When the instructors arrived at the scene, slightly scraped and very much out of breath, they were greeted with eight exhausted students, a blackened loading bay, and a fifty centimetre hole melted into the asphalt.
"What happened here?" Onabara asked as he marvelled at the destruction wrought.
"Lu- lured a bunch of Hollows here," Izukino spoke first, trying her best to regulate her breathing, though it was also broken by the daredevil grin she produced. "Killed them all."
She looked inordinately proud of herself. Aigis supposed that she deserved it.
"And that hole in the ground?" Hinamori asked, sliding a finger against the melted edges of the asphalt. "Was it a Hollow?"
"My zanpakutou, actually." Aigis replied, her back against one of the abandoned buildings surrounding the loading bay. She had overheated and ran out of reiatsu after that attack, which translated to her being barely able to sit against support, with steam still wafting off her skin despite the chilly weather. "Some of the Hollows who survived the firestorm tried to merge together, so I killed it before it was complete."
"So…" Kira looked around at the students. "Exactly how many Hollows did you all kill?"
For some reason, all eyes turned to Hoshiku.
"Uh…" he hesitated, looked at the midnight sky, then back to his hands and tried to count off his fingers. "Probably around fifty?"
The teachers looked suitably impressed. Matsumoto even gave a whistle. "That's pretty good for your first proper battle," she praised. "Who came up with this plan? Killing fifty Hollows while you're still students is quite the achievement."
All eyes swivelled around to Niijima and Aigis. The teachers followed their gaze.
"Well, that explains a lot." Onabara said dryly.
Niijima bashfully pushed some stray hair out of her face. Aigis was too busy trying to regulate her internal body temperature to care.
"Have you found all the other students yet?" Niijima asked.
"You're the last group," Hinamori replied as she heaved Sakiya off the ground. His cut on the arm had reopened during the fight, and she applied some emergency kaido on the wound. "Thank you for the beacon by the way, it helped us find you."
Niijima sighed in response, too drained after the adrenaline high died down. As each teacher coaxed the students into standing and limping back to their meeting point, Kira approached Aigis.
"I thought I told you to stay put," he said matter-of-factly. For a small mercy, he seemed merely curious, not accusatory. "And what happened to you? You're almost completely out of reiatsu."
Aigis took a deep breath, the cool air helping to regulate her internal body temperature. "If we stayed put, we would have died," she explained. "The Hollows may have ignored us at first, but I did not want to push my luck and have them surround us later in such an open area. As for what happened, my shikai does this whenever I use my strongest ability. It will pass with time."
It seemed like the unfortunate downside of Heritage Liberator Palladion — the fact that it overheated her machinery every time she used it — carried over into her new body. She made a mental note to use it as a last resort, or when she was sure she would be safe afterwards.
Kira gave a low whistle. "It must be quite the ability then, if it carries such a downside." He extended a hand out. "And just this time, I'm going to ignore the fact that you disobeyed my orders, because in this situation, you made the correct choice. Come on, let's get you back to Soul Society." His expression did not change much from his usual dour look, but she noticed the slightest quirk of his eyebrow, a hint of curiosity behind the stoic facade.
She took the hand.
"So I heard you single-handedly slayed a hundred Hollows during your trip to the Living World, Aigis-san?" Ebina stage-whispered, two weeks after the excursion.
Aigis flattened him with an unimpressed look.
Tuition sessions were decreased to once a week as Ebina started overtaking his classmates in his lessons, per Onabara's orders. She supposed that he was trying to be considerate of her workload now that she was about to graduate, though she found no issues balancing tutoring and her course load once she got used to it. Along with his improving grades, Ebina had relaxed a touch, in that he did not seem to be picking a fight with every single person he talked to anymore.
The downside was that he became a gossip.
He was not as bad as some others she knew (nobody could top Matsumoto and her delight in riling up the entire school population after all, not even Rise), but him slowly becoming more receptive to new ideas meant that the students in his cohort were more open to sharing rumours and unusual ideas with him, sometimes blown wildly out of proportion.
"We are in a private training room, Ebina-san," Aigis replied. "Why did you feel the need to whisper?"
"Because you never know if anyone is outside listening!" He did not seem to be listening much, half focused on his report and half lost in a wild fantasy.
