her right shoulder to show that its completely functional.
When Byakuya didn't say anything her shoulders drooped and she frowned.
"Are you mad about the brush?" she asked carefully.
"No. I am just surprised that you recovered so fast." he said, frowning as well.
"Well, thats okay." she said, putting her hands on her waist and smirking "It will be easier for me to invigorate you if you keep underestimating me.".
Byakuya watched her carefully, looking for any sign of suppressed pain, or stiff movement, anything that would suggest that she was indeed injured, quiet severely, yesterday. But he saw nothing. It seem she was completely fine.
"I asked Retsu san what invigorate means." she said, misinterpreting his silence.
"I see." he said, not paying attention to what she said.
"Hey Byakuya..?" Kaya said, noticing that Byakuya wasn't really paying attention.
"We will go to the training ground." he said at last.
"Hey can we go somewhere else?" Kaya said, slightly groaning.
"Why? Because you cant use your teleporting on sand?" Byakuya asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Its jumping! And no, I just.. err don't like it thats all, too many people..." she said, going slightly red and scratching her ear.
"A shinigami should be able to fight anywhere." he said, turning to leave.
"Oh yeah?" she said, mischief in her voice "Then lets fight here!".
Before he had time to answer, she released her zanpakto. The office was illuminated by the blue lightning of her release. He turned around and saw her pushing the pile of paperwork off his desk with her left hand, which was glowing.
The room was full of flying papers, there was no way to tell which one she marked, as he was sure that she did. Using the desk to gain height, charged with a jump spin hook kick at his face. He dodged and made to catch her leg but she already wriggled away from him.
Then she disappeared and reappeared instantly to his left, slashing with her zanpakto. He quickly drew his own weapon and blocked her. She retreated swiftly and aimed a low kick at his shins. He dodge it, and as he did she switched the weapon to her left hand.
"Raikiri!" she yelled as the blue lightning covered her right hand.
She charged again, attacking with her right crackling hand, and when she missed continued the spinning motion of the attack with the blade in her left hand. The lightning disappeared from her right hand when she missed. She sent another kick at him, which he blocked, and then disappeared again.
The moment she disappeared he released his own zanpakto, sending the hundreds of tiny blades flying around himself. She reappeared and jumped on his desk. The veil of what seemed like cherry petals surrounded him so she had no chance to land and attack. She returned the blade to her right hand and drew three shuriken with her left hand and threw them at him. Senbonzakura's veil of blades deflected the shuriken and sent them flying safely away. Then the blades spread out all around Byakuya, creating a faint glittering mist around him.
Kaya bit her lip, still standing on the desk. Byakuya was standing in the middle of the fallen papers. The papers spread out for about 1.5 meters from him and so did his blade fragments. The blades were too close to each other that there was no way she could jump between them.
"What's the matter? Aren't you going to jump?" Byakuya asked when he saw her hesitate.
He was pretty sure that she would not jump. As far as he knew she could only use two marks at a time, and since he saw her jumping to two different spots, he assumed that she could not use another mark. He noticed during their last spar that she used the shuriken not as weapons, as one might think, but as portable marks. However, what she did this time was just a lousy feint, which no doubt meant to draw his attention as well as his flying blades from the marks she left on the papers.
"Don't underestimate me!" she growled raising her l hand, her palm open.
The jagged lines on her right glove were glowing bright yellow, and a fine, almost invisible, blue bolt of lightning surged along her hand.
"Hado 31 shakkaho!" she yelled shooting her reiatsu at Byakuya.
He was positively surprised that it worked. Thru the pink mist of his zanpakto he saw the small red ball of reiatsu takes form in her palm, blue lightning crackling around it.
Byakuya braced himself to block the kido with his blades, but that was unnecessary.
The crackling ball passed by him, missing by more then a meter, and hit the wall, going thru it and exploding in the corridor.
"What the hell?" a shrill voice made both Kaya and Byakuya jump and look at the hole in the wall, as if just now realizing that they were still in the office.
Renji's face appeared in the hole, looking disheveled and angry.
"What was that?" he yelled.
"Hey Renji." Kaya said scratching her ear.
Renji's head disappeared from the hole and then the door opened, reveling the whole Renji.
"Don't "Hey Renji" me! Ca- captain wha-" Renji splattered, trying to digest the scene in front of him.
