Chapter 8 | All Things Spiritual
With my composure and resolve back, I returned to the picnic area where Kisuke, Jun and now Tessai were all drinking tea.
"Ah, Tamaki-chan," Kisuke held his arms wide open with a goofy smile, "we were beginning to get worried!"
"Yeah, right. Anyway, I'm back for round two."
Kisuke lowered his head a bit, his striped hat casting a shadow over his eyes once again. "Well, I think it's nigh time that we actually did something then! We could talk all day, but some things are easier to show."
The four of us made our way to an empty, well, emptier area. Kisuke positioned himself some twenty meters away from me, while the others were watching from the sides, Jun sitting and Tessai standing behind him.
"Reiatsu—spiritual pressure, simply put, is what you use to influence your surroundings, including other souls. Everyone lets out reiatsu, but it's especially noticeable when fighting. It's like what you felt during your and Takenaka-kun's fight against that hollow, and…"
The air surrounding Kisuke rippled, the ground beneath him shook. A deep crimson corona surrounded him, which only grew stronger and stronger by the second. I gasped for air, feeling as if I was being suffocated. My whole body quivered.
"...and what you feel now," Kisuke finished. The intensity of his reiatsu ceased to ramp up. "If powerful enough, this alone can kill. But it's also like a flare, anyone with good enough reikaku will notice you. That's why control over it is important."
J-Just… how powerful is he? My legs shook so much that they gave out and I fell onto my knees.
"When tampered with intent, say, bloodlust," Kisuke continued his demonstration, and suddenly a black void appeared behind him, nightmarish tendrils slithering towards me.
I-I'm going to die..!
"And when refined with technique…" Kisuke raised his arm, the crimson light surrounding him becoming focused on his hand, coating his fist. He punched the ground, splitting it along a straight line passing a mere meter to my right. A shockwave spread through the air, followed by a strong gust of wind that picked up dust. The noise from the impact and the crumbling rocks was deafening. I slowly turned my head only to see that this crack was deep and reached far off into the distance.
That man… he is beyond terrifying!
Kisuke crossed his arms. "Now it's your turn. Focus on the inside, and reach out to the core of your soul. Bring out the power that is yours!"
Despite Kisuke lowering his reiatsu considerably, it was still hard for me to just stand up. My limbs were shaky and at times unresponsive to my will.
I-I have to calm down… damn it all, control yourself, Koharu!
Deep breaths in, deep breaths out. I focused inwards, submerging into the black sea of my mind. There, I flet two things tugging at me.
One was the primal fear that Kisuke had managed to rouse in me, as if urging me to succumb to it, to panic and scream. I felt a tinge of disgust, for my weakness and lack of control.
The other one was my sixth sense, but not quite. Something beyond it soothed me, like hearing a steady stream of water that flowed no matter what. It urged me to quiet down and shut off all my other senses.
I metaphorically extended my two arms towards these two distinct feelings, reaching in to grasp the power that Kisuke wanted me to find. I reached deeper and deeper, until finally, some kind of door opened.
And open the floodgates it did. An intense heat spread from my chest to all over my body. Reiatsu poured out violently from somewhere inside of me, like a fire hydrant that had been cracked open. I felt strong, stronger than ever before, like I could take on the world, yet at the same time like I was being split apart, pulled in opposite directions by my limbs.
Tessai and Jun watched from the sidelines as I ramped up my reiatsu. A whirlwind was forming around me, though it would've been more accurate to say two whirlwinds, spinning in opposite directions.
"Tessai-san..?" Jun asked, starting to sweat. "Isn't reiatsu supposed to be, you know, one color?"
Tessai shrugged, his arms crossed. "Usually."
Jun held a hand in front of him to cover his eyes from the picked up dust. "Then why the hell is her reiatsu both green and purple?!"
Instead of reaching out I was now caught between two ropes pulling me, feeling like I was about to be torn apart. I tried holding on, but the pain became too much in the end.
My reiatsu dissipated in an explosive and flashy burst. I collapsed to my knees again, breathing heavily and coughing my lungs out. Kisuke walked up to me and leaned down.
"Lesson one, clear!"
I shivered, trying to catch my breath. Kisuke kept staring at me, thoughts running in his head that I couldn't begin to understand. A minute or so later when my body calmed down, he spoke up. "How did it feel?"
The moment I was able to, I explained that it was a sensation unlike any I had felt before. For the first time I wasn't an empty shell or husk and actually had some sort of fire within me. And yet…
"It… it was like I was being towed in two directions. I felt like I was about to be split in two." I coughed again.
Kisuke nodded sagely. "Well you certainly put up quite a show, Tamaki-chan! And I must say, I'm very impressed! This level of reiatsu isn't something you develop overnight, less so in an hour." He once again narrowed his eyes. "What did you reach out to, if I may be curious?"
