Tap, tap, tap.
The sound echoed through the twilight world, a foot sounding out a rhythm on the red-veined slate beneath it. For what seemed like hours, nothing else had been heard in this world.
I was going past impatient and working my way up to pissed. Months ago, after falling comatose because of my disability, I had found myself in a strange, barely-lit place floored with rough tiles and choked by fog. I'd thought it was a dream at first, but when it came up during my examination by fourth squad, I'd learned it was something else entirely. I had fallen so deep inside myself that I'd been forcefully introduced to a part of me that was born when I became a shinigami. I had learned that this nil-space was a representation of my own mind, that the voice I had heard was that of my zanpakutou. I had done, days after becoming a shinigami, something that most took a good year to do. Another of my condition's little 'fringe benefits.'
So I was told to find this place again, to speak to my sword, to learn from and attune to it, to bring out my true power. So I did. Over the course of time, the fog had receded. It had once hung solid at arm's length, and there was now a clear space around me nearly thirty feet across. Some days, I thought I saw something like a red sky above me when the fog thinned on occasion. But there were still places barred to me, where the fog would not recede as I approached, barriers where the wisps of fog were solid as stone to my hands.
I had made progress. Slow, agonizing progress. But because my illness apparently wasn't curse enough, and I had been stuck with the most foul-mouthed, self-centered, bat-shit crazy little bastard that I'd been ever forced to stand and listen to! And that's only when he actually deigns to speak to me…I've stood in this place for hours on end without hearing anything from him, and then he starts babbling about seemingly random topics in a frenzy – everything from the clothes I wear to what I eat, to the way I talk to people.
Sometimes I can just sense him floating just beyond my vision, being perfectly quiet, waiting until I finally lose my temper and start screaming bloody murder at him, and then he'll start laughing his ass off and congratulating me for it, for whatever reason. Sometimes, even when I think I am making progress, he'll pull away in a rush of frigid air that sends me back to consciousness and chilled to the bone.
There hasn't been any chill yet, so I know he's out there somewhere, waiting for some kind of outburst from me. Or I'll outwait him and he'll lose his patience, nitpicking about some tiny little thing from my day that I'd probably forgotten about.
"Screw this…"
I have better things to do. I turn and begin looking for that one tile where the red veins converge, a representation of my desire to leave this place. It always takes a few minutes to find…
Hey…
"Huh?"
Don't 'huh' me. Who else could it be?
That's…weird. My zanpakutou, for once, sounds tired. Almost subdued.
"I don't know. You won't give me your name."
Yeah, well, it doesn't work like that…
"I know, I know. 'The zanpakutou doesn't give its name, but when you have attuned yourself with that higher part of your being, you will realize you have known it all along."
Something a teacher had said in class. Talking to your zanpakutou was supposed to be partly spiritual, partly psychological. For me it was mainly a pain in the ass.
Yeah…
Huh? What's wrong with him/me?
…Us?
"What's-"
The winds began to whip up, stronger than I've ever remembered. I could see frost forming on the ground, and I fumbled between putting my hands in the sleeves of my robe and raising them to shield my face.
You gotta get attuning…
The winds howled, and a blast of almost tangible cold slashed through the space between the space between my zanpakutou's presence and I.
"What? I can't-"
YOU NEED TO KNOW MY NAME!
The world stilled, the fog frozen solid in the air, my sandals stuck to the ground by a sheet of ice. I heard a single deafening crack before the world shattered and fell away, everything going dark.
"Hey! HEY!"
"Wha…"
There was a face above me. Another student, I couldn't place his name. He was shaking my shoulder, looking at me in concern. My 'condition' was well known on the campus. More then one prospective 4th squad medic had sat in on a reiatsu transfusion, the only kind of treatment that could help when I'd overstretched myself One of the advanced students, a genius at the top of his class, had asked if he could run a few experiments on me, write up a paper he hoped would make an impression on the twelfth squad come time for squad assignment.