Kaya, which was supposed to be in the hospital, was standing on his captain's desk holding her released zanpakto. His captain was standing in the middle of the room, his zanpakto also released, and scattered on the floor all around him was what seemed to be today's paperwork.
Strangely enough what bothered Renji the most was the papers on the floor, dreading that he will have to clean it up.
"Ca-ca-captain wha-what are you doing?" Renji asked helplessly, almost crying from distress.
His captain turned around and sealing his zanpakto put it back in its sheath.
"Hm, we were on our way to the training ground." Byakuya said blankly. He walked to the door and Kaya jumped off the desk, also sealing her zanpakto and followed him.
When he walked by Renji, who was gaping at both of them, Byakuya said, "Oh and Renji? Clean up this mess will you?".
"Yeah Renji clean up this mess will ya?" Kaya said grinning, staying behind a few seconds after Byakuya left.
"I'm gonna kill you you half-witted punk!" Renji snarled thru gritted teeth.
As the days passed, things seemed to settle down between Kaya and Byakuya. At least, Kaya didn't need to visit the 4th squad again.
They spared every day, sometime in the squad's training grounds, sometimes in the Kuchiki's training grounds, and sometimes outside of the seireitei, in the wild areas of the rukongai.
One day they even stumbled upon a hollow which Kaya disposed off. It was a very weak hollow so Byakuya let her fight it alone. She was very proud of herself after beating the hollow and Byakuya only barely stopped himself from commenting that the hollow was weaker then the Koi swimming in his pool.
It seem she did make some progress. She arrived on time almost everyday, but Byakuya suspected that it was only because if she got to the office after he did, she had to wait for him to finish some of his immeasurably dull duties such as paperwork, handing missions and tasks to his subordinates, paperwork, reviewing with Renji the progress of the new squad members and some more paperwork.
"Where the flipping hell all this paperwork comes from?" Kaya bellowed one day, mentioning at the fresh piles of papers that appeared everyday on Byakuya and Renji's desks.
"Squad 1, probably." Byakuya answered distractedly, while reading another one of the endless papers.
"No! What I meant is how come there's new ones every day? There's not thatmuch going on to fill a mountain of papers every day, is there?" Kaya asked incredulously.
"Clearly, there is." he replied dully "Still want to be a captain?".
"Of course! Its my dream and nothing, not even a sneaking pile of papers, will stop me from achieving it!" she said, firing up and jumping on his desk, accidentally pushing some papers off it. "Did I make myself clear?" she asked no one in particular, raising her fist and staring out of the window with fire in her eyes.
"Painfully..." Byakuya sighed and pushed her of his desk before she could scatter more of his paperwork.
She almost stopped cursing, when talking to Byakuya at least, letting loose a curse here and there, and was almost polite when addressing him. She called him captain, sometimes, and stopped drawing her sword on him when something he said made her angry, which happened quiet a lot.
To his great annoyance she was starting to talk like him, without of course his well learned aristocratic and calm manners.
"There is no shame in admitting you got your ass kicked. The difference in our abilities is something you don't seem to comprehend, Ryo." Byakuya heard her say to Sakurai after wrestling him to the ground after he cursed her for kicking him of a bench on which he was sleeping.
One time he rescued her before she got into a fight with some 11th squad members.
"How can a little brat like you be the cause of so many troubles?" he asked her after the 11th squad members left.
"Great achievements often attract envious and resentful feelings! And stop calling me brat, my name is Kaya, you should know that as my captain, as well as a sentient being." she said with a haughty smile.
It seemed to him that she was trying him. Trying to see what things he would allow her to do, and what thing he did not tolerate. Trying to measure how cheeky she could get without being punished. Trying to see how much troubles she could manage in one day.
At least her skills in combat improved. After observing her fights over couple of days, Byakuya came to a conclusion that the girl's problem wasn't her ability, or inability. Indeed her reiatsu seem to grow alarmingly fast, bit by bit, every day.
It was the fact that she was a highly inconsistent fighter and person. At first he thought that maybe it was because she was in her period. He knew that women's mood could change during that time. However when more then a week passed and she was still as impulsive and unpredictable as ever, he had to conclude that it was simply her nature.
