"Today we will be learning about the soul sword incantation," said Miya.
Anna was fairly eager for this lessons, for three reasons. One, it was considered the most important lesson of the swordmanship class. Two, successfully manifesting your soul sword guaranteed that you got full marks on the final exam. And three, because she highly suspected the whole "soul sword" incantation to actually be a way for humans to manifest their zanpakuto before they actually died.
"Now, as you all know we have emphasized meditation and inner focus in our previous lessons. I assure you, there was a point to all the times you've fallen asleep and were disciplined by the ladle of doom as you all affectionately call it," said Miya with a smile.
Everyone chuckled at that.
"Today we are going to be putting those lessons into a more interesting practice. Everyone fall into their preferred stance for meditation," instructed Miya.
Some of the students went into a sitting pose, while others (like Ichigo) went fell into a very specific rhythm that allowed their mind to freely wander. He found it easier than sitting around, though he could do so if needed.
"Now, you must focus inward. Allow your mind to wander freely within yourself and follow the path inside your core to your inner realms," said Miya.
She knew it...this was a lesson on how to make contact with one's inner world and hopefully meet their zanpakuto for the first time to establish a connection. With any luck she would finally be able to see Yukino properly, since she had only echoes to live with.
Ichigo was the first to find his inner world, as he instinctively went into a more passive meditative pose without any input from his body. It was a trick most of the more active members learned very quickly to avoid falling.
Anna calmed her mind and followed the path inside her to her inner world. She was rather eager to see what it looked like.
It was a frozen wasteland, but at the same time it was rather beautiful. There were frozen flowers everywhere, and there were something akin to seedpods floating around.
"Greetings, my partner," said a voice. It was distinctly feminine.
Anna turned...no, this was Hisana now. How odd that her inner appearance resembled what she looked like in her past life. She was even in her student's robes.
The zanpakuto might be called somewhat grotesque by others, but Hisana found it rather cute. After all, not all butterflies appeared as beautiful as they did once in their final stage of life.
It looked like a larvae inside a strange mobile cocoon. It was pale green in appearance and had wide 'eyes'. Looking downward she could see tendrils of something extending into the earth, blossoming into the larger flowers with fat seedpods ready to disperse. Indeed, some of the pods already airborne bore a strange shape that had a slight reflective quality inside the center of the 'flower'.
(To clarify, Hisana's sword looks identical to Yukino's Child "Diana" from the Mai-Hime series, complete with reconnaissance ability and special mirrors. Her name is mostly a homage to the character and the fact that she's ice-based like Rukia's sword.)
She had a feeling that Yukino was more of a support-type sword, rather than a straight combatant. Considering she didn't really enjoy combat, that was acceptable so long as it meant she could be useful later.
Though that wasn't to say Yukino was defenseless. The air around her had a sharp biting cold, and the only reason she wasn't frozen solid or cut to pieces by the flying snow was due to the fact this was her inner world. Perhaps Yukino's attack was to use diamond dust or something similar?
Either way, she couldn't spend much time here.
"It's good to properly meet you, Yukino," she said with a smile, reaching her hand out.
The spirit reached out with her 'nose' and lightly touched it, happy that a proper meeting had finally occurred. Her master was much better off away from that dreadful country.
She belonged here.
Anna woke her eyes to find a sword in her hand. It wasn't any sword, but her zanpakuto's sealed state.
Miya-sensei looked both surprised and pleased she could already manifest her soul sword.
The sword dispersed into flower petals that were shaped like snowflakes. She rather liked the biting cold they gave off.
Ichigo was on his absolute best behavior, and for good reason. He was staying with the Granger sisters in England for two weeks to help him better understand English culture and to get a better look at how the English handled their magic.
He could say this much about the Japanese magical alleys...while they were historically accurate to the time period before samurai and the older warrior class fell out of favor, the alleys themselves were clean and well kept.
Diagon looked like a hodge-podge of medieval and the odd 'modern' buildings, since the older storefronts didn't actually have windows back then. Glass was simply too expensive. It was noisy, messy and the older wizards made no bones of their contempt or arrogance when looking at the obvious foreign "muggleborn".