She sighed. The other downside of his improving mental health was a slight…she supposed "loss of inhibition" was the correct term for it. Ebina lowered his guard around people, which revealed a rather childish side prone to flights of fancy, though Aigis did make it clear that as long as it was not rude or inappropriate, she would let it go. It was better for him to have some outlet for stress rather than none, and if it was not inconveniencing anyone else, who was she to complain?
In hindsight, that may have fuelled rumours about how the Shadow Operatives contained the weirdest members back when she was alive, but in her defence, being an Operative was a stressful job, and there was merit to finding relief in odd quirks as long as it was not negatively affecting anyone else.
"I told you before, it was a group effort," she emphasised. "And it was only around fifty. What did you even hear from the other students anyway?"
"Some said you defeated a Gillian-class Hollow, but even I think that one was a little too out there." Ebina shrugged. "Others said you blew up an entire block in the Living World."
Aigis idly wondered how many of these rumours were perpetuated by Matsumoto.
"I did not blow up anything," she stated firmly. "Only the Hollows, and it was contained in a loading bay."
Ebina drooped. "That's a shame, it would've been cool if you were able to blow up something."
"I am not blowing anything up without permission from its owners." Aigis frowned.
"Even when you absolutely need to?"
"You do not need to blow up anything to kill fifty Hollows in one go." She put down her brush. "Collateral damage is something to be avoided as much as possible."
"But what if it is for a good cause?" Ebina asked back, his report similarly forgotten.
Aigis sighed. "Is your 'good cause' their cause too?" She retorted. "I have said this before, but each person is different. You cannot apply the same standards and ideals to every person you meet. You could have destroyed someone's livelihood if you blew up a building, for example. Or someone's home. How would you feel if your home suddenly exploded with no explanation?"
"…I'd be annoyed." Ebina muttered, his eyes downcast.
"Exactly," she nodded, satisfied that she conveyed her point. "Unless you have permission from the owner, please do not go around blowing up buildings."
"I suddenly feel very sorry for people with destructive zanpakutous…" he looked thoughtful. "I've heard of bankai that can easily level a mountain, or reshape landscapes. How do you think they kept collateral damage down?"
"There are many ways to do so." Aigis said. She held up her hand, counting down the fingers. "They might have fought in open or abandoned areas where collateral damage would not have been an issue. They might have stuck to less destructive abilities, or forwent using them. Or perhaps they did cause massive collateral damage and simply did not care because the government covered for them."
"Wait." Ebina held out his own hand to stop her, his face scrunched up. "Back up. Would Central 46 do that?"
"All governments do that." Aigis grumbled. "I would be incredibly surprised if Central did not do that at any point in their history. Yes, it could be for benevolent purposes, but it could just as easily be done with malicious intent."
His face scrunched further.
"Governments are not the model pillars of society like you might imagine them as." Aigis went back to her own homework. "There will, of course, be upstanding members of society that genuinely want to improve the country and its people, but many government members are just there for the power that being an official has. There are multiple instances of nepotism-backed promotions and backstabbing. It does not mean that they are useless, because for the most part, having a government is better than not having one, or that a government overall is made up of incompetent people, because being selfish does not necessarily mean being bad at the job. But do not place blind faith in them."
Ebina glumly picked up his brush again.
"Or in anything, in general," she added.
"Yes, Aigis-san…"
They worked in silence for a few minutes, before it was broken again.
"Do you think you can get your bankai before you graduate?" Ebina asked.
"Where did that question come from?" Aigis asked back.
"Well I did mention destructive bankai earlier, and it got me thinking, and besides, you immediately got your shikai too, so maybe…" he started rambling.
Bankai, huh.
It was something to consider.
She had learned about the power of a bankai during class, through the history of wars that Seireitei had participated in. A single bankai could turn the tide of an entire battle, with most of them having fantastical abilities.
Aigis never thought about wielding that kind of power for herself, because she was too used to working with all sorts of restrictions. She did miss her Personae a great deal, though having Palladion around mitigated much of the loneliness. But, well…
She could theoretically attempt to reach it.
"I might ask Onabara-sensei about it," she said finally.