That nature meant that she could be quiet and well mannered one moment and a moment later burst out spitting and cursing at some idiocy someone said. It also meant that her fighting ability and style changed every day, and sometimes more then once a day. Sometimes she was as skillful as some of the lieutenants, calculatingly dodging his attacks and even managing to lend some hits on him. Other times she was so reckless and rush that he was finding it difficult avoiding hitting her fatally.
"Why" he said on one of those many occasions that the girl found herself sprawled on the ground from exhaustion, "Why do you want to be a captain?".
Most people who became shinigami, naturally, aimed to get stronger. They would hope to get the rank of a seated officer, and sometimes they would even fantasize of becoming a lieutenant. Very few would even dream, with sober mind, to become a captain.
Yet here stood before him, wobbly legs and covered head to toe with sand sweat and blood, Otori Kaya who declared at least once a day to no one in particular that she would become a captain. She wasn't entirely without talent but she was so young, reckless, short tempered, unpredictable and annoying. On top of that she attracted troubles anywhere she went. The result was a catastrophic walking disaster. The thought of someone like that in such an influential position sent shivers down Byakuya's body.
"I told you its my dream!" the girl said energetically, miraculously recovering from her fatigue.
"I mean beside that foolish hallucination." Byakuya sighed "To be perfectly honest you are not that brilliant. What made you leave that hole in the rukongai and come all the way to the seireitei to try and become top ranked shinigami?".
She looked at him, her face serious like he never saw her before. There was a blazing tenacity in her eyes that almost made him recoil. But then she lowered her eyes, gloom taking over her features.
"If you are weak, you need to hide. You need to stay away from the strong ones." she said quietly, her shoulders drooping, she looked at the zanpakto in her gloved hand. "You cant go where ever you want, you cant do whatever you wish. You are limited by the strong, chained by your weakness. You are only allowed to dream of things that can never be reached.".
Byakuya starred at her. It was the first time he heard her talk like that. There was such a daunting helplessness in her voice that made her almost unrecognizable.
"So if you get strong you can break those limits." she continued, looking up to the sky "You can grow wings and soar away from the chains of weakness. You can be free." there was a weak, hopeless smile on her face when she finished.
"Dreams" he said and she looked back at him "are useless lies people tell themselves when reality is too harsh to face.".
"Say what?" she said angrily "How can you say that? Everyone have dreams, they help us get over hardships and gives us purpose. You don't know what its like when the only thing that keeps you alive is a dream, that maybe tomorrow will be better!".
"And is tomorrow better? If you just sit and hope will it make any difference? Dreams make you blind, and when you think you achieve your goal you wake up and realize that reality has nothing to do with your dream." he was getting angry. He couldn't stand this kind of lightheadedness, it could clouds one's judgment and lead you to death in the battlefield.
He noticed that she was shaking. Her fists were clenched, her muscles and veins popped. Her face was slightly red and her teeth were bare. Angry waves of reiatsu surged from her, making her hair stand.
"That's." she growled, sparks of lightning flying around her "Not." the ground under her feet sunk, breaking from the pressure "TRUE!" her eyes turned red and an enormous amount of spiritual energy exploded from her. A wave of ridiculously strong and foul spiritual pressure covered the entire Kuchiki training ground, sending dust, sand and rocks flying away.
The twisted reiatsu disappeared so fast that Byakuya wondered if he imagined it. The wind settled down and he lowered his hands, which were shielding his head, and looked for his disciple. She was standing exactly in the same spot, panting heavily, with her zanpakto in her hand, sealed. He himself was pushed away by the force of the blast. His hand were bleeding as well as some other parts of his body, his cloths torn in numerous places. He raised his own reiatsu as a shield in the last second, so most of the wounds were shallow, but he was still surprised from the amount of damage she inflicted on him.
"Sorry." she mumbled when he drew near.
"I find that hard to believe." he replied coldly.
"Well fine I'm not sorry!" she said fuming "Serves you right for looking down on my ambition!".
"Ambition is fine, but I wont have you walking around with your head in the clouds, dreaming your childish fantasy." he said, anger sneaking into his voice again.
"The clouds? That's what bothering you? That I look at the sky?" she said, annoyed.
"You know perfectly well that its not." he said harshly.
"Then what?" she yelled, spreading her arms to the sides in question "You said ambition is fine, whats the difference between ambition and dream?".
