A/N: Ok so it's been a while~ I apologise for the late chapter, but fanfic author's have lives too you know (*cough* some do anyway) In case you've forgotten, it's GeNoWaFeR here and enjoy!
Chapter 14
Groaning and covering her ears, Hiyori rolled over in bed, trying to block out the sound of her "Ohayo Nippon" alarm clock.
"Gah! Make it stop!" Hiyori shouted down below to where Mochi's bed was.
There was no response and Hiyori realised she had probably already left the dorm to do whatever she did so early in the morning every day.
Reluctantly, Hiyori reached over to hit the snooze button on her clock. She sat upright in bed with a sinking feeling in her stomach. Today was the day of the kidou test. She knew she was going to fail the zanjutsu test because one, she sucked at offence, and two, she was partnered with Mochi. But she never really sucked at kidou. She was quite good, even if she wasn't the best, or so she thought, and hopefully, that would be enough to make up for her zanjutsu mark.
"I better not make a fool of myself like I did yesterday," Hiyori sighed and clambered out of bed and down the steps of her loft.
* * *
"So class, today is, as I had mentioned earlier, the day for our kidou test. Yesterday we had our zanjutsu test to which some performed exceptionally well. I hope to see a similar sort of result today. I assume you have all been practicing hard?"
"Yes," mumbled the class in answer to Sanada-sensei's inquiry.
Shioru had a look of determination on her face in stark contrast to Hiyori's pale and worried face.
"Get ready to be OWNED again!" Saiko shouted at Hoshika, pointing dramatically and flailing in blatant disregard of the fact she was sitting right next to her.
"Honestly, you need to shut up. I am but right next to you," Hoshika replied calmly, only glancing sideways at her.
"Silence! I am sick and tired of you two carrying on like a married old couple. Now Tifa, would you mind bringing out the target boards? They should be just behind that door. Shioru, go help her," ordered Sanada.
While Shioru and Tifa were getting the boards, Sanada handed out a slip of paper to everyone.
"I have separated you into two groups. You will come up in your groups and perform a kidou spell of your choice. Be sure to perform one with a reasonable level of difficulty so I can see what you are capable of. Keeping that in mind, also make sure you are confident with the spell you choose as not only will I mark you on difficulty, I will be looking carefully at how well you execute it," Sanada said in an authoritative voice as he pulled up a chair to sit on.
Everyone in the class glanced down at the paper in front of them.
"Hey, Mochi, which group are you in?" Hiyori asked.
"Group two."
"Me too!" exclaimed Hiyori happily.
"I'm in group two too," Shioru, who just finished getting the target boards, said as she sat down.
"Damn! We're up against Shioru," Tifa groaned.
"Class, might I stress that although I have placed you in groups, it does not mean that you are up against each other. It is simply a way for me to mark you all quickly and efficiently. So do not get worked up about the thought of competing against each other," Sanada said quickly.
"Too late," said Shioru as she glanced across the room at where Hoshika and Saiko sat.
"Looks like we're in the same group, Hoshika," Saiko dragged the last syllable out with a mixture of excitement and contempt in her voice.
"Che. It's about time you realised who the better one is," Hoshika replied in her I'm-just-too-cool-for-you voice.
"Be quiet!" ordered Sanada as Saiko opened her mouth to retort, a fist already raised. "It's time to start. Group one, if you would come up?"
Those students in group one stood, some hesitantly, other slightly more confident in their performance, and Toshiie, quite comfortable in his skilful splendour, jumped to his feet, and walked quickly to the front of the room. They each performed their chosen kidou spells while Sanada took down notes, and while none were particularly terrible as may have been expected, neither were any particularly impressive. Toshiie, in a hurry to get up there and show the class just who was best, got his hadou spells and bakudou spells mixed up, thus generating an odd mixture of the two which backfired in his face. Shioru had sniggered, but quickly stopped when Sanada threw a particularly severe look at her.
"Group two, if you would please," Sanada said and the last group slowly got up and walked to face their respective target boards.
The six of them had been placed in group three and now stood side by side with their backs to the rest of the class.
"Now, Shioru if you would please perform your chosen kidou spell?" invited Sanada, feeling rather critical of her after hearing her reaction to Toshiie's spell.
