Chapter 14: Premonition

That night I visited my internal world again.

"Helloooooo...?" I called out, scuffing the icy surface of the lake with one bare foot. The answering silence was rather boring.

I carefully surveyed my surroundings, turning in a slow circle to peer into the mist, without much hope. There was just grey mist, and more grey, swirling mist, and white ice, and a pale light from what I assumed was a weak sun far above.

Though I was barefoot and clothed as before in only a white kimono of soft, thin cloth, it actually wasn't that cold. The ice didn't melt under my feet, and in general, I felt pretty good.

Maybe a little tired.

I yawned and heaved a sigh. I was supposed to be sleeping - still healing from my ordeal, or so Unohana had said - but it seemed I couldn't even sleep when I was sleeping. Did that even remotely make any sense?

For a lack of anything better to do, I struck off in a random direction, my arms swinging at my sides as I trudged along. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see my light footprints on the thin layer of frost sitting on top of the ice, visible for about 20 metres behind me before it vanished into the mist. I was struck by an idea - perhaps this way I could make sure I didn't start walking in a circle?

Feeling rather clever at having come up with a strategy, I turned around and walked resolutely backwards, keeping my footprints directly in front of me as I walked.

This continued on for a good while, until I was starting to feel rather bored again, and had just about decided to stop - when I abruptly tripped over something and went sprawling with a surprised yelp.

I almost sprained my neck trying to twist in midair, but I was saved from a nasty landing on ice as my back hit a soft, comfortable surface.

I had landed on a fancy-looking red velvet four-poster bed, sitting on the ice.

"Whaaaaaat the hell?!" I exclaimed, scrambling up, utterly shocked at this discovery.

I ran around the bed and carefully inspected every inch, but it revealed absolutely nothing to me - it was just a large, comfortable-looking bed in the middle of nowhere. It felt oddly familiar, but other than that no blinding realisation hit me.

Shrugging, I decided not to look a gift-horse (or zanpakuto) in the mouth; perhaps the mysterious sword-entity that shared my soul had heard my desire for proper sleep and had decided to be nice, for a change. Or maybe it had some kind of spiritually significant lesson entwined into it that I would have to unravel to unlock the next level of my power...

I yawned.

Best not to question it. I lay down and pulled the soft covers over my head with a pleased hum. Comfortable and safe, I promptly fell asleep.

Later that night I abruptly woke up, blinking in confusion in the darkness. Thankfully, I had awoken in the fourth squad hospital room again, and not some weird internal-world dream-within-a-dream. But what had woken me up? It was still night-time, and I knew by now what a heavy sleeper I was. So something was definitely 'off'.

I sat up slowly, feeling a little freaked out as I gradually became aware of a weird smell in the air. It was a chemical smell, kind of similar to bleach or some kind of floor cleaner, but sharper. Bleach and vinegar? Had a janitor been eating salt and vinegar chips in my room?

I looked around, but everything seemed pretty normal. The sliding screen door was slightly ajar, a yellow bar of light from the outside hallway running across the dark room. Had the door been like that when I'd gone to sleep? I couldn't remember.

Then I heard a raised voice from another room, far enough that I couldn't quite make out the identity of the speakers, or all of their words. But they sounded angry.

I strained my ears.

"... here... that... permission to-!" that was a woman's voice. Unohana? Kitsune? One of the other healers in Fourth Squad?

I heard an answering male voice, speaking in a low, dismissive tone, though I couldn't make out his reply either. The voices came to an abrupt halt, and suddenly I heard heavy footsteps approaching my room. For some reason, their ponderous tread made a chill run down my spine, and my fingers tightened nervously on the edge of my blanket. They came closer... closer... seemed to slow down at my door...

And then they passed by, the yellow bar of light flickering as whoever-it-was walked by. I listened intently for a few more moments, and finally relaxed when I heard the distant sound of the front door to the building open and close with finality.

The odd smell seemed to dissipate along with the departed person.

It was a while before I could fall asleep again.

The next day, I was discharged without fuss after a great breakfast - all I did was fill out some paperwork with the Vice-Captain (who was still a little twitchy around me, but seemed friendly enough) while munching on some toast. They also provided me with a replacement Academy uniform, which was very thoughtful - I supposed my old one was full of holes and bloodstains.

Dressed and fed, I walked out into the sun infront of the Fourth Squad barracks, stretching my arms over my head and testing out my range of movement. Unohana and her squad were pretty amazing - I'd gone from near death to completely fine in a matter of days. Unohana had explained it was due to my unnaturally dense reiatsu - but I preferred to give her healing skills most of the credit (I also somewhat disagreed with any part of me being described as 'unnaturally dense').

I limbered up a bit - I had lots to do and now that I was healed up and ALIVE I was keen to continue training. Which meant completing my to-do list through the use of gratuitous shunpo, of course. Now that I'd finally gotten the hang of flash-stepping, it was incredibly fun. But where to first?

After a brief deliberation, I started with heading back to the Academy dorms for a shower, after which I shunpo-ed to the cafeteria to treat myself to a late second breakfast. While I was there, I checked in with a classmate I vaguely recognised (who shrieked and dropped her food tray as I materialised abruptly next to her with a cheery 'Howzit!') to find out which classes I missed. She wasn't very forthcoming, so I left and decided to check in directly with each of my teachers. Oddly enough, I found that I first had to convince them that I was not A) dead, or B) an escaped convict on the run. I would have thought that me not being dead was obvious enough, given that I was infront of them and had said 'Hi!' - but they all looked unhappy to see me, to say the least. And an escaped convict? That was very melodramatic!

Putting two and two together, I figured out that a rumour was doing the rounds that I had murdered my classmates and had either been killed or imprisoned as a result, pending an investigation. It was honestly very annoying to have to explain the whole sordid affair every time. By the time I reached my Kido teacher (also my least favourite) I didn't even bother explaining, I just demanded my homework in a vaguely threatening way and departed once she had finished squeaking and complied.

Clearly, my reputation had just taken another turn for the worse, but there was no way to set the record straight - at least, not before the trial for the miscreants who had attacked me. With that thought, and bearing Unohana's advice in mind, I wrote a letter to the Central 46 council explaining my side of the story and offering to appear in court to make a full statement. I sent it off via Hell butterfly (very cool, we had learnt how to communicate like that in our first few classes) and hoped they would take my words seriously.

From what I knew of Soul Society's frankly barbaric rules, the twits who attacked me were in serious danger of execution or something similarly over-the-top if I didn't say something.

By early twilight, I was feeling lonely and also somewhat depressed. Somehow, I found myself shunpo-ing to a familiar part of the Court of Pure Souls, almost without consciously deciding to go there.

I stared up at the imposing wooden gates to the Kuchikki estate, near Squad 6's barracks. Was Captain Sexyhair at home? Could I invent some plausible excuse to drop by?

For some reason, I had an inexplicable urge to see him. Which was stupid, since I reminded myself I really didn't know the dude at all. He could be a first-rate asshole - in fact, so far my impression of him wasn't exactly 'warmth' or 'reassurance'. But something in his steely grey eyes had drawn me in - I felt an odd connection to him. Outwardly he was cold and mature and controlled, but I'd picked up on some subtle tells that he was probably (secretly) impatient, feisty, and maybe even a little childish inside. And that was incredibly amusing.

It made me want to see if I could somehow draw out another glimpse of that interesting side of him...

Imagining it had me perking up, and I surveyed the wall to his estate.

It wasn't very high. A slow, wicked grin stole across my face.