Ichigo sat down at the ice cream shop and was a little disgusted at some of the flavors. He chose a more sedate strawberry chocolate one for his.
The irony of the fact that his name could be misinterpreted as "strawberry" and his choice of ice cream flavors was not lost on him.
"This place was a complete disappointment," said Ichigo in slightly accented English. "I mean it's one thing to retain the old ways, it's another to be completely mired in them to the point you refuse to try anything new simply because it's traditional."
"Now you see why I was so quick to look into alternative schooling," said Anna, enjoying her mint-chocolate ice cream.
Hermione was enjoying a proper banana sundae claiming it was healthy due to the amount of fruit in it. She was fooling no one.
"After seeing the general scores for the past ten years, I am heartily thanking god that you had the sense to look past all the showboating that Professor McGonagall gave off," said Hermione in annoyance.
The second Hermione saw those scores, and how limited the careers were for those like her who didn't come from an established magical line, she had thanked her sister heartily.
Apparently Hogwarts had a bad reputation for taking in muggleborn students, promising them rich careers in the magical society, then tossing them to the wolves once their schooling was done and giving the best paying positions to pure bloods who all had connections via a rather severe inbreeding problem. Nearly every family in the UK was connected to one another via blood, often with far too many shared ancestors.
Anna had been deeply unimpressed with her own family tree and sworn then and there to never marry an English wizard. Besides, she still held a candle for her former husband Byakuya and would hold most males to his standard.
Ichigo came close, but the two of them had already silently agreed that the other party fell more into the 'sibling' category rather than the romantic one and were happy to keep it that way.
"What's this? Three mudblood freaks have the audacity to call our proud society a disappointment?" sneered a pale looking blond boy with gray eyes.
Before Ichigo or Hermione could react, Anna's eyes narrowed. She knew exactly who this jumped up little brat was, and wasn't in the mood to deal with his bullshit.
"Really, heir Malfoy, is that any way to speak to a peer? Much less your cousin?" said Anna calmly, sipping her water.
"Like a mudblood would be one of my peers. Go wallow in filth," said Malfoy.
"So Naricissa Malfoy ne Black isn't your mother? A pity, I shall have to inform her that her training of her spawn is highly inadequate for a member of the house of Black," said Anna calmly.
That made the boy stiffen.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"Now you ask the correct questions. Though really, with the dullards you surround yourself with, it's no wonder your manners and decorum are lacking," said Anna.
Ichigo snorted at that. He was quietly recording this for later viewing with his magically-enhanced phone...he was sure Miya-sensei was going to love this.
Anna calmly stood up, and stared the boy down. She pulled a necklace out from under her shirt, and the teen stiffened in shock.
Around her neck were the heir rings to the Potter and the Black family. Anna politely allowed him to verify their authenticity, before placing them back under her shirt.
"Apologizes, cousin," said Malfoy, his tone stiff but polite. "I was unaware you were here. We were all quite concerned when you failed to arrive at Hogwarts."
"I found Hogwarts training to be inadequate and subpar at best. If you were to look at the actual ICW rankings for magical schooling, you will discover that it is considered just barely acceptable for training small children the bare basics. Anyone with real sense looks elsewhere," said Anna calmly. "As I have no desire to enter politics and even less desire to deal with idiots who have been blinded by Dumbledore's nonsense, I have opted to study abroad."
"You don't like Dumbledore?"
"He left me with my non-magical aunt who had made it rather clear she dislikes magic and never once bothered to insure I was being raised properly. He's so eager to make things appear 'friendly' to those who are coming from previously defunct lines that he's allowed far too much of our culture and heritage to fall to the wayside because they failed to insure that the new bloods understand that the magical society is a subculture living relatively peacefully alongside the mundane one," said Anna flatly. "And as the 'other' side had made it rather clear they would very much like to see me dead for somehow taking out their leader, it would be absolute folly to try and reach out to them without some assurance they won't try to curse me first."
There was a subtle hint of respect in the teen's eyes.
"Where are my manners. My companions are heir Crabbe and heir Goyle," said Draco smoothly.
