"Oh no no no no no..." A man was muttering as they ran down a hallway of a crammed building, knocking people over as they ran by.
"Hey, watch where you're going, Semino," someone yelled in the hallway as the brown-haired man, dressed in a black shihakusho with a katana on his hip, kept going.
"Sorry, but I'm running late," I yelled back to the guy I knocked over, not being able to spend a single moment more to apologize.
My name's Semino, a newish soul reaper in the Gotei, and I was recently granted one of the biggest honors for any soul reaper to get: the right to teach at the soul reaper academy. Or at least that's what I tell myself since all my squad mates laughed a little when they heard I was taking a few years leave already so I could work in the academy.
As I ran, I passed several posters, all advertising the 13 court guard squads and their captains, but of course I couldn't stop to look at them and see if any of my old classmates made it into a good squad, since I may have been running very-very late to my meeting with the headmaster of the soul reaper academy.
However, since that was all I had on my mind while running, it took too long for me to fully recognize I was on a crash course with a cart from a research room. Luckily, the other people did notice me and were able to swerve around me while I kept running. Apparently, I made quite a commotion while running since everyone was telling me after my meeting that I seemed to be completely in the zone while running.
Though this didn't stop me from continuing to almost run into people. Since as I ran through the facility, I passed several tour groups of incoming first-years and also the normal hustle and bustle that comes with those who have been in this place for up to eight years without even realizing it. Finally though, I reached my destination, the headmaster's office.
As I approached the door, I took a moment to catch my breath and gather myself on the floor, but before standing to enter, I could hear the clashing of wooden blades, so I elected to take a look inside, which revealed two soul reapers in training, still in their blue trainers, dueling. One spiky blonde held just a katana in their hands; the other, with much more normal black hair, wielded a katana in one and a parrying knife in the other. As the two fought, the headmaster was watching with some of the head instructors as the parry knife-wielding trainee got a clean parry in, and instead of deciding to use his blade, decided to kick the other recruit, sending him flying through the wall next to me.
Obviously this left me in some shock, since destruction of school property wasn't allowed, as the black-haired trainee soul reaper came out after him and stood over him, revealing he had a snake tattoo on his arm, before waving his katana in the air and announcing, "And that is the power of the future captain Taroto; remember it."
Now I had two options at this point; however, I didn't get a chance to do either, as almost immediately Taroto turned toward me, almost accidentally since he just picked a direction to turn around, and glared at me before beginning to talk.
"Ahh yes, my first admirer, already on the ground praising my greatness," Taroto said while hoisting his blade up on his shoulder.
"No," I replied. "I'm here to talk to the headmaster about a personal matter, not pray to some recruit who doesn't even recognize his superiors." I said while standing up and fixing my now ruffled outfit.
"Ah, don't say that; you'll never know till we fight who the superior truly is," Taroto said while prepping his parrying knife, almost expecting an attack to be thrown at him.
This was however useless, as instead I responded, "No, we do not. See, I'm already part of a squad, so I'm pretty sure I'm the superior here."
At that, Taroto gripped his katana enough that some of his spiritual pressure leaked out of himself, showing off his immensity and coincidentally lack of control of it.
This almost made me grab for my katana to parry, but then the headmaster shouted out before either of us could move: "OI Tarotot, if your planning on becoming a captain, you should be able to beat me, so come at me, boy."
As the headmaster said, I looked over and saw that she stood up, took off the top layer of his shihakusho, and prepped her katana for a duel. Which was almost immediately met as Tarotot turned toward him and lunged, not even trying to go for a feint with either of his blades. This ended poorly as, with his shoddy control of his spiritual pressure, he landed short with his boosted lunge and straight into the master's range, as she knocked Taroto's katana out of the way with the broadside of her blade before batting away the parry dagger and landing a clean kick into Taroto's center, sending him flying through the wall next to the one Taroto kicked his fellow trainee through.
"Ok, now that that's done, thank you professors for taking the time to observe those who will need extra tutelage and effort put into their learning. Hopefully you all now understand that you may use more. She gestured at them, groaning on the ground, but fairly fine for flying a solid 5 meters. "..force with them than other students," she finished saying while putting back on the top part of her shihakusho and sitting down and sipping some tea.
"Anyways to the next order of business, Semino lad, come in, sit down," she said while gesturing for me to come and sit across from her. As I approached, the headmaster was pouring some tea into a cup on the side of the table she gestured toward. "So, welcome to your first year of teaching at the academy." the headmaster said, handing over a badge that said "teacher" and saying, "This will be your way to prove you belong in certain places in the academy, so remember to keep it on you at all times."