Byakuya took a deep breath before answering. "Ambition is wanting to accomplish something and having the motivation to do it, it is the drive to do what is necessary to get your goal. Dreams are visions of what you want to accomplish, you visualize your goal, and thats it. You see only the goal and nothing around it, not the way to get it or what consequences it might have.".
She looked at him defiantly "I'm here. I got here only because of my dream. And I'm taking this bullshit from you every fucking day just because I want to make my dream come true!".
"Watch your mouth, brat." He said warningly.
"No you watch your mouth!" She yelled, her anger rising again, "You think you are better then everyone just because you were born in a golden basket! Anything you have and take for granted, is like a life's fortune for people where I come from! Do you think its obvious that people sleep in a bed? Well guess what, if you are lucky enough to get yourself something better then wooden board to sleep on in my rukongai you will probably wake up with a knife in your throat! You don't know anything! You don't have a dream because you are leaving in one! A bird is not happy because it has wings, its the only way it knows how to live.".
"This conversation is pointless." he said, suspecting that if they keep talking he might actually kill her. "Renji is going to the world of the living tomorrow with the rookies, you will go with him.".
"Say what?" she blurted "Why do I have to go with the rookies?".
One of the good things about her rapidly changing mood was that it was easy to change topics even when her anger was raging.
"Because thats what I told you to do." he said, bracing himself for another foolish argument.
"Are you also coming?" she asked.
"Of course not, I have much more important things to do." he said, sneering slightly.
"So you are just trying to get rid of me. Again." she said sourly.
"How perceptive. And here I thought you were stupid." he said, rolling his eyes and starting to walk away toward the bathing house near the training ground.
"Hey wait! Captain" she yelled after him.
He stopped and looked back, raising an eyebrow. She only called him captain when she thought she might get something from it.
"Hey captain, could I use your bath? I mean I am kinda dirty and..." she said smiling hopefully and scratching her ear.
"Absolutely no." he said at once, remembering the last time she used the bath a few days ago and somehow drifted away to the deep part of the pool. He hurried to the place after feeling a surge of her reiatsu and after watching for a minute and realizing that she couldn't swim and was about to drown, he had to pull her out, to her great embarrassment. After spiting all the water she swallowed she punched him and yelled at him for starring at her intimate parts. He received another punch for dismissing such ridiculous accusation and assuring her that there is nothing to see even if he tried to look.
"You have a shower in your... Residence, use it." he said, refusing to call that place home.
"Yeah but it doesn't have hot water!" she said and hurried to close the distance between them.
"I already offered that you move to the barracks. Its free, it has hot water and its bigger then the trash can you are living in now." he said tiredly, hoping that she would just leave him alone. Dealing with her was so tiring.
"You forgot to mention that you get to see your stupid squad members every fucking hour of the day." she added grumpily.
Renji and Rukia also tried to convince her to move into the barracks, they couldn't understand how she could live in such a tiny inconvenient place, in one of the dirtiest corners of seireitei. Renji however said that if she moves into the barracks she is never to go even near his room.
"I am not having you drown yourself again and then hit me for helping you, not to mention those preposterous accusations..." he trailed off.
"You were starring at my boobs!" she exclaimed angrily.
"Nonsense." he said shortly, wondering why was he even answering her and not ordering her to leave him be.
"You said they were small!" she retorted.
"I most certainly did no such thing." he said and started walking to the bath.
"Yes you did." she said following him.
"No I did not."
"You did."
"Did not."
"Did."
"I did not!"
"Yes you did, captain Kuchiki, and your face is red." she said smiling broadly.
This caught him off guard.
"I did- what? No its-" this was getting ridiculous. Okay maybe he did stare. But not at her chest. He was generally astounded by her state of malnutrition. She was so skinny and her skin was stretched over her bones and the only thing that prevented her from looking like a skin covered skeleton was her well built muscles. Her collar bones, ribs and pelvis were sticking out quiet alarmingly. Her belly was only a bit sunken thanks to the well refined abdomen muscles. Her overall physical state looked pretty much abysmal. How could her body maintain her never stopping activity?
"Ha! You said you did! So now you owe me a bath as a compensation." she said, looking very proud of herself for outwitting him.
His face was growing hot, from remembering the absurd situation in which he was being clobbered by a naked girl less then half his size after saving her life.
"Very well." he said finally, "But do not drown yourself again since I wont be helping you this time. And don't repeat these despicable lies again".
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