Shioru steadied herself and looked firmly at the target in front of her. She recognised it as the one she stole the night before to practice on. She moved her hands to the side of her body, summoning the yellow energy before chanting,
"Way of Destruction, number sixty-three: Thunder Roar Cannon!"
A huge wave of yellow energy sped towards the target board. It consumed the board, turning the coloured rings and white background to charcoal black, despite being designed to tolerate extreme heat and power which kidou spells would often exert.
Trust Shioru to perform a difficult hadou spell without incantation. Although I must say I'm a little surprised with how well she handled that one. I knew she was good, but I had no idea how much control and focus she could have with a high level spell, Mochi thought to herself.
With no comment, Sanada proceeded to ask Mochi to perform her chosen spell.
Mochi had chosen carefully and made sure that she was confident with the spell she would perform. She knew that kidou was not her best subject and it was pointless to force herself to perform a difficult spell when she knew she couldn't execute it with perfect control. She lifted her hands and chanted the incantation smoothly before shouting,
"Way of Destruction, number thirty-one: Shot of Red Fire!"
A red ball of energy flew out and hit the target board. The amount of reiatsu focused on it was well measured and Mochi, feeling satisfied with her performance, stood back more comfortable with criticising the performance of everyone else. .
It was Hoshika's turn next. Ignoring Saiko's snide voice, she focused her whole attention on the board in front of her. She had decided to perform a bakudou spell as she felt more confident with them.
Way of Binding, number thirty: Beak-piercing Triple Beam!"
Pointing a finger at the board, Hoshika shot three beams of light at it. All three beams hit the board although the last one had just managed to shove itself into the top corner of the board, right on the edge. Hoshika scowled, knowing she could've done better. The points where it had hit had not formed a perfect equilateral triangle, but were just off.
When it was Tifa's turn, she stood up calmly and faced the target board. With the complete incantation, she yelled,
"Way of Destruction, number fifty-eight: Orchid Sky!"
A mini tornado spun out from her hands which eventually got bigger, slamming her target board and the two next to it into the back wall. Tifa clapped her hands together, glad that she had done the spell so successfully. Sanada sensei made a small note on his clipboard and proceeded to ask Hiyori to perform her spell on a board which had not already been blown away.
Hiyori took a deep breath, eyed the target board and slowly raised her hands.
She articulated each word of the incantation clearly before saying, "Way of Destruction, number fifty-four: Abolishing Flames!"
A purple ball of light was shot from her hands towards the target board and burned at it so fiercely, that it seemed that if it wasn't for the special material it was made out of, it would have incinerated completely.
With another small glance, and note at the clipboard, Sanada sensei turned, gave Saiko a small smile and said, "Your turn Saiko."
Saiko grinned. It's time for me to kick some ass, she thought as she turned to face her own target board.Problem is, I'm not good at kidou. Maybe I should do one of the easier ones. Self-control is for losers anyway.
"Way of destruction, number one: Thrust!"
The target board swayed this way and that. After much of Saiko chanting 'Come on! Fall!', the board finally gave way and fell over, creating a cloud of dust around it. "YEAH!" Saiko yelled and pumped her fist in the air above her head.
Hoshika clapped mockingly. "Good job with the easiest hadou spell."
Sanada stared at Saiko, wrote down a short comment before dismissing the class. Maybe kidou just wasn't her thing.
* * *
"Hey guys, what's the quadratic formula again?" Tifa asked in a moaning tone.
"How am I supposed to know? Ask Mochi, the nerd," Hiyori said.
"Seriously guys, how dumb can you get? I bet you're all going to fail this test," Saiko said jeeringly, and stuck her tongue out at all of them..
"Says the one who couldn't spell 'isosceles' in her last test," Hoshika said to her.
"Are you trying to pick a fight with me?" Saiko advanced on Hoshika, putting her fists out in front of her, cracking the knuckles on one as she stepped forward.
"No need to get so worked up," Hoshika smirked at her making the already fuming girl even more annoyed. Saiko flipped her off and made to lock her arm around Hoshika's head.
"Ok guys, seriously, you need to stop pouncing on each other every time, it's getting kind of annoying you know." Mochi looked up from her book.
