"You look like the dead, Aigis-san."
Aigis looked up tiredly from her udon at Niijima. They were seated in the cafeteria, the throngs of students chattering away around them. Some gave the pair odd glances, but mercifully most left them alone.
"I may have worked myself a little too hard." Aigis suppressed a yawn.
"Even though you don't have to write pages of calligraphy anymore?" Niijima asked back.
Thanks to Ebina's (rather impatient) tutoring, Onabara deemed Aigis's handwriting to be legible enough that she could stop writing sheets of hiragana for every writing class, four months into the semester.
Then the curriculum intensified, leaving Aigis almost no time for herself.
"Well, the classes are fine," she mumbled. "It's the students that are giving me a difficult time."
Not even in terms of bullying — one burly fifth-year tried to provoke her into a fight and instead got kicked into the ceiling. News spread fast, and the rest of the students stopped trying.
Rather, it was how the students treated her either with too much reverence or too much jealousy. There was almost no middle ground.
She tried to not let it bother her, but it was tiring.
Niijima shrugged. "We're considered different from them," she commented. "And Seireitei is not fond of people who are different from them."
"As any society does." Aigis mumbled.
"Still doesn't make it right." Niijima replied.
"No," Aigis agreed. "But right now, what can I do?"
"Take a break."
Aigis sat a little straighter. "How?"
"Ebina-san's been improving lately right?" Niijima said. "Take a week's break from tutoring him. I think you've both earned it."
Aigis considered it.
"I'm afraid he will regress, though," she replied. "He is the sort of person who needs constant practice to keep his skills sharp."
"Assign him some homework then." Niijima suggested.
Aigis nodded. "I suppose that's the best way."
Two days into the little break she gave herself, Aigis realised that she was sleeping better than ever, despite the restlessness of her body trying to keep herself busy doing something during the day.
So she decided to go to the kido training grounds for some solo practice, to burn off some of the restlessness before it started affecting her sleep quality.
The field was deserted, with half broken targets still strewn across the grass. The summer heat cooled in the evening, which made practice bearable as the occasional cool breeze served to refresh herself.
Aigis was halfway through practising the different bakudo spells when she heard slow footsteps behind her. She did not sense any hostility, so she chose to ignore whoever it was and focus on her own training.
"Are you a workaholic or something?"
Her spell misfired into the brick wall. Aigis turned back to see Matsumoto leaning languidly against the veranda, a hand supporting a plate of fruit and the other holding a sake bottle.
"Most students won't even think of practising after class, but you've been tutoring, and when I finally see you take a break you end up practising by yourself? Man, you're a hard worker!" Matsumoto grinned. It was a friendly one, mixed with some other emotion that Aigis could not quite tell in the darkness.
"Where did you even hear about me taking a break?" she asked.
"Who else, Makoto-chan of course." Matsumoto shrugged.
"Did you suggest to her to convince me to take a break?"
Her hakuda teacher stuck her tongue out playfully. "Aw, you caught me!"
"Why not just tell me directly?" Aigis pressed.
"Because it's easier to listen to feedback from your peers than your instructors." Matsumoto answered easily, without a hint of guilt. She sat down at the edge of the veranda and set out the plate of cut watermelon, then patted the empty space next to her. "Come on, I have snacks!"
Aigis hesitated a moment, before she uncomfortably sat down next to Matsumoto and took a piece of fruit for herself.
It was unbelievably sweet.
"Really, you need to learn how to completely relax at some point, Aigis-chan." Matsumoto lectured, biting into her slice of watermelon. "Constant practice is good and all, but you're going to burn yourself out sooner or later, and as a teacher, I can't let that happen to one of my favourite students. Want some alcohol?"
"Um, no thanks. I was feeling…" Aigis searched for a word to describe the trapped energy in her, "restless."
Matsumoto hummed in leisurely consideration, taking a sip from her bottle. "Couldn't sit still, huh?"
"I usually have trouble doing that."
Matsumoto gave Aigis a side eye. "Why? You're not like that boy you're tutoring who's having trouble keeping up — you're so far ahead of your cohort it's not even funny."
Aigis nibbled her piece of watermelon. Indeed, why was she pushing herself so hard?
Her instructor took another swig from her bottle. "I watched people close to me push themselves through the toughest situations." Matsumoto looked unusually sombre. "Not all of them returned alive. The one time I did it, my life expectancy was cut short."
