Happy Easter! This chapter was a little difficult to write, since I really think of it as "necessary filler" as well as the fact that Karin ends up acting a little... off. Since there is a reason for her acting that way, it shouldn't count as being OOC, but you might still feel like she isn't acting herself. Just a reminder, if you ever feel like I'm drifting off into OOC land without a good reason (like this chapter, or Ichigo in chapter 8) or if you feel like I am making her into a Mary Sue, don't be afraid to call me on that.
In other news, I have recently written a little one-shot caller "For the Son that Needs Me." It has to do with the relationship between Isshin (Ichigo's dad) and Toshiro. Although I don't have any plans for including it into this story, it might make its way into being mentioned in some of my other Bleach stories, so I highly suggest you read it. Also, Reviews tell me how i can get better!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Bleach
Karin walked to her homeroom the next day with head down. She was trying to block out the sound of gossip around her, but it was difficult when she had a good idea what they were all talking about. News traveled fast at school, and although very few knew the whole story, everyone knew about the fire.
Although Karin and the other three girls had quickly gotten settled into new rooms, Karin had been unable to sleep for the rest of the night. She knew that the red band around her wrist was supposed to stop the potential fires, but she still couldn't help but fear her own power. Without meaning to, she had caused a lot of damage with only her spirit energy. That isn't the kind of thing that you can sleep after.
When the sun finally rose, Karin had reluctantly started her morning routine, trying to avoid interacting with people as much as possible. Part of it was kind of silly; Karin was afraid that if she got to close to anyone she might accidentally set them on fire. But there was also a part of Karin that just wanted to be left alone with her thoughts. She had known for a long time time that she was different from the other kids, but now she felt that it was impossible to keep up the charade. It would be best if she didn't even try to be one of them.
She ate breakfast by herself, sitting at a table with one seat. She deliberately avoided Keiko, Junji, Gyou and Suzaku. She didn't think that they would want to be her friends if they knew the truth, and she didn't want to face their rejection. Keiko would probably explain things to the guys.
Now she was on her way to homeroom, trying to think of where she could sit now that she didn't want to bother the others anymore. She hoped that some of the seats in the back were still open.
When she entered the classroom, Karin noticed that students were talking in there too. She could guess it was about her, especially since a lot of the girls in her dorm were shooting her strange looks. It was almost like they pitied her. Obviously, they must have figured out the fire was her fault somehow.
Before she could head to the back of the room like she planned, Karin felt a hand on her shoulder. "We were looking for you at breakfast, Rin-chan."
Karin turned around to see Junji, Gyou, and Keiko all looking at her, worried. It was Junji who had his hand on her shoulder, and Gyou was shaking his head.
"It's Kar..." Gyou suddenly noticed Karin's face. "What's the matter, Kar-chan? Was Nagami-chan and her friends mean to you again?"
Junji's hand tightened on her shoulder. "Do you want me to beat them up for you? Just say the word, and I'll introduce them to my fists. Gyou will help too, you know."
Karin tried to shrug her friends off. "What makes you think something is wrong? I just feel like spending some time alone right now."
"Karin-chan..." Keiko looked worried. "Is it about that thing last night?"
Gyou looked at Keiko. "What thing? Does this have something to do with that fire last night?"
"You two didn't get hurt, did you?" Junji was actually taking something seriously for once.
Karin turned to the other girl. "You didn't tell them?"
Keiko shrugged. "It wasn't my place. I'm sorry I didn't try to talk to you earlier, I was just so tired and hadn't comprehended everything until this morning, when you were gone." She pulled Karin into a quick hug. "I'm here if you need to talk, and I'm sure others will be to, once you decide to tell them."
"Yeah, what is this about?" Gyou frowned.
Karin sighed. "It's a long story." She looked around the room at all the potential eavesdroppers. "Can I tell you later? Maybe at lunch, since sempai will probably want to hear it too."
They all nodded and took their seats. The teacher soon came in with a stack of papers he started handing out. Karin read the title, "first-year electives."
"You have all now gone through enough material in your beginning classes that you can decide for yourselves what you want to do next semester. Each first-year, second-term student is allowed two electives in addition to their regular classes required for their graduation plan. As you move on in your studies, your list or required classes will get smaller, but you will still have to complete everything listed for your plan before you graduate. Now, when I call your name, please come up and take your plan with the list of required classes, as well as your elective sign-up sheet."
One by one, each student came up and picked up their forms. When Nagami passed Karin on her way up, she shot the girl a look of absolute disgust. Though Karin would normal have glared back at her nemesis, in her present state of mind it took all her willpower not to sink in her chair and hide under her desk.
"Shiba Karin"
Karin picked up her forms, and noticed that one of them had a note attached.
Shiba-san, the head of housing informed me of your situation. As your advisor, I am going to have to require that at least one of your electives be a spirit energy control class, which may be found on pages 23-25 in your packet. You should get into any of them that don't have prerequisites.
Karin sighed and sat down. Just what she needed, another reminder that she was a freak.
Break.
"So, Kar-chan, what happened last night?" Gyou asked.
"It's Rin-chan!" Junji exclaimed from across the table.
"I..." Karin considered how to explain it. "Ok, you know about that fire last night?"
"Of course" Suzaku grimaced. "It seems to be the idle gossip of the day. Even though I try to stay away from the shallow students who want to discuss every silly thing under the sun, I couldn't help but hear about it."
Karin sighed. "Well, it actually started close to where Keiko's and my rooms are. We woke up when the fire started, and were luckily able to make it out all right, but we had to be moved to different rooms temporarily. When they were setting up those new rooms, the head of housing came out and said she had a theory about how the fire started..." she choked up. It wasn't easy to admit something like that to her friends.