"Shut up, nerd," Hoshika and Saiko both said to Mochi at the same time, both narrowing their eyes in uncanny synchrony.
"I'm not a nerd, I'm just calm and composed," Mochi retorted, not in the slightest put off.
"More like boring," whispered Tifa behind her back.
"I hate Meruvo sensei! He's such a horrible git for springing a test on us!" Hiyori grumbled.
For the next twenty minutes, the six shinigami were quiet as they studied for their maths test. Hiyori, who was getting bored, looked out the window and saw the end of a haori disappear behind the trees.
That figure seems really familiar. I can sort of sense a familiar reiatsu as well.
She dwelled on this thought for a considerable amount of time, staring out the window and racking her brains for their identity. Then it came to her. The haori she saw the other day when they fought the hollow. She glanced at Mochi, wondering if she had seen it too, but even if she had, she wasn't showing it.
"Hey guys, I'm going out for some fresh air, I'll be back soon, okay?" Hiyori stood up and made her way to the door.
She saw Mochi raising an eyebrow at her sudden decision and considered asking her to come too.
Suddenly, another memory came to the fore of her mind.
"...Do you think we should tell?"
"In time."
Hiyori stood, hesitating. I don't think Mochi cared too much about what I saw. It might be for the best if I check it out first. What if it's all a misunderstanding and Mochi gets pissed at me for making a big deal out of it? Then what? Oh, forget it; I'm going to let her find out by herself.
Hiyori closed the door softly behind her and ran out to where she saw the flash of the haori disappear. She decided to walk further into the wood to see if she could find out who the mysterious man was. She heard a rustling sound somewhere ahead and ran towards it. The further she ran, the more thickly wooded it became. Soon, there was hardly a path; only crushed leaves and snapped twigs marked where others had been and along this Hiyori treaded carefully. Suddenly, she lost her footing upon a stray rock and fell down on her face. Ouch, she thought before beginning to feel somewhat faint, and just before she closed her eyes, she saw a pair of sandals and the glint of glasses in the sunlight above her. Her consciousness left her and she saw no more.
The figure that stood in front of her body looked down at the shinigami and smirked. Another stupid one, eh?
* * *
The sun was shining brightly, in an uncomfortably hot manner, making her feel like fire was engulfing her.
"Yah, pull down the blinds Mochi!" Hiyori shouted covering her eyes with her arm.
The heat wouldn't stop.
"Pull down the freaking blinds already!!"
Slowly, Hiyori's eyes opened. There was no Mochi and she was not in her room.
Where am I?
All she could see was bright yellow and orange flames, and it felt like she was standing amongst those flames. But the strangest thing was, it didn't burn her and slowly, she grew accustomed to the heat.
"Wow, do I have like super-powered, non-melting skin or something now?" Hiyori said, looking at her arms.
"You do know that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness?" A mellow and cheerful voice spoke, sounding as if it came from no specific place.
"What? Who said that?" Hiyori looked around but there was nobody.
"Me," the voice replied simply.
"Me? Who's me?"
"You? You're you."
"I know that! I mean, 'me' as in, when you said 'me', who did you mean," Hiyori replied. "Gosh that was a mouthful," she added as an afterthought.
"You're good, but I can do better," the mellow voice came again, drifting around her. "When I said 'you', what I actually meant was 'you' as in, when you had said 'me', what you meant by saying 'me' was actually 'you', that is in the sense of when I say it, it is 'you'."
"Wha…What…" Hiyori was lost for words.
"Gotcha," the voice came again, tinged with glee.
"This is pointless. Okay, ignore everything I just said and answer this question straight on. Who are you and where are you?"
"Did you want me to answer 'who are you' first or 'where are you'?" The voice almost seemed to be mocking her.
"JUST ANSWER ME!" Hiyori was getting impatient.
"Okay, okay, keep your shirt on. I'll answer the second question first: I'm here."
As soon as the word 'here' sounded, a figure materialised in front of her. It was a tall man with shiny teeth dressed in a shiny suit. He looked like he had jumped out of a toothpaste ad and the twinkle in this eye only added to that. He had a small dimple on his cheek which made him appear to be smiling all the time and on his arm…
"A burn-scar! My burn-scar!" Hiyori looked down at her own right arm where she had burnt herself in the accident that happened with her firecrackers so long ago. Looking between her arm and his, she was sure that what appeared to be the same scar was visible on the man's left arm.