"Thank you, ma'am." I responded after accepting my new badge.
"Oh, no need for formalities; you may call me Kyuriri, since we'll be seeing each other a lot from tomorrow on." Kyuriri said while gesturing to the two now unconscious trainees behind them and speaking again. "As you saw, we currently have a few students who require... extra tutelage," she finished saying before taking a sip of tea.
"Yes, I noticed Kyuriri, and I believe that I was informed I would be taking over this tutelage, though I wasn't told why, so if I may, why was I chosen?" I asked while Kyuriri swallowed her tea.
"Oh, that's an easy question to answer; see, it came down to two factors." Kyuriri said while holding up one finger, "The first being that we realized that having a recent graduate teach them would mean you could better relate to their feelings and figure out how to help them improve in their studies, and two," she said, putting up another finger,"your shikai is very helpful for calming and healing souls, or so I've heard, so you would have the best chance to helping those they end up hurting and calming them down, speaking of which you may want to go give them a patch up before they lose even more spiritual pressure," Mr. Kyuriri stated while pointing to a sudden increase in the room's pressure.
As I stood up and walked over, I could hear paper rustling, but I didn't take the time to check as I started pouring Reishi into them so that they could recover. After a while I had given them enough that they would be recovered within the hour, so I let them be and went back to Kyuriri, who was sitting with papers on the table, reading over them and then placing them on my side of the table.
"So," I started saying after sitting down at the table, "was I at the top of the list for teaching troublemakers like them?" I asked as I looked over the papers and saw that most of the profiles in front of me boiled down to they had a rough time in class and most had anger issues.
"No, no, we have specialists for those students," Kyuriri said, putting away the rest of the papers she took out, more than likely to save them for others who were brought in for similar jobs like me. "You were at the top of the list for those with unwieldy spiritual pressures who are coming in this year," she said in a nonchalant way, admitting that these students I would be looking after probably had more Reishi than I do.
"Anyways, you can worry about that later; take a look at these profiles in depth when you have the time," she said while pushing the papers further onto me. "I have many more new and old teachers coming in today to find out who will be in their class and if any of them have needs they'll need to look out for, so it was a pleasure meeting you in person, and I hope you find these next few years as eventful as I do; and do remember that captain Unohana recommended you for this, so don't let her down," Kyuriri said as I grabbed up the papers and started reading.
The first one was on Taroto, the black-haired trainee from before, a quadruple freshman with a bad temper and some of the worst control over his spiritual pressure ever seen. Though he had a lot of it, he could barely control it, so my main job with him would be helping him get it in check.
The next one was Tetahido, the other trainee who was knocked out first; his main problem was his ego, since he had picked a fight with everyone in the academy and rarely lost. So he saw himself as better than most others and seemed to believe that those he couldn't beat were just cheating, so my main job with him would be teaching him to be less confident and more assured and not to pick fights with everyone so half-hazardously.
Next up was Kokoro, a soul born and a child who had immense control over his Reishi and spiritual pressure, which was much liked since he had a similar amount as a young captain Shunsui when he was in the academy. Apparently he didn't have any physical problems, just emotional. See, he had a tendency to hide if he didn't recognize people, and if he got upset, he seemed to lose some amount of control over his pressure. So my job would basically be to be a motivational coach for him and help him work through his problems in a constructive way—a much more pleasant job than teaching the previous two to not be asses.
The fourth on my list was a child named Byuun, another soul born who seemed to have no info on him until this past year, but he passed the entrance exam immediately upon a captain's request, which seems to have Kyuriri on guard since she wrote a little note that said this rarely happens, and when it does it means they're in for a rough time till the child adapts. She also gave me another piece of advice for this one: be on guard around them at all times. So, my job seems to be to help them adapt without causing any major incidents in the academy.
And finally there is Binnyo, a red-haired girl who wore it like a top knot—a ponytail hybrid. She seems to have an oddity where the angrier she seemed to be, the more Reishi would flow into her and increase her pressure, often causing her to crack buildings whenever she got mad. So my job is going to be to help her control where she gets the Reishi from, or to help her calm down and not flip out so hard.
This was a unique group that I was assigned to monitor over, but Kyuriri picked me for this job, so I figured I would do my best. So after finishing reading, I stood up and bowed to Kyuriri, who let out a soft chuckle, before turning around with the papers in my hand and leaving to prepare for the next day, the day all the new trainees start, and my first day on the job.