Finished Zanpakuto sketches. My room is a mess. On with the fanfic, rate if you want to comment. And the whole Norse mythology thing is intentional… I'll put character ids' in my profile if I feel like it.
A/N: I will refer to the vastrode classification of hollows as Vastrodes (capital letter). It sounds cooler, and I want people to think they're similar to the Vizard, haha.
Chapter Two: The Aesir
Karakura High School Gym, 9:25 a.m. P.E. period
"All right, ladies!!" shouted the heavy browed gym teacher, despite the fact that the whole class was participating. "Let's do some warm-up exercises! Move it! Hustle!"
Keigo did his sit-ups in bliss. "Ah… Inoue-san…… Matsumoto-san… In those tight, skimpy gym outfits….."
"KEIGO!" shouted Chizuru from across the gym. "You'd better not be having perverted thoughts about my hime!!!"
"Look who's talking!" said Keigo stupidly, receiving a dodgeball to the head for his deed.
Yakumo was doing stretching exercises when Ikkaku approached her.
"Oi. How ya doin?" he grinned. "Heard about the hollow last night. Seemed like you did a pretty good job there for a mortal."
"That was because none of you came to finish the damn thing off." replied Yakumo, readjusting her glasses after standing up from her leg exercises.
"Woo!" said Yumichika, popping up from nowhere. "You sounded like an 11th division member just now. I thought I was back in Soul Society."
Ikkaku eeped.
"Don't do that. You're taking after fukutaicho." shuddered Ikkaku, imagining a Yachiru-sized Yumichika.
"Anyway, what kept you?" continued Yakumo.
The gym teacher blew his whistle and ordered the students to do several laps around the gym.
"Urahara. He told us he'd take care of the hollow himself." said Yumichika.
"Yeah. Ichigo was wondering about that too. Ya think he made you kill the thing yourself for some reason?" wondered Ikkaku.
Yakumo stopped to think.
"YAMIZAKI!!!" yelled the gym teacher. "No slacking off!!"
"Okay, okay, jeez!" Yakumo picked up the pace, catching up to the 11th division shinigami.
"By the way, several arrancar attacked Karakura last night. Did you notice?" asked Yumichika. "Ikkaku-kun here barely got away with his life. Good thing he used his Bankai at the last second." He smiled at his friend.
"Speaking of which, what ARE Shikai and Bankai anyway?" asked Yakumo.
They had finished the laps, and were dividing into groups of six for volleyball training. Matsumoto and Renji joined them.
"Oh that's right! I forgot to tell you about that. Shinigami zanpakuto have three forms, a sealed state, Shikai and Bankai. The latter two can only be achieved by knowledge of your zanpakuto's name, and intensive training." said Matsumoto. The team of girls, which included Chizuru, Michiru and Ryo, were beating the hell out of Keigo Mizuiro and Chad (who refused to lay a hand on the girls).
"Matsumoto here tells me you dispatched a hollow using a low-level Kido move. Is that true?" asked Renji.
Yakumo nodded. "Wow. These guys are treating me like…. Friends. Pretty weird, considering I've only been here a week and they've been here for a couple of days. Are shinigami this desperate?"
"Team three! Team four! Get up here!" shouted the gym teacher. "You're up!"
"By the way, Yakumo-chan, what is this 'volleyball' that ugly man wants us to play?" asked Matsumoto innocently.
"….oh for….. So THAT'S why they teamed up with me…." Yakumo sweatdropped. "Okay. You have to make sure the ball doesn't touch your side of the floor. You hit it with your arms like this (Yakumo makes strange movements) and your team has a maximum of three tries to get it over the net to your opponent's side of the court. The objective is to drop the ball onto the floor of your opponent, got that?"
"Here it comes, Yakumo-chan!" shouted Rinata, on the other team. She served the ball across the net in a high arc.
"Rinata—oh to hell with this!! Matsumoto-san, to your left!" Yakumo shouted.
Matsumoto caught the serve and the ball bounced over the net back to Rinata's team.
"Tatsuki-san!" said Rinata.
"Got it!!" said Tatsuki. She hit the ball back.
"Madarame!"
"Hn!!!" Ikkaku sent the ball into the air with a modified upward karate chop. Yakumo jumped into the air and spiked it hard across the net.
"Nice one, Yamizaki!" said Renji, who began mimicking her stance.