I stared at him for a moment. I was almost torn apart from inside out, yet he behaved like nothing was amiss. I shook my head lightly, before looking at my right hand. "First I thought it was just one thing, but it quickly split into two. One was a feeling of calmness somehow connected to my spiritual sense. It felt like watching a stream of water, yet somehow feeling every single drop of water at any given time."
Then I looked at my left hand. "The other came from deeper within. When you directed your bloodlust at me," I shuddered and glanced towards him, still feeling the aftereffects, "a primal fear surged forth. The same one I told you about before."
"And?"
"And… I reached out to both."
Kisuke nodded, staying in silent contemplation. I held my breath, awaiting some kind of response, yet he just sprung up and went back to his goofy aloof behavior. "Alrighty then, onto lesson two!"
W-What a frustrating man, my eye twitched, he doesn't intend to tell me any of his thoughts, does he? Still, he is helping me...
"Jun-kun!" Kisuke beckoned the boy to join us. He brought some weird training gear with him as well: two sets of a white headband and a pair of white, puffy gloves.
"Boxing gear?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Kisuke simply smiled. "Tamaki-chan, I want you to fight Jun-kun!"
I blinked. He wants me to fight him? But he's a kid! I took the boxing set with hesitation and glanced at Jun. Okay, not much younger than me, but still!
"With this outlandish gear?".
Jun meanwhile quickly put on the gear and started hopping lightly, throwing a few light punches in the air. He looked ready to fight.
Kisuke opened his fan. "Ready? Set…"
"Wha- Hey, just hold on a minute…!"
"Go!"
Alarm bells went off at the back of my head. Jun closed the distance with a speed that I wouldn't have expected at all. I barely managed to sidestep his punch. Jun's fist connects with the ground, obliterating it and raising a cloud of dust in its wake. I was lucky enough to only get flung out of there by the shockwave.
Reikaku had saved my ass again.
I gulped and ran to get the gear I had dropped. This is Urahara-sensei, so no doubt they're special or something? Fortunately, Jun let me put the gloves on in peace. The headband though, I couldn't figure out. Unfortunately, Jun did not give me that much time and resumed his unrelenting assault. He was such a nice boy just a moment ago, how the hell can he turn into a machine of destruction in a mere moment?!
Urahara and Tessai stood on the side, commenting on this show like two old men watching a horse race. Growing irritated at both them and from being unable to get the headband working, I shouted to them.
"Urahara you bastard, how do I put this thing on?!"
"Listen closely Tamaki-chan! You have to put it on like this!" he shouted back, gesturing to his head as if he held the headband himself. He shouted dramatically: "And then you say the incantation: Take this! Power of justice! Armor of justice! Justice headband! In place!"
What the hell is that outlandish phrase?
"AS IF I WOULD SAY THAT!" I was ready to throw the headband onto the ground, but Jun again approached me with a silent but deadly punch. I dodged with a silly and awkward pirouette while I prepared for the most daunting task ahead: Swallowing my pride and actually repeating after Kisuke.
"T-Take this! Power of justice! Armor of justice! Justice headband! In place!" I shouted while holding the headband to my forehead.
Nothing happened.
"Oh my. Tamaki-chan actually did it," Kisuke whistled, while holding his fan in front of his mouth.
"I'LL KILL YOU URAHARA!" I screamed while fiddling with the headband, until suddenly it actually clicked and attached to my head. Now I was finally ready. Though, one could argue that whatever protection the headband gave was useless in front of such terrifying force.
I stopped running, raising my hands in some sort of imitation of what I had seen in some shonen manga. Jun, noticing the shift in the mood, also stopped, watching me.
Kisuke had shown me in his demonstration what all was possible with reiatsu. I reached inwards, this time slower and more controlled. A similar warmth spread in my chest. As long as I don't draw too much on it, it seems to be stable. If reiatsu is supposedly so malleable and the key to make things work… Is it also what Hisashi uses for shunpo?
I didn't wait too long to think. I tried to will this flame inside of me and the reiatsu to fling my whole body forwards. Just like when Hisashi tried to help me figure out shunpo, I tumbled forward but now with a better sense of balance and a lot more speed. That idiot… Why didn't he tell me I had to focus on my whole body and not just my feet?!
The first few steps completely disoriented me, something that Jun made use of as he continued his assault, not giving me an inch of breathing room. Only after I learned that I also had to stop myself in the same way did I start grasping shunpo, albeit in a crude imitation. It wasn't quiet like that of Hisashi, instead leaving a loud boom, but I wasn't going to care about cosmetics, at least not at this point.
Now that I was finally properly dodging him, it was about time to take it from defensive to offensive.
Keeping my reiatsu steady, I aimed my steps in a way that I could get closer to him for an actual punch. Jun noticed it though and stepped up his game as well, using shunpo himself. There goes my advantage, I thought through grit teeth. This kid was much stronger than he let on.