"This is Hermione, my adopted sister and protectorate of the Potter house. As well as Ichigo Kurosaki, a close friend and fellow student at the school I attend. He expressed an interest in English culture, with particular emphasis on the arts and heritage of our country, so we extended an invitation to stay with us for a few weeks."
By the time they left the alley, they had little idea or care about the chaos they left in their wake. Then again they seriously underestimated the sheer popularity of the whole "Girl-Who-Lived" image. Or the fact that the mystery of why she had never appeared in Hogwarts like she was supposed to had made everyone and their grandmother entirely too curious about what she was doing instead.
Fortunately she had the sense not to share her new name to Malfoy in the alley, though he eventually figured out how to owl her for a more private meeting with him and his mother.
After all, as a bloodline member of the house of Black, Narcissa had a rather vested interest in insuring that the current heir didn't damage their image any further.
In order to maintain her neutral image, she owled back using her snowy owl Mashiro politely inquiring as to whether they could included Andromeda Tonks as well, seeing as she had an equal say in the matter.
Narcissa's image of Lilianna Potter-Black was of a polite young woman who was nothing like the ridiculous image Dumbledore had been building up for years.
While the robes young Lilianna wore were unusual, they were clearly formal and expensive enough to suit Narcissa's sensibilities. Andromeda showed some rather polite interest as well, as the outfit was rather enchanting without any magic whatsoever. Time and care had clearly gone into making it.
As this was a polite chat over tea, Anna's escort Ichigo and Draco excused themselves to the next room over, likely to talk about Quidditch. After all, their talk was likely to be quite boring for a boy.
"I must admit, I am rather impressed at your decorum. I wasn't expecting that out of someone muggle-raised," said Narcissa.
"In our school there is a club for those who wish to follow the path of the 'Yamato Nadeshiko', or Japanese ideal woman from olden times. The woman who teaches swordmanship also leads that particular club and she was rather informative on how one should act when out in public or in private among equals," said Anna, pouring the tea as she had been taught.
She had brought some green tea over with a hint of jasmine, and while it wasn't a full tea ceremony there were still some rules to follow. It certainly impressed the sisters at least.
"Which school do you attend?" asked Andromeda politely.
"I attend Japan's school for magic. While I cannot disclose our location, I can assure you they offer a much wider and more varied array of classes."
In the other room...
"You mean to tell me the quidditch team at your school often has to train in torrential rains?" said Draco incredulous.
Ichigo nodded.
"Not to mention the gale force winds. The area where they practice has ideal conditions for bad weather, so it's ridiculously easy for them to beat other teams in good conditions."
Draco looked rather interested...but was also smart enough that he was NEVER mentioning this to the Slytherin Quidditch captain. He liked being warm and dry during the nasty weather that crept up in Scotland, not out training like an idiot. It wasn't like he planned to make a career out of playing, like that lunatic Oliver Wood who ran the Gryffindor team.
Which was why he eagerly accepted Ichigo's diversion to safer topic, such as classical writers. He was rather surprised that the teen was such a fan of Shakespeare and could quote many of his works perfectly.
When the women came out of the parlor, Draco took note of how his mother treated the recently found Lilianna Potter.
Apparently she rather approved of the girl, if the way she held herself was any indication.
Ichigo and Anna politely excused themselves, and left via the Day Bus which was considerably more pleasant than the Knight Bus. His aunt Andromeda left shortly after, though she used apparition instead.
"Mother?" inquired Draco.
"I rather approve of her," said Narcissa. "She held herself perfectly, despite attending a foreign school and she was far more sensible than half the young witches Hogwarts has been letting out for the past five years."
While it was slightly disappointing Anna had no interest in politics, she could approve of the fact that the girl had more traditional manners and was more inclined to act as the silent support of whomever she married once she came of age. Though there was a sense of covered steel behind her eyes, which implied to Narcissa that the young woman would happily draw her wand against any foolish enough to threaten her family.
Most of the 'modern' witches these days were more interested in careers and less about the stability of their homes. It was disappointing and explained far too much why there were so few children every year attending Hogwarts.