I'm happy that some of you seem to be enjoying my story. This next chapter starts about a week after the last one ended, so without further wait

Chapter 3: After the First Week

Hisana had adjusted to the academy life rather well over the first week of classes. She couldn't help but feel bored at first because all that was being taught was the various duties as shinigami they may be required to do once they graduate. On top of that, studies included teaching about the history and politics of Soul Society. Thankfully the instructors weren't going in depth with such things as they had over half a decade to ingrain it into the students' minds, and Hisana was grateful as she was a Kuchiki noblewoman and already knew everything about both subjects. She was excited today though, because today they were going to start diving into the theoretical aspects of shinigami combat.

She arrived at the classroom and took her seat next to Riko who had been waiting for her. The two started talking about what each of them thought would subject would be the first of the class. The class quickly filled up as they knew what would happen if any of them were late. One day last week a boy showed up only a minute or so late and Onabara-sensei picked on him for the rest of that day and nobody wanted a repeat of that. A few minutes after the class was filled, Onabara-sensei walked into the room.

He did like he always does at the beginning of a class and spent about a minute appraising them. Afterwards, he started speaking to the twenty students before him. "This is your first day of shinigami theory. Many of you probably think I'll be speaking of how to perform kido or how to acquire your zampakuto, however that is not how we will begin." Onabara-sensei waited until the grown from the class had died down before he continued. "I will start by explaining hollows," and with that he got the attention of the class again. "Some of you may already know all about hollows, but for the sake of the more ignorant, I'll assume none of you know a thing. Hollows are the flip side of a shinigami and what every soul a shinigami fails to save could become. When a soul is left in the world of the living for too long, its loneliness, despair, and desires will consume its heart. This is expressed by the chain on the souls that bind them to whatever is keeping them from moving on. Once the chain completely erodes away the soul will be consumed and become a hollow. A hollows power comes from the very heart that it had lost. This is because when the heart is lost, it reforms itself as the mask on the newly transformed soul. As some of you may have noticed, this means that hollows essentially get their power from the same source as a shinigami, the very core of their souls."

The class had very mixed reactions about what was just said to them. Some were undaunted as if they always were aware of it, and perhaps they were. Others were shocked, but otherwise accepted this revelation about hollows. While others still were completely disgusted with the very idea of shinigami and hollows not being so different after all. That is when Riko asked the question "If hollows get their power from their hearts, and their hearts become their masks, then does that mean all you have to do to defeat them is to shatter the mask?"

At that Oabara-sensei chuckled. "You are quite right about that, and in fact that is one of the most important aspects of fighting and defeating a hollow. When shinigami face a hollow in combat, they are expected to destroy the mask as quickly as possible. When a hollow's mask is shattered by a shinigami's zampakuto, the hollow is purified and is sent to Soul Society as the soul it was before transforming into the hollow it was. So, as you can see, it is not just about saving the souls that are vulnerable, but also the hollows that prey on those souls."

Although the shock wasn't as noticeable this time, it still was prevalent throughout the class. The implications of this were profound for some. Hisana herself was undaunted by it however as she has spent a great deal of time around beings who gained their power from hollows. As if right on queue with her thoughts, someone asked "what about the visord?"

Onabara-sensei looked at the boy who asked for a moment and said "I was afraid someone would ask about that. We don't have anything about visord, fullbringer, or arrancar in our curriculum. We barely even get into Menos Grande, so if you want to know about such subjects, you'll have to learn about them on your own time."

Afterwards Onabara-sensei started going into detail about various tactics to go about dealing with hollows. The class was absorbed into the speech as it was a surprisingly fascinating subject surprisingly. He would explain proven methods for the different fighting styles people liked to use. From direct combat, to kido, and he even described the different ways of how to go about it if you are alone or in a group. The class went all day on this singular subject and at the end he made very certain to drill in that while these tactics are highly useful, ultimately it is the shinigami and hollows individual abilities that will determine how things go.

At the end of the class the students went to dinner in preparations for the end of the evening. Unfortunately for the advanced class, they were the last to be let out and had to wait for the torrent of students to go through for them to get their food. Most of the best food was gone by the time Hisana and Riko managed to get their meal. Consigned to what was given to them, they found a place to sit and eat while they discussed all the things about hollows they learned. Riko was absolutely fascinated with them and wanted to learn more about it. Hisana could only laugh.

Once they were finished with their meal, the two decided to simply go to the dorms. On the way, Riko decided to question Hisana about her only mild interest in the hollows. "Hey, so why did you look so bored in class today?"

"Why do you think I was bored?"

"For one, you weren't really paying attention to Onabara-sensei."

"It's just that I already knew most of the things he was talking about."

"Well I guess that you being a noble and all would give you a higher education about these things."

"It's not just that. I've had a lot of contact with the world of hollows growing up."

"How!?" Riko said astonished.

"I know all the visord because they are friends of my tou-san. On top of that, I've met a handful of arrancar as well."

"He's friends with them? How'd that happen?"

"Not a lot of people know it, but he is part hollow as well."

"You're joking! Does that mean you are too?"

"I don't know, it doesn't look like it though."