That Kisuke… he coated his fist with this stuff too, didn't he? I recalled as I ducked under Jun's punch, seeing a glow around his fists as well. Jun's using it too..? And so I tried coating my own fists with reiatsu, and hit the ground as a test.
By all means I was no martial artist, I had hardly thrown any punches or kicks, and when I did, I ended up being the one hurt. Yet as my fist connected to the ground and I focused my reiatsu at the end of it, it caused an impact that left a small hole and kicked up a cloud of dust. I smiled, a ray of hope in my mind as I realized I could finally attack and deal damage now.
Knowing how to finally use my weapons, I set forth to actually duke it out with Jun.
Unfortunately for me, I was still no martial artist. Jun was clearly an experienced fighter and knew how to dodge just enough to counterattack effectively, while I relied on simple distance to not get hit. A single exchange where Jun's fist connected with my stomach, knocking the air out of my lungs, was enough to convince me that I stood absolutely no chance on equal footing. I couldn't keep prolonging this either, since it felt like keeping my reiatsu active like this became harder and harder.
Think, Koharu, think! How do I get around this?! Then, a brilliant idea hit me: What if instead of flash stepping near him, I flash stepped into him? Surely he can't dodge that?
I betted everything on this last attempt, preparing to unleash the last of my power with this punch, like Kisuke had done. Here… we… go!
I flash stepped right into Jun, my face mere centimeters away from his. It felt like time had slowed down. His eyes widened as he realized what was happening. The punch connected, but instead of his stomach I hit his left arm that Jun put in front of my fist by twisting his body to the side. I swore I could hear a crunch.
It dawned on me what I had just done. Jun's eyes, still wide open, looked at me directly, but now had a cold viciousness behind them. "J-Jun-"
His punch hit me square in the chest, sending me flying at an extreme speed.
I blinked a few times, coming back to myself as the concussion relented. It was hard to breathe and my chest hurt like hell. Looking down I found two big hands above it and a glowing light. The pain slowly eased, but all the blood…
"Deep breaths, Tamaki-san, you'll be alright." I heard a deep voice say, as if responding to my thoughts.
Tessai had somehow gotten behind me during my flight, cushioning my impact against a boulder which had shattered under the impact. I looked back up, only to see Jun on his knees in front of me, bowing and apologizing profusely teary-eyed. I glanced at his arm, which looked disfigured and blackened.
My reckless behavior had caused him to get hurt. And yet he's the one apologizing..? Kisuke arrived shortly and tended to Jun's injury while Tessai continued tending to mine.
"Sorry, Tamaki-chan, I.. I panicked!" Jun bowed for the hundredth time, tears falling to the ground. I wasn't sure whether it was from his own wound, or because he just felt that bad for what happened.
"I-I should be the one apologizing!" I said with heavy coughs in between. "Your arm, is… is it going to be okay?"
"Oh you'll both be all fine and dandy, not to worry!" Kisuke brushed it all off nonchalantly. "Rest assured, wounds of spiritual nature aren't as difficult to heal as physical ones."
It took a while to convince Jun that everything was really okay. His arm healed surprisingly fast, much quicker than my chest. Afterwards, Kisuke sent him back up to the shop. Just what exactly is he? I wondered. Considering Kisuke's comment just now, it didn't seem like he was a living, physical human. A mystery for another time.
"In any case, lesson two, clear!" Kisuke joyfully announced, fluttering his fans around and snapping me out of my thoughts.
I blinked. "B-But I lost, didn't I?"
"Who said the goal of the lesson was to win?" Kisuke smiled. "Simply being able to dodge and land a hit on him was all that was required. I must say, you've yet to disappoint me, Tamaki-chan. Imitating both hohō and hakuda just by seeing it once or twice is no small feat."
Tessai let go of me and helped me stand up. To my surprise, my chest injury was gone. "It's all just reiatsu? Just applied in different ways?"
Kisuke's smile grew wider and wider. "Bingo! Though that's a very crude way of saying it, but closer to the truth than most descriptions. Don't let the Shinigami hear that or they'll be very, very angry!"
My stomach grumbled loudly. "I feel… hungry? Is that normal? I mean, as a soul?"
Kisuke nodded. "It means you are low on reiryoku—spiritual power. While your body will regenerate it on its own, reiryoku-rich food helps with that."
"Reishi food?" I asked. "Reishi, reiatsu, reiryoku… just how many rei-things are there?"
Kisuke giggled. "Oh don't worry. Those three are the most important ones and the foundation to understand the spiritual world. Matter, force and energy, isn't that just like the physical world, hmm?"
He twirled his cane and rested it against his shoulder. "Well, do go on, there's hot springs in that direction, it will do you wonders! Then you should head home, it's gotten quite late you know." He opened his fan, hiding a rather serious expression. "Make sure to rest tomorrow too. Wouldn't want you to overdo it, right?"