"How did you…" Hiyori started to ask but trailed away.
"It's a long and tragic story about the time when I was only 3039 years old and I…" The man had now donned a depressed expression and was watching his feet as he toed the ground.
"On second thoughts, don't tell me," Hiyori grumbled.
"Suit yourself."
"You haven't answered my first question yet. What's your name?" Hiyori inquired again.
"Davide's[1] my name and lame puns are my game!" He put on a cheesy grin with his thumb and index finger positioned under his chin, looking like a failed stand up comedian.
"Davide? Ok…so err, Davide-san, what are you exactly?" Hiyori asked, deliberately ignoring the second half of his sentence.
"What am I? Well isn't that rude. But if you must know, I'm you." He answered and watched for her reaction.
"Not this again… just tell me, what are you?" Starting to get annoying with his extremely roundabout manner of speaking, Hiyori glared at him as she spoke.
"I'm you." He answered again simply.
"What do you mean, 'I'm you'?" Hiyori was starting to get quite well and truly annoyed.
"Well strictly speaking, I'm not actually you because if I were you I would not be in a separate body, thank god for that. But in the real word, or rather, your real world, I live inside your mind so in that sense, yes I am you," he answered, apparently still unwilling to explain fully who and what he was.
"So why, why have I never met you or felt you in my mind before?"
"Well, you have, you just haven't noticed it. What do you think it is that gives you such a flair for awesome puns?" He grinned again as he said this, hoping for some laughs.
"Err…I'd like to think that that's my own talent, thanks." Hiyori folded her arms before she asked, "So what am I supposed to do here?"
"Well, you'll have to wield me of course."
"Wield you?"
"You have chosen me to be your zanpakutou anyway, so I suppose, yes, it would be nice if you were to wield me." His tone had turned to sarcasm,.
"Err…what do I do? To err…wield you," Hiyori asked uncertainly.
"It's actually really simple, just find me and I'll tell you how.'
"Find you? What do you mean? But you're right—", before Hiyori could finish her sentence, the man was gone.
"What? Now what am I supposed to do?"
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, the smoke cleared up. She was standing on solid ground and in front of her, a long staircase that seemed to reach up forever had materialised.
You're joking. I have to climb all that? I swear I'm not going to make it out of here alive.
She gritted her teeth and started to climb. She climbed and climbed and soon she lost track of how long she had been climbing for. After a while, she started to wonder if, when she reached the top, the stupid man would make her tell him how many steps she had just climbed. Well that would suck, she thought.
The more she climbed, more steps seemed to appear. She looked down below her and it didn't look like she had climbed any more than half way. She was starting to breathe heavily and felt like giving up. Not to mention the hot sun which was definitely not helping as it shone its infernal rays on her back. But she had to find out what that man was going to tell her. She had wanted to wield her own zanpakutou for a long time and now she could finally do so. Now if she could just get to the top…She broke into a run, trying to block out any thoughts of giving up and ignoring the burning feeling in her throat and lungs that seemed to suggest they were really quite close to disintegrating and leaving her out of breath on the floor. Just as she felt her legs would simply collapse beneath her, the sunlight ceased to affect her, as if someone had simply flicked a switch, and now she merely felt as if it were a mildly overcast day. Her breathing slowed and, as she looked at the flames below, she drew her sword and whispered, almost unaware of her actions.
"Nozomu, Issendai Hoshi"
Wish, a thousand stars.
Suddenly, the flames rose and grew hotter and bigger, moving towards her and seeing this, she panicked. As she scrambled up the steps, trying to get away, and mentally screaming for the fire to go away, they subsided, and she realised she had some sort of control over them. Aware of this, she attempted to exercise her power over the flames. At her will, they covered the stairs in front of her in the form of a flickering and fiery carpet. Without feeling any sort of pain, she walked them with ease, albeit at a much faster pace than she would have if they were just normal, non-flaming stairs. Before she knew it, she had reached the top and she stepped out onto the landing. The flames stopped burning and she took a step into a temple-like pavilion.
In contrast to the burning heat she had just faced, the room was oddly cold and she felt uncomfortable.