After that the conversation died. The two made their way to the rooms they got assigned to on the first day of classes. The dorm room was shared by six students, four in the advance class and two in the normal class. Hisana hadn't really bothered to get to know any of them and she couldn't even remember their names. One of their roommates the two girls couldn't stand though. She was a tall girl who had red hair almost as long as Hisana's own. She would constantly degrade commoners and sometimes even lower class nobles as well because her own clan was rather high up the food chain. She also seemed to have a superiority complex over anyone in the regular class and lorded over the two roommates who were. What truly cemented Hisana's hate for her though was when the two first met. The redheaded girl knowing that Hisana was a Kuchiki tried to acquaint herself. She at first seemed kind, but quickly started telling Hisana not to bother herself with trash such as Riko.

The two girls sighed happily when they found that they were the only ones to be there for the moment. The two of them decided that the best course of action would be to get their mountain of homework out of the way. Sadly it didn't take long until the peace and quiet was disturbed by the other girls entering the room. First was the last member of their dorm room, she was the green haired girl that Hisana noticed on the entrance exam day. Hisana was somewhat curious about her, but as she often kept to herself, she had yet to talk to the girl. Riko had talked to her once and found that she was a noble an only slightly older that Hisana and that she had an odd name, but couldn't remember. There were many odd things about her beyond her name and her hair also. For one, she had vibrant pink eyes and an odd obsession with stuffed animals. On top of that she absolutely refused to socialize, something that Riko was slightly worried about.

Not long after, the other three showed up. The two girls in the normal class were talking about how difficult some of the material they were getting was, and it was getting on Hisana's nerves because it was bothering her while she was doing her own work. Surprisingly however, the redhead started doing her work the moment that she entered the room. The reason this was unusual was because Hisana had never seen her do a lick of work.

Such routines had continued like this for a month with the classes getting harder and harder. The class was still only in the theory stage of learning, which made some of the first class students wonder if the second class spent the entire first year on nothing but theory. They had now covered the theoretical aspects of reiryoku and reiatsu. How the two differ with reiryoku being a person's power and reiatsu is that power being applied. They went on to explaining the techniques of sensing reiatsu. That was only a beginning to the courses of how to control one's own reiryoku. And then finally they started to talk of zankensoki. The zan represented the use of swordplay and a zanpakuto's abilities, and what a zanpakuto is. Ken was for hakuda which they briefly touched on a few of the more well known fighting styles. So was the explanation of hoho for footwork. They went on to say that while it is the least cared for of the four fighting styles as it was only to supplement the other three; it was a highly valuable skill to have. Finally they got to the last of the four, kido. While the others were only briefly touched upon, the instructors went deep into kido. They explained that it is usually the hardest for anyone to excel at, but that someone who did could be more powerful and dangerous than someone who does well in any of the others.

The kido theory was long and grueling to say the least. They were told all about how the chants were necessary and that fine control of power was necessary. The class was taught why the chants were used as way to focus someone's reiryoku into a specific form and that for more advanced and complex kido, things like hand seals and runes can become necessary. This was hard for the class to comprehend as they all had very little practice in actually utilizing the power they possessed.

On top of all of that, the class was required to take special meditation courses to learn how to shut out the world around them. Many at first were bothered by this until they found out that it would be needed for their first practical class. They only just recently found out that the first practical class would be to call upon their power more efficiently than they have been doing so far. It wasn't until the first class of the second month of the school year that that they got to start the class

Hisana was surprised along with the rest of the advanced class that the class for learning how to tap into ones power was only meant to last this one day. Apparently the instructors had given them off all their other classes in order to spend as much time as they needed to get it done. Following everyone else, she took a seat on the grass in the courtyard to take a meditative pose. They were told that as each person released reiatsu a teacher would come up to them and help them control it. At once the entirety of the class started to meditate. After only a few minutes, Hisana felt someone's reiatsu flair up and then die down as they were told how to manage it. Riko managed to be the fourth person to pull of accessing her reiryoku and Hisana felt prideful that her friend had managed it so early, but also felt a twinge of jealousy because Hisana couldn't even feel so much as a spark of her own power. This was especially unnerving for her as she has never had trouble accessing a little of her energy before. After hours of no success, she was one of the four students still remaining. She and two others were still trying to gain their power, but the fourth was just Riko waiting on Hisana.

As she continued to meditate, Hisana's resolve slowly began to crumble. All she was able to feel after all this time was a great nothingness inside of her where she believed her power should have been. After a while, Hisana decided to throw caution to the wind and let her mind dive into that deep nothingness at the core of her being. As she did so, she felt what she could only describe as a soft, gentle, warm light envelope her. It was at that moment that her reiatsu exploded outward. The sudden unexpected force of it was great enough to send all of the students in the courtyard to the ground, both those that were from her class and those that were passing through to their next class. Even the instructors still present were caught off guard and stumbled slightly. They went on to explain to Hisana how to reel her power in and with some difficulty she managed.

"I hope no one thinks poorly of me for what happened" Hisana told Riko a little while after deciding to relax with what was left of the day.

"Don't worry, what you did was amazing."

"I hope I didn't hurt anyone."

"I was right next to you when it happened and I'm fine."

"True"

"So, what do you want to do with the next two days off?"

"I don't know. They said that we were allowed to relax and explore the Seireitei and Rukongai if we want."

"On top of that, we start our practical classes when we get back."

"Would you like to visit my family estate?"

"You have to ask?"

To that the two girls giggled and made plans for their break from classes.

I know that some might not like certain parts of this, but I had my reasons. Like with the roommates, I decided to keep them nameless to show that Hisana really doesn't care all that much about them. I also had to have Hisana have massive amounts of reiryoku for somewhat obvious reasons.