Gyou was interested. "What was her theory?"
Karin found that she didn't quite have the courage to say it. She turned to Keiko, silently begging her friend to say what she couldn't.
Luckily, Keiko understood. "She said that it was possible that someone's spirit energy had been so strong that it had affected the world around them."
Junji looked confused. "Is that even possible?"
"Yes." Gyou nodded. "This actually isn't the first I've heard of this phenomenon."
Suzaku looked at Karin. "It was determined to be because of your spirit energy, wasn't it?"
Karin lowered her gaze to her hands. "Yes." She then waited for the rejection of her friends.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Junji spoke up. "That is AWESOME!"
Karin was dumbfounded. "What?"
"You can actually set things on fire with your mind?" Junji continued. "Talk about cool powers! I wish I could do something like that."
"But..." Karin couldn't understand what Junji was talking about. "I almost hurt people! I didn't have any control!"
"Well, that's part of learning." Gyou pointed out. "If you knew how to do everything with your power, you wouldn't have to be in school."
"You guys aren't freaked out?" Karin asked.
"I have known you had an abnormally high amount of spirit energy since the beginning." Suzaku explained. "Although I didn't expect this to happen, I'm not that surprised."
"This doesn't change who you are." Keiko comforted Karin. "We're still friends."
"It just means you need to have a little extra training." Gyou pointed out.
"Yeah, you're still our little Rin-chan" Junji smirked. "Speaking of extra training, what kind of electives are you guys thinking of getting?"
Keiko piped up. "I plan on taking all the Kido courses I can."
"Well, I haven't had a chance to look over all the options yet." Gyou sighed, then turned to Karin. "What about you, Kar-chan?"
"I know that at least one of my electives has to be on controlling my spirit energy." Karin sighed.
"Really?" Junji opened up his packet. "I think I found them. Let's see, there's hiding your spiritual pressure 101, but that looks boring. There's also special advanced Kido, but that's got a lot of prerequisites... Ah! This looks good." He turned the packet around to show the others. "Jinzen 101. It's already a required class for our graduation plan, but they usually suggest taking it during our 4th year. It sounds like it involves a lot of fighting."
"That's... so not what it is about." Suzaku grimaced. "It is actually a meditation class. It has to do with going into your inner world and trying to talk to your Zanpakuto. Yes, your Zanpakuto eventually will help you fight, but it is rare for students to reach that level of communication before graduation. This class is just about getting to know your Zanpakuto and how to get to talk to it."
"Oh." Junji looked at it again. "Well, it still looks like the most interesting class on this list. Do you think Gyou and I could make the requirements to get in?"
"Wait, what?" Gyou asked.
"Why would you guys need to take that class?" Karin asked.
"So our Rin-chan wouldn't have to be all by herself." Junji stated like it was obvious.
"You guys don't have to do that for me." Karin tried to brush it off.
"True..." Gyou considered it. "But this does give us a reason to take one of the classes, when none of the others have any additional appeal. Plus, it is a class we are required to take eventually, so this puts us ahead of the curve."
"I don't see any reason why you two can't make the cut." Suzaku mentioned. "Now that I'm actually paying attention to how high your spiritual pressures are, I can tell you're at a level at least as high as the lowest 6th years, who are required to take the class. I'm planning on taking it next semester as well, so I'll take you guys to get the teacher's approval when I go foe the same thing."
"Great! It's settled then." Junji put a checkmark next to the class description on his packet. "One down, one to go. Any ideas?"
Karin was still recovering from the shocked happiness of her friends offering to go out of their way for her, but she started scanning the rest of the packet. "Um, do you guys know why Calligraphy has been crossed out?"
"I heard that they haven't been able to find a teacher since the last one left." Suzaku commented. "A real shame, especially since I hear it used to be one of the most popular classes."
Gyou frowned. "You don't know who the previous instructor was, do you?"
Suzaku shook his head.
Gyou took a deep breath. "Aizen Sosuke."
Suzaku's eyes narrowed. "Ah. That explains it."
Karin felt a little recognition at the sound of that name. It was as though she should know that name, but it was one of the memories she had lost.
Junji looked at his best friend. "Who's Aizen Sosuke?"
Keiko gasped. "How could you not know who Aizen Sosuke is?"
"Uh, I'm from the Rukon district?" He pointed out.
"Well, I don't know who he is either." Karin looked at Gyou. "But that is probably because of my missing memories. Could you please explain?"
Gyou sighed. "Aizen Sosuke used to be the taichou of squad 5. A couple of years ago, he and two other taichous defected and murdered the entire central 46. Turns out, he had been conducting illegal experiments on hollowification for a while, but was able to hide his traitorous and manipulative nature by blaming others and using his illusion-type Zanpakuto. He was eventually defeated and is imprisoned, but a lot of people are still a little bitter.
Karin nodded. Now what Suzaku had said made sense.
"Well, enough about that depressing subject." Junji tried to lighten the mood. "What should we do for our second elective? If we are still stuck in Hoho, Hakuda, Kido and Zanjutsu as well as Jinzen, we should get a blow-off class so we don't explode from the schoolwork."
"Umm... how about Haiku?" Gyou suggested.
"I enjoyed that class when I took it last year." Suzaku smirked. "It is relatively easy, and the teacher is a fukutaichou."
"That's it! It's official, we are taking Jinzen and Haiku next semester." Junji placed another checkmark on his packet.
"Does that sound good, Kar-chan?" Gyou asked.
Karin nodded.
"I've told you, her name is Rin-chan! Kar-chan sounds to weird." Junji shook his head in exasperation.
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