"What happened?" Aigis could not keep her curiosity in check, even when she knew logically that it was incredibly rude of her to ask the question.
Unexpectedly, Matsumoto snorted. "Took on a few Quincies," she stated. "That was back during the second Quincy war. Long story short, I almost died, and the method used to cure me cut my life expectancy by a couple centuries."
Aigis remembered the abridged version of the war that Niijima told her months ago. She was not aware that Matsumoto was on the front lines, however.
"Is that why you decided to become a teacher instead?" she asked.
"Might've had something to do with it." Matsumoto agreed. "But mostly…it was watching everyone around me continue as if nothing happened, as if they never quite learnt their lesson. I don't want future shinigami making the same mistakes we did before, so I signed up to be an instructor here instead."
For such an airhead, Matsumoto was frighteningly perceptive when she wanted to be.
"So no matter how good your reasons are," she reached over and gave Aigis a firm poke in the forehead, "never push yourself so hard that you regret it later in life. You don't get to save others when you're dead, after all."
Aigis sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I…don't think I've taken a break at all these years," she admitted. "But work is all that I know. I always feel as if I should be doing something when I'm not doing anything, and it is…difficult, for me to settle down otherwise."
"Oh honey," Matsumoto locked her arms around Aigis before she realised what was happening, and her head hit the ample, almost exposed bosom. The older shinigami's breath smelled strongly of sake, steaming Aigis's face. "You don't have to be able to do it immediately, but learn how to relax, okay? You don't have to carry everything by yourself. Share some of that burden with your friends, or if you have trouble, come to any of the teachers and we'd happily help you out in a pinch. We aren't cruel enough to force students to do everything by themselves."
Aigis squirmed her way out of the drunken chokehold and smoothed down her uniform. "Thank you, sensei," she said.
She was not sure if she wanted to take on that offer, but she filed it away at the back of her mind anyway.
"Anyway, enough about the depressing stuff!" Matsumoto cheered, throwing her hands up and almost spilling alcohol out of the bottle. She turned to Aigis with a devious smile. "So, anyone you like?"
"In what way?" Aigis asked with a straight face.
"Oh c'mon, you know, like that?" Matsumoto winked. In the dim orange light, Aigis noticed that she seemed a little flushed.
"No," Aigis denied without changing her expression. "The people here are not my type."
"Oh, so you have a type!" Matsumoto crowed, giving a giddy little laugh. "So what, is it Makoto-chan?"
Aigis blinked, temporarily at a loss for words.
"Didn't think you'd swing that way, Aigis-chan!" Matsumoto continued, a little unsteady in her speech as she took another swig from her bottle.
Aigis finally pinched her brow, as she felt a headache similar to the kind that she felt when she fell sick during her first few years of living at the orphanage. "For the last time, sensei, we are just long-time friends, and we do not have feelings for each other beyond friendship. Are you trying to find a boyfriend for yourself?"
Matsumoto waved a hand around unsteadily. "Gave up on marriage. Pretty sure I'm not gonna find a man I like again."
"'Again'?" Aigis repeated.
For a normally rambunctious person, it seemed concerning whenever Matsumoto stopped talking, and that turned worrisome when Aigis saw the telltale signs of moisture around her eyes.
"Matsumoto-sensei?" Aigis coaxed gently.
The shinigami blinked, and in an instant, she was almost back to her old self. "Ahahahaha, don't worry about it! Just some guy who broke my heart centuries ago. Really, the nerve of him!"
The quiet crunch of fruit was the only noise that filled the air for a moment.
"I didn't take you for that type of person, sensei." Aigis said finally as she tossed the rind of her watermelon slice back onto the plate.
"Hm?" Matsumoto turned to Aigis, her half full sake bottle hanging off her fingertips. "What type of person?"
"Someone who can love one person with all their being."
The courtyard fell quiet.
"Aigis-chan, has anyone ever told you that you're shockingly sharp?" Matsumoto murmured.
She was starting to slur, Aigis noted to herself.
"I had to be," she replied simply. Centuries of dealing with workplace politics gave her plenty of experience in managing people, though she was also acutely aware that she still often fell behind her younger colleagues when social graces were involved, especially when it came to changing trends over the years.
Matsumoto put down her bottle and gazed at the night sky, a forlorn look in her eyes. "I was from Rukongai," she began. "A boy rescued me from the brink of starvation, and we entered the Academy together."