"At least they learn fast." smiled Yakumo, wondering what life would throw at her next.
At the sidelines, a certain Hirako Shinji watched the nimble Yakumo score two more points for team three. He checked his cell phone to find a message from a comrade.
"Hirako, watch that Yamizaki kid. She's different from all the other ones we've met, especially Kurosaki. Hiyori will have your head if we lose her. –Hacchi" read Hirako. "Interesting. A vizard candidate?"
His eyes met those of Kurosaki Ichigo's, who was sitting across the gym. Ichigo glared at him.
"Seems like Kurosaki-kun's oblivious to her. Oh well." smiled Hirako deviously.
Urahara Shoten, 5:00 p.m.
"WHAT?!"
"Calm down, Yakumo-chan, this is just an experiment to see if you have what it takes, or not!" said Urahara.
Urahara, Yakumo, Tessai and the others were in the underground training area that Ichigo had trained in before he went to Soul Society. The quirky shopkeeper had asked Yakumo to hold still while he pushed her soul out of her body.
"Forget it! Rukia told me about how Kurosaki regained his powers. I can't and don't want to skip school. Besides, who's going to look after Rinata? The girl is clueless around the house…" said Yakumo.
"If you happen to have a suitable soul, we're going to turn you into a shinigami." explained Tessai. "If you don't, we stick your soul back into your body and forget this all happened."
"Then what are THEY doing here?!" Yakumo pointed to Toshirou and Matsumoto, standing a little ways off from where she and Urahara were standing.
"Oh don't mind us!" said Matsumoto sweetly.
"We're watching." said Toshirou simply.
"Agh… All right, let's get this over with-" began Yakumo, as Urahara shoved the end of his cane into Yakumo's forehead.
Hueco Mundo, Aizen's Chambers
"Ulquiorra. Hand me that scroll over there." said the former 5th captain Aizen Sousuke.
A white haired man stood at the door, watching with a kitsune-ish expression.
"Really, Aizen, I never expected the Vastrodes to have left archives in Hueco Mundo!" smiled Ichimaru Gin. "I wonder if we'll be able to convince a Vastrode to go arrancar…" He walked into the room, and casually leaned on a wall.
"I have yet to be successful to convince one." smiled Aizen. "The results with the gilian have been spectacular, have they not? Their power has yet to surpass the Vastrodes but no Ajuca's been able to defeat our arrancar."
"Aizen-sama, here are the documents you requested." said Ulquiorra, handing the ex-captain a series of musty-looking scrolls. He then left the room.
"Ne, Aizen, what'cha looking at?" asked Gin playfully.
"Records. Apparently, the Vastrodes developed ways of passing through Hueco Mundo and earth without detection by neither shinigami nor humans. Fascinating…" said Aizen, with a cunning smile on his face.
All of a sudden, the look of curiosity on his face turned to one of shock.
"…Urahara?" Aizen was motionless. "They have been in contact with Urahara since…"
Gin's posture straightened.
Suddenly, Aizen let out a proud laugh.
"The trickster! He's been several steps ahead of us all this time…" Aizen smiled once more.
"What's up, Aizen-taicho?" asked Gin, like a lost kid.
"Our so-called genius has been plagiarizing!" laughed Aizen. "The untraceable gigai, the Hougyoku… The inventions of the 'great man' were in fact inspired by our dear Vastrodes… The Hougyoku in particular, appears to have been created by the first Vastrode, then handed to a trusted ally…"
Aizen read more, his expression slowly changing from his usual cheerful one to a more serious one.
"…..this explains why the Vastrode refuse to ally with us. They have abandoned Hueco Mundo…" read the captain softly.
"Impossible." said Gin.
"Possible." corrected Aizen.
Gin was silent as he attempted to comprehend the meaning of Aizen's sentence.
"It appears they have been using Urahara's gigai."
Urahara Shoten
Jinta and Ururu stared, in complete silence.
"Toshirou, are you seeing this?" said Matsumoto.
Yakumo looked at herself, at a loss for words. She recalled a page of the 12th division encyclopedia.
"When a spirit is initially drawn forcefully from its body by a cause other than death, the spirit will be bound by a chain of fate to its original host body. When the chain is severed, in three days, the spirit will become a hollow."
She understood what the article meant. But nothing in the encyclopedia could prepare her for this.
Instead of a chain of fate, there was a gaping hole.
end of chapter two