"You'll probably set a record for the shortest time taken to reach bankai, if you get it." Ebina's eyes glittered with excitement.
"Frankly, I do not care." Aigis sighed. "It was never my intention to set records."
Ebina pestered her throughout the rest of the session about her plans, even though she barely had any. Her original goal had been to find out more about the state of Seireitei, and to find any other Persona users she knew of, and while her first goal was still some ways off, the second goal was already partially fulfilled. At this point, it mattered little which division she ended up in after graduation, though perhaps it was time to start narrowing her choices down…
Aigis approached Onabara one day after writing class.
"Can you tell me the requirements for reaching bankai?"
Onabara stopped and narrowed his eyes. "Why the sudden interest?"
"I thought that it was about time for me to try and be better." Aigis replied.
Well, the real reason was that she was hoping for better access to her old abilities back when she was alive. Casting Agidyne during the excursion used up an uncomfortable amount of reiryoku, which indicated that her connection to any Persona not named Palladion or Pallas Athena was imperfect. It was a long shot, but with no other ideas at the moment, perhaps bankai, or the process of reaching bankai would help.
Onabara kept up the frown for a moment more, before he straightened up. "How is your communication with your zanpakutou these days?"
"It is going well, sensei." Aigis replied succinctly.
Class-mandated jinzen sessions meant that she had a few more chances to speak with Metis after their first time last year. Half of the time, it consisted of her scolding Aigis for her lack of imagination for her zanpakutou, while the other half was spent discussing the past and her own fluctuating mental health.
She was a little miffed that the best therapist she could find in Soul Society right now was herself.
But progress was made in terms of her abilities — it was Metis's scolding that made Aigis realise she was neglecting her reserve Personae, though the excursion was the first time she could test it out. And she had thought that her finger guns were her only ranged option until Metis explicitly pointed out the scattered weaponry in her inner world, asking when the hell are you going to use them?
Onabara eyed her over critically, but relented. "Generally you'll need a certain level of reiatsu first, but you've already reached that. The next step would be to manifest your zanpakutou spirit in reality then," he said. "It represents your trust in each other — that your spirit approves of you. Afterwards, it's dependent on the spirit. Some may ask to battle you. Some may instead ask to do other activities with you. Whatever it is, if you can continue to train and bond with your spirit, they may grant you your bankai's name."
"'May'?" Aigis questioned.
"You need to reach their lofty standards after all," he answered. "If you did not, you would not be able to release their full potential. But even after you achieve bankai, it takes a minimum of ten years to master it, so it will very likely not be fit for battle at first. The training is up to you, of course."
For such a powerful upgrade, the process sounded deceptively simple, though Aigis knew from experience that nothing ever is what it seems on the surface. She put a hand over her chest, considering the steps and requirements for each of them.
If she was correct, she could summon her spirit already. If the progression of bankai was as she had suspected, she would know her bankai's name already too. The issue was — was she correct?
Niijima would probably want to hear about this.
"Thank you, sensei." Aigis bowed politely.
Onabara crossed his arms. "I would advise you to start your training only after you graduate. Trying to achieve bankai without any guidance is futile. There has only been one person who achieved bankai while still in the Academy, and there were extenuating circumstances for him."
That caught her attention. "Who was it?" Aigis asked, her head tilted.
"One of the current captains — Hitsugaya Toshiro," he explained. "He was Matsumoto-sensei's superior, so even if she hasn't achieved it, she did witness his training, so I suggest you ask her for further advice."
Aigis had almost hoped for Onabara to name one of the Persona users she knew, but when he instead stated an unfamiliar name, she did her best to not let her disappointment show on her face, though the fact that Matsumoto witnessed bankai training was a piece of unexpected, but useful information. For all her faults, she really was an accomplished shinigami.
"Thank you, sensei." Aigis bowed again, grateful for the information.
"You're welcome." Onabara nodded. "Like I said, do not attempt bankai training until after you graduate."
"Yes, sensei," she answered, fully intending to ignore it.