Aigis kept quiet.
"He was a genius — graduated in two years and quickly became a seated officer. But a century later, he gave up everything to get his revenge on a man who hurt me before he even met me."
"It seems to me that he truly loved you, if he went that far." Aigis said carefully.
"I didn't need him to go that far." Matsumoto almost moaned, her legs drawn up to her body, looking alarmingly small. "I didn't care about revenge – I just wanted him to be around. And now he can't anymore."
Aigis picked up the subtext, loud and clear. She did her best to ignore the soft hitches from the folds of the shihakusho.
"I lost someone dear to me, too," she said in a gentle, soothing tone, blending her voice into the ambience of the night. "He…helped me become who I am today. I would never have survived this long if it was not for him."
It was the first time Aigis ever mentioned Makoto to anyone who was not aware of her previous occupation. But even if it was in a drunken fit, she figured that Matsumoto deserved to hear it after she told her tale.
"He sacrificed himself to save the world. And every day, I regret not being there with him when- when he did so." Aigis turned her gaze upwards, towards the moon that was barely peeking out from behind the clouds. "But the least I can do is to live the life that he would have wanted me to live."
Matsumoto still had her face buried into her uniform, but the hitches stopped.
"Didn't think we'd be alike in that aspect." There was a watery gurgle in Matsumoto's words, but the amusement still shone through. She relaxed, uncurled her body and raised her bottle to the sky. "To lost lenores, I suppose."
She downed the rest of her bottle in one go, then promptly fell asleep.
There was a brief moment of panic when Aigis's mind ran through several scenarios on what she should do in such a situation, but she was saved from having to take action when she heard Kira's voice over the breeze.
"Rangiku-san, where are you? You still have homework to mark!"
"Over here, Kira-sensei." Aigis stood up, directing her voice towards where she estimated her hohou teacher to be, based on his heavy, muted reiatsu.
When she first discovered proper reiatsu sensing, a skill that Hinamori taught her over the course of a few lessons, Aigis realised that it must have been quite similar to how navigational Personae functioned, not that she had any experience with that herself.
Well, it had been the only skill that she was missing, considering her other Personae, so she was immensely grateful for the lessons.
"Oh, hello, Aigis." Kira's words stuttered out in bits and pieces, his eyes darting between the bottle, the half-eaten plate of watermelon slices, Matsumoto's prone body, and Aigis herself. "Di-did something happen here?"
"I think Matsumoto-sensei drank a little too much sake." Aigis replied curtly. She respected her teacher's privacy enough to keep mum about what they talked about tonight.
Especially after that outburst.
Kira sighed, a long suffering look that spoke volumes on how well he knew his fellow instructor. "Get some rest, Aigis." He scooped up Matsumoto in a bridal carry, the sake bottle and plate hanging precariously between his fingers. "I'll make sure she gets to bed."
Before Aigis asked if he wanted some extra help, he disappeared in a flurry of shunpo.
Aigis gazed at the spot where Kira disappeared for a long time. Then she shook herself out of her stupor, and looked again at the sky.
The summer moon hung high in the night sky, dotted with faint twinkles of distant stars. It meant that it was late, so she decided to call it a day and turn in for the night.
For the next few days, Aigis tried to take Matsumoto's advice about rest, and instead of fretting over her lacking subjects, she decided to just do the work she was tasked with, and relaxed the rest of the time.
By the time the week was over, she was almost dreading going back into tutoring.
Five months into tuition, Ebina still maintained an air of not wanting to do anything with Aigis, a scowl firmly fixed on his face. Yet there was an imperceptible change in his demeanour — a few less arguments, a little more willingness to understand why Aigis was pushing him as hard as she could.
"Break time!"
Ebina flopped onto the padded floor of the little training room she rented. Aigis sat down next to him, facing the same direction.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Does it matter?" Ebina snapped.
"Yes, it does." Aigis nodded seriously.
There was silence for half a minute.
"…frustrated," he mumbled, almost too quiet for Aigis to hear.
"At what?" she pressed gently.
"Everything."
It was an answer, at least, even if it was incredibly vague. Aigis could understand some part of that frustration though.
"What was your life like before you attended the Academy?" she asked instead.
Ebina did not look like he prepared for that question as his scowl faltered. "…I have two older sisters and a younger brother," he began hesitantly, his eyes far away. "My sisters were expected to become shinigami, and they took pride in that."