"Find me," Davide's disembodied voice taunted.
"I will! Just you wait!" Hiyori shouted into the dark and empty room, and it echoed back at her, sounding like it too was teasing her.
But it was hopeless. The room soon became so cold she could hardly stand up properly without shuddering, let alone search the place. But she remembered what she had just done, and this time, with no effort, the words came to her again.
"Nozomu, Issendai Hoshi!"
Suddenly it was bright again and she could feel the warmth of the flames upon her back. And in front of her, stood the same man, with his annoying cheesy grin, looking at her.
"Well done, clap clap!" The man held his hands up and clapped enthusiastically.
"Who the hell says, 'clap clap' if they're clapping already," Hiyori grumbled, looking sideways. Then she remembered what she had come here for.
"Oh yeah, you owe me something."
"What?"
"You promised you'd tell me how to wield you if I found you," Hiyori said.
"Well, haven't I already?" he replied
She thought back to what she had just done.
"What? That's called wielding you? All I said were a few words!" Hiyori exclaimed in incredulity.
"And that's all you need," he replied calmly, a simple smile on his face, but then spoiled the moment by saying, "Oho, didn't that sound so very philosophical?"
"Oh shut up. How do I get out of here then?" Hiyori asked, looking around.
"What, don't you like it here?" he man asked with a mock hurt expression on his face.
"Well I would like to go back to living, you know."
"Very well, if you can answer this question, you can go back," he grinned, "how many steps did you just climb?"
Stupid man! How the freak am I supposed to know? I knew he was going to say something like this!I knew it! She thought quickly, panicking, then she smiled, knowing just what to say.
"Zero."
"What?"
"Zero; I didn't climb any stairs just then." Her smile grew bigger, "I was talking to you, wasn't I?"
Suddenly, she felt something forcing itself down her throat and the last thing she saw before her mind went black, was the man scratching his head and looking very clueless.
* * *
"Where's Bakari gone?" Hoshika looked around, "She's been gone for a while now. Look, the sky's all dark."
"D'you think she got lost?" asked Akechi with a small smirk.
"Lost? After being here for so long? Is she really that dumb?" Tifa exclaimed.
"I wouldn't put it past her," Mochi said. "I'll go look for her. She probably got mixed up between the path to the gardens and the path to the main city again."
Saiko looked up, and shook her book at them, "Ffff, why are we even worrying about her? For crying out loud, we have a maths test tomor—"
"I'll come with you," Akechi said, cutting her off, "I'm done with studying anyway."
But they had barely walked further than twenty metres outside their door before a figure cut in front of them.
"Is this your friend? She was lying on the forest floor unconscious when I found her, so I gave her something to drink and she came around. By my reckoning, she probably just fell over and knocked herself out on the ground."
Hiyori stood next to the figure and smiled tentatively. Mochi and Akechi looked at her zanpakutou, now smaller and glinting brighter than before she'd left.
"Yeah, I think I just tripped, when I came around, I couldn't remember where I was, but he helped me find my way back," Hiyori explained, and turned to him. "Thanks."
"No problem. Well then, oyasumi nasai." The man turned to leave.
"Wait!" Mochi said.
"Yes?" he turned around again. Suddenly the moon came from behind a cloud and light shone so his face could be clearly seen.
"Nothing," Mochi whispered.
The man nodded amusedly and walked off, leaving the three shinigami to return to their dorms.
"Guess what? I've finally got my zanpakutou!" Hiyori exclaimed excitedly.
"That's great," said the other two, both sounding bored. But Hiyori, being an unobservant being, did not hear their tone of voice.
"I know, right?" Hiyori skipped out in front of the others and had almost reached the door.
"Bakari!"Mochi shouted out.
"Yeah?" Hiyori turned.
"What was that man's name? Did he tell you?"
"Oh yeah, it was Aizen. Sousuke Aizen."
[1] Davide- Named after the guy from Prince of Tennis who LOOOOVES to say puns. I will now take this opportunity to quote him, "Smash wo shimasu"
Ok guys! Finally, FINALLY I finished this. Well honestly, it's 10 pages on word doc so it's sorta understandable ne? And to all those readers out there who've started to think "Where the freak is this story going?" we've finally started to develop some sort of solid plot.
Please remember to review.