Aigis roped Niijima into cornering Matsumoto a few days later, during a lull in their hakuda lesson. Aigis had told Niijima about her conversation with Onabara right afterwards, about how she felt it was about time for her to attempt bankai, and the basic requirements for it, because no normal shinigami would even attempt bankai normally until at least a few decades after they reached shikai, and even reaching that was not guaranteed for rank-and-file shinigami. It was a good thing that Niijima felt ready for it too, because additional support for Aigis's arguments was always appreciated.
"Well now, it's rare that you both come looking for me." Matsumoto commented, her hands on her hips and an amused glint in her eye. "Out with it, what do you want?"
"Bankai," Niijima blurted out. "We heard that you witnessed Captain Hitsugaya's bankai training, and we'd like some tips, if you have any."
Matsumoto raised an eyebrow in surprise. "This early?"
"There is not much point in delaying." Aigis replied. "I believe we are ready to start training for it."
"Hmm." Just like Onabara, Matsumoto gave both of them a critical look from head to toe. "I suppose you are," she nodded approvingly. "Well, if you're insistent, I can tell you what I've seen. Look for me after class today at my office, okay?"
The Persona users nodded.
So this was how they found themselves at the teacher's lounge, after class finished for the day. It was lucky that Aigis did not have tutoring to conduct on the day, so there was no need to reschedule anything. The other teachers were suspiciously out of the office too, so the three of them had the space to themselves.
"Where to start…" Matsumoto murmured, splayed out on the sofa while Aigis and Niijima each took a wooden chair. "Guess it began when I first found Captain in Rukongai."
Matsumoto recounted her story, about how she found a bullied boy in one of the inner districts, with reiatsu too great for him to control. How she encouraged him to become a shinigami, only to see him graduate from Shin'ou in a single year, enter the Gotei, and work his way up to captain within a few short decades.
"I only saw part of his bankai training, where he was trying to master it," she continued. "Technically it wasn't very usable for the first few decades, but he was forced to use its incomplete form for much of the Winter War and the Vandereich invasion. What I can tell you is that mastering his bankai involved a lot of jinzen, and a couple destroyed training halls."
"Have you ever attempted to reach bankai yourself, sensei?" Niijima asked.
"Well, yeah, I wasn't going to get shown up by a brat." Matsumoto said flippantly. "But Haineko was too temperamental and lazy to attempt it. So it's a shame, but I wasn't able to reach bankai at all."
Aigis briefly wondered how her teacher was so blind to her own glaringly obvious flaws. She squashed the thought down before she could voice it, though the polite mum look on Niijima's face meant that she was probably thinking something similar.
"So, is communication with your zanpakutou spirit key to unlocking bankai?" Aigis asked.
"You've got to work with it." Matsumoto answered, her posture straighter now. "It is a representation of yourself, even if you might not like it. Learn to accept yourself as you are, and your spirit will answer in kind."
Why did it sound so much like a Persona awakening?
Niijima looked contemplative, her hand on her chin and her legs crossed on the seat. "Accepting yourself, huh…"
"Well, don't overthink it too much!" Matsumoto patted both of them. "Getting bankai is a process, and it will take a long time. There's no need to rush!"
They were not attempting to rush, but Aigis could not discard the nagging feeling that she should be able to reach bankai by now, but something was preventing her from doing so. While Matsumoto's stories were somewhat useful, they did not bring her much closer to the answer Aigis was seeking. She was better suited to working with logic, not emotions.
It was ironic. Wild Cards were all excellent at reading and regulating the moods of other people. Aigis tried her best, but she felt that she never could quite keep up with the other guests of the Velvet Room, despite her experience. Her attempts often fell flat compared to others in the same situation. She theorised that it might have been related to how she got her Wild Card power — "borrowed" from Makoto when he became the Great Seal, considering that she could not access the Persona Compendium, but the few times she asked Elizabeth about the topic, she just smiled evasively, patted Aigis's shoulder and told her that one day, she would be able to call that power her own.
It had been almost three hundred years since she first asked, and Aigis still had no answers.
"It's useful that you can rent a training room without raising any suspicion, Aigis-san." Makoto said, admiring the simple, but sturdy beams of the room. She had never gone in here before, having found no use for the private training rooms, but apparently, this was where Aigis usually conducted her tuition sessions.
"Tutoring paid off in unexpected ways." Aigis agreed as she pushed the scant furniture of the room to the sides. "Though is all this secrecy necessary?"