Aigis was starting to see why he attended Shin'ou.
"My brother is the baby of the family," he continued, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Everyone loves him, but my parents also coddle him a lot. Meanwhile, they barely acknowledged my existence. I was given the lessons expected of a noble, of course — things like kendo, tea ceremony, and calligraphy, but beyond that they didn't do anything for me. They just let me do whatever I wanted to do. All they want out of me is that I don't embarrass the family."
"What would consist of 'embarrassing the family'?" Aigis asked curiously.
He shot a disbelieving look. "Anything that would debase us." Ebina replied, his smile gone and replaced by something deeper than a scowl. "Anything that would make us seem lesser than someone from Rukongai, even if they are shinigami."
She mused over the information.
"Did you join Shin'ou and attempt the advanced placement exams just so that you can make your parents notice you?" Aigis blurted.
He looked away.
Aigis exhaled, organising the information in her mind. Years of neglect coupled with a vague expectation to constantly be the best was…not the best combination when a child was intelligent enough to subconsciously understand their own flaws. Beneath the haughty bluster, it was easy to see the self-doubt that plagued Ebina, from his still hesitant movements during hakuda, to his combative attitude.
"Did you believe you could pass that exam at the time?" Aigis asked.
"Why does it matter?" Ebina mumbled, still not looking at her. "I failed it."
"Humour me, please?"
"…I thought Onabara-sensei might take pity on me." It was softly spoken, his voice full of shame. "That he would see that I'm a noble, and let me into the class based on that."
"Well, I see why he would reject you from the class now." Aigis nodded to herself.
"Because I'm not good enough?" Ebina rounded on her, his bulk covering the dim light of the training room.
"Because you have no confidence in yourself." Aigis did not budge. "You never received the support you needed, and nobody gave you the validation that you wanted. So you act like a schoolyard bully, thinking that kind of power will help you receive the attention you want."
Ebina sat back down.
"For what it's worth, it is not entirely your fault," she continued. "Your upbringing does contribute to your current situation."
"Then—"
"You are still responsible for the life that you lead." Aigis raised a hand to stave off the argument. "A less than ideal upbringing does not excuse you from your actions. Instead of thinking how the world owes you and wishing that someone will help you through everything, think about what you can do for others and how you can help yourself. You cannot expect someone else to solve all of your problems for you."
Ebina was quiet for a long while.
"Do you think I can do it?" He finally asked meekly, so unlike the little ball of rage from before.
She did not need to ask for clarification.
"You have potential," she stated firmly. "Otherwise I would have asked you to leave the Academy a long time ago. You have been steadily improving throughout these months, and you also completed the homework I set out for you last month in a satisfactory manner despite me not being there to guide you. What is holding you back, however, is your defeatist attitude. Do not do everything worrying about how you will definitely mess up, because that is how you will be unable to improve. Instead, do everything with the mindset of 'I will finish it at a level that I can be happy with'. The mistakes can come later."
Aigis took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. She was sorely under-equipped for motivational speeches, because no Shadow Operative ever lacked motivation, given the nature of their occupation. Many of them did have mental issues that came from the job, for which Aigis always referred them to an appropriate psychologist or person who would be able to help (that person usually was a Persona user). Someone like Ebina would usually have been rejected from the job outright.
However, now there was a tiny spark that was not there before in his eyes. "You…think I can do it? Be as good as those in the accelerated program?"
She met his gaze. "As you are right now, you will still be beaten by anyone from my class," she said, not bothering to sugarcoat her words. "But you are improving faster than them. If you keep up the effort, you will be equal to my classmates at the end of the year."
She meant it.
For the first time since Aigis met him, Ebina looked like he had genuine hope.
She pushed herself off the ground. "Five more sets of exercises," she stated, her hands on her hips. "Finish them and you can go back to your room."
"Okay, Aigis-san."
She almost whirled around in surprise, but tried not to comment on it. His constant scowl changed into something more than just general frustration, into a determination to be better than before.
Well, the rest is up to him now, she supposed.
"That was quite ingenious of you," Niijima said one evening, a little after her talk with Ebina. She had shown no remorse about her part in convincing Aigis to take a break, though she was not that annoyed in the first place, so it was quickly ignored in favour of her more pressing needs of education.
They were in the secluded corner of the garden, enjoying their servings of cold soba, a welcome reprieve from the humid summer. The cafeteria was unusually hot with all the students gathered there for mealtimes, so the pair made a habit of moving to the garden for their meals to escape the heat and the crowd.
