Most lectures, the novelty wears off five to fifteen minutes into it. Varying by subject and voice of the speaker, of course. My first 'class' was an official welcome, and a 'brief' discourse on the history of the shinigami, the founding of the academy and the construction of Seireitei by the current Sou-taichou. I'd paid attention the whole way through. On top of that, I'd taken notes. It was a little disturbing, actually. I've never done that before…
After that, it was a surprisingly mundane routine. A few simple written tests to gauge intelligence and education, followed by introductions and a brief word in front of the class to explain why we'd each wanted to become a shinigami. The usual forced social interaction that I'd always hated. This really was turning out a lot like high school…
Thankfully, the next part was quite relaxing.
"KYAAAA!"
The butt-end of my bokken came up and hooked neatly under my opponent's wrist as he stepped in for an overhead strike, and the blade went under his armpit. A shift with my hands and a twist of my hips sent the man rolling over me and onto the floor, and I heard a mixed response from the judges and other students at my display.
The newest recruits, myself included, were being run through a series of tests to gauge our abilities to determine what level we would be starting at in the academy. The shinigami academy didn't work like the schools I was used to, there was no exact 'pass' or 'fail' Once a shinigami was deemed ready, their marks determined where they were assigned in the Gotei 13. I'd scored decently in the physicals and the unarmed combat (hakuda) tests, but the training I'd received let me shine in the swordsmanship (zanjutsu) tests. But man, if I didn't tone this down, or at least score high in the kido tests, I was going to end up in 11th squad.
Kido. Now this was something I'd been looking forward to. I was exhausted after combat practice and had stuffed myself at lunch. I was still hungry, but I felt ready to blast the crap out of anything they put in front of me.
Sitting peacefully on the stand, alligator clamps rudely connecting it to a machine that spat out streams of paper with unreadable scratches on it, a small crystal was my test, waiting to take a simple measurement of my reiatsu.
When my name was called, I stood and walked down to the floor of the lecture hall, the students before me who'd scored high congratulating each other.
"Alright…Teranaga-san…" The aged instructor took another look at the clipboard he was holding before waving me forward and fiddling with one of the many dials on the machine next to him. "Just place your hand on the crystal, and allow your reiatsu to be absorbed by it."
I stepped forward and began to warm up, but stopped when a flash of pain went through my arm. This was the second time that'd happened now. Damn …I must've taken overdone it earlier…
I heard snickering behind me when I paused to rub the aching muscle.
"Teranaga-san, anytime…"
I laid my hand on the crystal and focused my energy down into it. The machine had a seizure, tossing up sparks and wisps of smoke, the paper reel jamming in a chorus of grinding gears. When I pulled my hand back, the crystal was blackened and cracked.
"Oh! My apologies, sensei."
I stood there with my best awkward pose as the teacher fretted over the ruined machine, and I saw him release a strange black butterfly as I returned to my seat, wearing my best innocent face as I passed the people staring at me. Going through high school once as one of the invisible types was hell enough. This time, I'd thought I'd make a good first impression.
And that's why I sat down carefully, and tried not to let anyone see how much pain I was in.
Whatever it was, it was down to a dull ache after a few minutes, and class thankfully ended early, the students encouraged to go out, mingle with each other and try talking to a few of the seated officers that were at the academy to look over the freshest batch of recruits. Me, I went straight for the infirmary and took a seat after talking to the waiting nurse.
And then I promptly passed out.
I came back to my senses to see the familiar green relief band worn by fourth squad. My head was lifted up and something bitter went done my throat. Tasted terrible, but it cleared my head. Guess some things never change…
"How do you feel?"
"Like a hollow 's been pounding on my damned insides…"
I felt worse then before, like I'd gone a dozen rounds with a hollow, drained and almost numb. Still, I forced myself to sit up even as a pair of arms tried to push me back down. I was inside the infirmary, bare walls and white sheets annoyingly familiar. I turned to see a skinny, average-looking guy eyeballing me in a 'I just fixed you so please don't do anything crazy' fashion that screamed 'doctor.'
"Unnnggg…What happened?"
"Oh, it's just a simple case of reiatsu starvation. You'll be fine with some rest."
"Reiatsu-what?"
"Oh, it's…well, you have your body, and the reiatsu it generates. When you expend your energy as forcibly as you did, the body may respond by cannibalizing itself to replenish it's stores of energy. You really should be more careful during kido training."
"I wasn't doing any kido training. I just got here. I was doing the crystal test thing."
"Ah, that brings back memories…wait a moment…you mean to say you weren't actually expending any reiatsu?"
"No, I just…charged up, and…"
He hmm'ed, putting his hands together and making some odd twisting and sliding motions with his fingers as they lit up. He placed a hand over my solar plexus, tilting his head as if he was listening for something.
"Strange…There's no damage to the chain link or the soul sleep…would you draw out some reiatsu for me?"
"A-alright…"
I began to warm as energy floating freely began to condense and take form along the meridians of my body. Feeling returned and washed the numbness away, and I began to breathe easier as my chest hummed with reiatsu once again.
"Everything looks-"
Something shook inside me, lines of energy snapping and twisting. I convulsed, nearly falling off the bed as everything went wrong inside me, my left arm paralyzed like I'd hit a live wire, my right leg feeling like boiling water had been poured over it, the bruises from earlier feeling fresh and crying out louder then before.