"Do you want to give Rangiku-sensei more fuel for gossip?"
Aigis had the decency to stop and consider the statement for a moment. "No," she decided. "But I think we gave her enough already."
Well, that was true. "Maybe we can blackmail her, if we want her to keep quiet about us attempting bankai." Makoto suggested.
She was not sure where she could find the material, but surely some of the students must have something?
Unexpectedly, Aigis looked away, her hand on her chest and face dusted pink.
"Wait, don't tell me you have actual blackmail material?" Makoto asked incredulously.
"…maybe?" Aigis's voice came out in an uncharacteristic mumble. "She told me a little about her love life when she was drunk once. But it's pretty private information, and I'd feel bad if I used it as blackmail."
"She had an actual love life?" Makoto pressed. "I just thought she was a flirt to everyone! Sure she's competent at her job but I didn't think she could actually fall in love with anyone!"
"It apparently did not go anywhere, and he's been dead for a while. He tried to take revenge on someone on Matsumoto-sensei's behalf and died for it." Aigis elaborated.
That was…much more depressing than what Makoto had expected. She wondered if her teacher's flirtatious ways were done to fill the hole in her heart.
Makoto sighed. "Let's use it as a last resort then."
They both brought their zanpakutou for this attempt at bankai. With the furniture out of the way, they sat down in the middle of the room, legs crossed and swords on their laps. Makoto took a deep breath, then honed in on Johanna.
The world slowed. A gentle rumble emerged from within, the soft purr of an engine.
Are you ready?
Another purr, low and steady.
Judging by the slowly rising levels of reiatsu from Aigis, she was close to ready too.
Manifesting her spirit should be simple. Makoto had done this plenty of times before, though always through a medium. She did not have her iron mask anymore, but it was easy to imagine its familiar weight on her face, the side of her that she showed to the world to protect herself.
Her fingers grasped the phantom edges of her mask.
"Persona!"
Twin cries rang throughout the room, echoing off the bare walls. Johanna rested in front of her, a sleek, silver motorcycle still burning with embers of blue flame from the summoning.
"It's good to see you again, Johanna." Makoto smiled.
"And I am glad to see you in good health, my lady." Johanna did not speak, because her mask at the front of the motorcycle was incapable of moving, but the voice seemed to reverberate through the chassis, coming out as a gentle rumble. Makoto felt the pride and relief from her all the same.
She looked across to her friend, and it was only then that Makoto realised Aigis had summoned something that was decidedly not her Persona.
The newcomer looked like an inverted palette of Aigis's robot body, with black hair, metallic black exoskeleton, a red butterfly visor, and blood red eyes. A frown marred her porcelain face.
"That's…not Palladion." Makoto stated.
"No, she is Palladion." Aigis disagreed. She carried a similar frown on her face as her doppelgänger. "What I do not understand is how my Shadow came to be summoned."
"That's your Shadow?!" Makoto exclaimed.
She knew that Shadows and Personae were two sides of the same coin — a tamed Shadow of a specific person was essentially a Persona. She had witnessed it early on in her career as a Phantom Thief, but it was only after she met the Investigation Team that she realised Futaba's awakening was the clearest indicator of the relationship. The fact that Aigis's Shadow appeared when she had by all means been trying to invoke her own Persona was a worrying indicator of her mental health.
The black robot folded her arms together. "I've been talking to you in this appearance all this time, haven't I?" she snapped. "It is unlike you to be blind to all the signs, Sister."
Makoto gaped. Johanna's engine purr was almost silent.
The Shadow turned towards the pair and did a shallow courtesy. "I do not believe we have met. My name is Metis. Please don't mind us as I correct my sister, Makoto."
A/N: Mweeheehee :3
Happy holidays everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a happy New Year! Consider this chapter my belated Christmas present - I haven't had as much time to write lately, between work from home, improving my art, playing through P5R, and looking for a new job, I haven't had the energy to write as much. But this chapter has been finished for a couple weeks now, and I still have 1 more chapter in the backlog, so I'll be fine for a while.
Gonna open this up for guesses on the name of the next chapter. If you've paid attention to how I name mine, you should have a decent idea. First one who gets it correct gets a little cookie?