The hairband Aigis bought unexpectedly came in handy for keeping her hair in place, so her wet hair would not cover her face all the time.
"It seemed like the most logical conclusion," she replied as she dipped her noodles into the sauce. "Problems at home can often spill into professional settings."
"You would've sent Ebina out of the door at the first opportunity if you were still the director of the Shadow Operatives." Niijima pointed out. "You wouldn't have accepted that kind of attitude back then, no matter the reason."
"I still wouldn't." Aigis stated. "But it seems that the Gotei has lower standards compared to mine, so I am training him as per their standards. I am not the director of the Operatives anymore."
Her incredibly high standards meant that the Shadow Operatives remained a small organisation throughout her lifetime, where even at their biggest, they never exceeded fifty members. Of course, that did not include the large number of auxiliary members that helped them during certain missions (almost all of them Persona users), however even then they never quite exceeded a hundred people.
Aigis understood why the Gotei needed so many shinigami — between patrolling Rukongai, the Living World, and stopping Hollows from eating too many human souls (or Wholes, as she learned in class), even a few thousand shinigami seemed barely enough to handle all the tasks required. It was quite natural that they would require quantity over quality, yet she could never quite shake off the feeling that the education system was just teaching the bare minimum required. If it was not for the fact that she was compressing six years of education into two, she was sure that she would have found the curriculum boring.
Niijima nodded in agreement. She took a bite of chicken meat that was part of her serving of noodles. "I wonder how strong the captains are. The students here aren't enough of a challenge for me anymore."
"Why not start with the lieutenants?" Aigis asked. "Going from fellow students to a captain seems like a rather large jump in ability."
"Well, we have our teachers right?" Niijima shrugged. "They're apparently former lieutenants, and they're decently strong, I suppose. I guess what I'm saying is that…I want to try sparring someone new."
"You haven't seen any captains yet?" Aigis asked.
"Captains don't generally visit Shin'ou." Niijima explained. "Some do open special classes here, but that's considered rare. And there hasn't been any in the past few years."
"That is a shame." Aigis dipped her noodles into the sauce provided. "I would love to meet them before I need to pick a division."
"Oh about that," Niijima raised her chopsticks to interject, "There's a tour of the divisions for graduating students the year they graduate, so you can visit their barracks and get a feel for each division before you make your decision. Since you're graduating next year, it means that we can go together."
"Just one chance to make an impression, huh." Aigis considered it. It was a chance for students to make an impression of themselves for the captains of divisions that they fancy, however it was also close to the only chance for each division to make a good impression of themselves for the students too, especially if they wanted to attract the best students.
"It sounds interesting," she concluded. "I hope there will be a division there that can align with my interests."
"I think even before that, every division will want you as part of their ranks." Niijima sighed. "Apparently, geniuses tend to receive a lot of attention."
"Who told you that?"
"Rangiku-sensei, who else?"
That made a disturbing amount of sense, considering that she was personally acquainted with a genius at one point.
"Maybe I should go ask her for information, since she seems to know everything." Aigis mused.
"Make sure to prepare yourself for an hours-long lecture then." Niijima replied flatly. "She can and will talk anyone's ears off."
They shared a little laugh together, at the expense of their hakuda instructor.
Somewhere on the other side of the Academy campus, Rangiku sneezed.
"Getting cold in this kind of weather?" Izuru questioned, still marking his share of essays.
"Nah," she rubbed her nose with her free hand, glaring hatefully at the stack of homework she still had to go through. "Someone must be talking about me."
"Probably about your gossipy habits." Izuru levelled a flat look.
"Whaaaat?" Rangiku almost wailed. "I'm not that bad!"
Izuru pinched his brow, furrowing them even deeper than usual.
And so, the night passed peacefully.
A/N: More hard-earned wisdom from Aigis (and really, advice I should be taking for myself). The bit with Rangiku spiralled out of my control once I introduced her to the scene and the topic changed to love, oops. But I like it. Their similarities were not something I had planned when I set out to write this story. Writing about feelings is rather difficult for me, or at least, more difficult than action scenes, but I'm going to try my best to make it feel natural (and Persona-like. Let's face it, Bleach was never excellent at writing about the complications of relationships between people).
So anyway, review! Let me know if there are any other interactions you'd like to see and I'll see if I can fit in them anywhere!