Someone shouted. More hands went on me and held me down as I continued to shake, darkness swimming around my vision. I fell unconscious listening to shinigami yelling at each other, and a cold presence that withdrew as they worked to help me.
You ass.
"What?"
You need to learn to take care of yourself…
"Who's there?"
I opened my eyes to a grey fog, solid beyond arm's reach, concealing everything but the ground I was standing on, gray slates run through with red veins like marble. I stood, still in pain, to see a current in the air that might have been someone moving through it. I stumbled forward and the fog parted before me, but staying thick and impenetrable beyond an unnervingly short distance.
Damn, I got stuck with a complete idiot. Nevermind picking a fight with a hollow ten times your size…when you were already tapped and beaten up, I might add.
"Who-where am I? What is this?"
I followed a disgusted sound forwards, and reached out but caught nothing but more fog when I felt something move past me.
Ah, you're hopeless. Doesn't even know his own mind…
"My own m…? Show yourself!"
Pfft…you expect me to do everythingfor you, dipshit? This actually requires a little effort on your part, ya' know.
"What? What are you talking about?"
A disgusted sound was the only reply, and the feeling of something moving away. I yelled and reached out.
I woke with a yell, shaking as I tried to catch my bearings. A hand was holding my wrist softly, but it might as well have been made of cast iron – it wouldn't move an inch. I was back in the infirmary, white walls mocking me with their damn…whiteness. I followed the hand around my wrist back to a serene face framed by a long braid. The woman holding my arm guided it back down to my chest before letting go. I flexed it gently, but it wasn't bruised in the slightest.
"Ahh…"
I tried to sit up. She asked me to relax and lay still. I stayed still.
"You awoke on your own, that's good. I was beginning to worry…"
"Awa…wha? I…" What had…I had gone to…and…"Everything…hurt, and I…"
"You were in a coma."
"A coma? What? Why?"
I startled at the word and began to flail around, trying to get off the bed and away, to someplace safer, maybe. The woman placed a hand flat on my chest and held me down without an apparent effort, talking to me, reassuring me until I finally calmed. Looking around, I saw I wasn't in the academy infirmary anymore. It was a small room, a mess of the techno-mystic gear that shinigami used next to the bed I was in, chirping out my vital signs merrily.
"I…I'm guessing…this isn't reiatsu starvation…"
She smiled, a smile for delivering bad news, but I still felt a little better for it.
"No…no, I'm afraid not…"
Unohana Retsu, captain of 4th squad. My case had been so strange; the medics had called for her personally. It felt like yesterday since the academy infirmary, but I was shocked to hear it had been nearly two weeks. In the days that followed, I learned a little more about what happened to me as I was held for testing and observation.
From what I could understand, the souls of people who didn't have any reiatsu to speak of could get by with just water, while those with reiatsu needed to digest the higher-density spirit particles in food to fuel the creation of reiatsu. Normally, a spiritual body (like mine) capable of generating reiatsu needed a certain store of said reiatsu inside it to function, but for whatever kami-damned reason, my body chewed up the reiatsu it generated almost as fast as it could make it. It was acting like a biological body with an out-of-control metabolism. I was hungry again by the time the food I ate was digested, and if I tried to 'charge up' I'd burn out my reserves so fast my body would react by cannibalizing itself for the energy it needed.
Needless to say, I'd been pretty screwed over. Even Unohana-taichou admitted that she'd never seen anything like this, and that she had no idea how to fix the problem. I spent three days under fourth squad's care before I went stir-crazy and asked to be let out. Without a solution, the only advice they could give me was to not, under any circumstance, to generate more reiatsu than I absolutely needed to get by.
A week after returning to the academy, I was going nuts. I couldn't participate in kido classes, couldn't use shunpo, couldn't even raise my reiatsu in defense when a seated officer walked by, and I was always hungry.
Ironically, this had a few fringe benefits. I didn't need to expend reiatsu for even the heaviest purely physical work, so I concentrated on exercising my traitorous little body at every opportunity. By the end of a few months, I was in the best shape of my life. It helped, but only by the smallest degree.
On top of that, since reiatsu was heavily restricted during zanjutsu tests for fairness between those of varying degrees of power, my handicap wasn't an issue. In addition to all my physical training, plus the fact that other shinigami, particularly the stronger ones, were used to and couldn't help but rely on their reiatsu during combat, this gave me a serious advantage. I was soon at the top of the zanjutsu classes.
But kido classes were barred to me. The only thing I that could do was the focusing exercise, hours on hours spent with my hands pressed together, trying to make the use of my reiatsu as efficient as possible, to squeeze out every last scrap of energy without the slightest waste.
I did get a lot of reading in, studying everything I could fit into my brain. Medical techniques. Tried to learn otherworldly physics and the scientific applications of reiatsu. The history of the other side and whatever random trivia was in reach to keep my mind off my problem when I got depressed.
Soon, I was one of the best swordsmen in the academy, but outside those walls I couldn't cut the weakest of hollows with what little reiatsu I could muster.
When a hollow or another shinigami allowed their reiatsu to bleed out into the surroundings, when the wayward energy infringed on another's, the intrusion felt and the feeling recognized, thusly the talent for sensing the reiatsu of others was developed. I'd built up an iron-clad control of my reiatsu, to the point that not a single particle went to waste, making me effectively invisible to that sense, but I still couldn't expend enough energy to light a candle.
It felt like some fantastic, cosmic joke was being played on me. And when it came to the annual review, the time to decide if any students were ready to be assigned to the gotei 13, it only got worse.