"I'm…I'm fine, thanks."
I stood carefully, leaning on the tree I'd been sitting under for support. I smiled and nodded to the other student, who only looked at me in mild disbelief as I thank him for his concern and started off for the cafeteria. I was always particularly famished when that jackass zanpakutou of mine gave me the cold shoulder.
A minute later, after the two of us were gone, a leaf tore itself from the branch it was hanging from and plummeted to the ground. It shattered on impact, ice crystals clinging to it despite the midday sun.
Nom, nom, nom…Ernnh! n' gd t'dey…
The one thing I'd actually grown to hate since becoming a shinigami was eating. Even though I'd learned early on to bring a book, it was still mind-numbingly boring. It'd take a good half-hour of solid chewing to get just enough food to last me through the day. At least I didn't have to worry about going to the bathroom a proportionate amount – shinigami digestion of spirit particles was many times more efficient than humans and real food.
As I worked on my third bowl of soup, I rudely pulled my zanpakutou out and laid it on the table in front of me. The main colors were crimson over grey, with a smattering of multicolored threads woven haphazardly throughout the grip at random. It had no real guard to speak of and I flicked away a drop of water than had run down onto my finger, pausing my meal to carefully wipe away the melting flakes of frost on the blade. I lifted it back up, but paused before sheathing it, gripping the blade tightly with my bare hands. It was still cold.
Cold?
I get the feeling like I've forgotten something...
Whatever the thought was, it was left behind as my zanpakutou's odd behavior replayed in my mind. He was always so loud, almost manic when he got going. But today, he'd seemed almost…worried.
No.
He was desperate.
And the cold…I always felt the cold when I overtaxed myself. Was it a symptom of my illness? Was I getting worse? Those I'd talked to were divided about the idea of releasing my zanpakutou. Some thought the strain might be too much for my body. Some thought it might help me. My zanpakutou was a part of me. Could it know something I didn't?
The gong sounded, calling the students to class. I downed the last bit of soup and sheathed my sword in a hurry. Today was a day I'd been looking forward to for a long time.
"I can't?! COME ON!"
"Teranaga-san, please…"
It was the day for the annual test given to students, the same test in which I'd fought and died all those months ago. Granted, I was stuck to armed and unarmed combat classes, and the few other things that didn't require much use of reiatsu, but despite my pathetically low reiatsu I had good grades across the board.
"I can do this. I have done this!"
"Your ability is not is question, student. It has never been so. However, your reiatsu-"
The wood of the desk splintered under my fist, and the instructor broke off with a start, the students seated around me jumping in surprise. What little energy I had was bleeding away, hissing and angry in the air around me.
My reiatsu. My condition. My weakness. The mockery, the pity, the false politeness people showed me…
The way I always had to force myself to be so damned calm all the time if I didn't want to make things worse…
"Your rei…Class, can anyone tell me why we have these tests in the mortal world?"
Most were still staring at me. A few looked the teachers' way, but no one answered.
"This is because that while shinigami gain the majority of our reiatsu from the food we eat, we also absorb, and our abilities affected by, the great density of high-level spirit particles present in soul society. A concentration that is much lower in the mortal world. We travel there for testing because it is the only way to gain a truly accurate measurement of a shinigami's ability."
I was only half listening, staring at the splinters in my hand. I wasn't in the habit of outbursts like that, and looking at the blood on my hands, with the sound of the impact ringing in my ears, the world looked very abstract for a few moments.
"Indeed, when most shinigami travel to the mortal world for the first time, they invariably feel disoriented, have the control of their special abilities disrupted, and suffer a severe drop in the amount of reiatsu their body can generate."
"It'd been easier to just say, 'I'd drop dead,' wouldn't it?"
The teacher started up some very nice words of inspiration and encouragement.for the students present, but as his gaze swept the classroom, he didn't once look me straight in the eye.
Trailing blood, I turned and left without another word.
