Capítulo 28: 28 - Deciding on Squads
Once she got back to the academy, Rumi headed straight to her room and put her stuff away. She then remembered what Momo told and fell into a deep thought.
Although she kept saying that she should have more time until graduation, Rumi also knew that the instructors were rushing to get her out of the academy. And her achieving Shikai this early on would basically push the intstuctors to let her graduate early and put her into Gotei 13.
'At this rate, I might actually graduate soon...' Rumi thought.
Graduating itself wasn't a problem since she was in the academy to become a Shinigami in the first place. But, not having figured out which squad to join was a bit of a problem. Rumi didn't want to choose the wrong squad and work herself to death everyday or become suffocated under the strict rules of the squad.
'Seems like I gotta do a bit of a study on each squads of Gotei 13..' Rumi thought.
With that decided, Rumi went ahead and gathered all the information she wanted straight away. After putting in a bit of an effort, Rumi came back with the information.
Once she read through it, she got a rough idea on which squads she didn't want to join or even try for. They were Squad One, Two, Six, Eleven and Twelve.
Rumi had learned that getting into Squad One was supposed to be harder and thus, getting to join the squad was considered to an honor itself, which wasn't what she was going for. Not to mention the fact that the squad atmosphere and rules was bound to be strict and too much for her. So, she didn't even want to consider Squad One as an option.
As for Squad Two, Rumi loved the idea of Stealth Force at first. Not only the idea of specializing in Stealth complimented her reiatsu nature, she also loved the idea of assassination as well. But, she also found that all Shinigami in Squad Two were more or less proficient in Hakuda, only one out of the four combat techniques Rumi wasn't that good at. In addition to that, the rules in Squad Two were quite strict as well and looked too serious and disciplined. As such, Rumi didn't want to join it either.
Then, there was Squad Six where all captains of the squad came from Kuchiki family. If this wasn't blatant nepotism, Rumi didn't know what else was. In any case, she didn't want anything to do with complicated noble stuff or their self-righteous rules so she figured she wouldn't just join there.
As for Squad Eleven, Rumi heard that they were all battle junkies who lived on the thrill of fighting and didn't even care about their own death, which was a big red flag for Rumi. It didn't sound even a bit smart at all in her opinion and Rumi even thought that they had to either stupid or something seriously wrong with their heads or, maybe even both. She also heard of the rumors that they hated Kido users and consider them cowardly, which only added to her annoyance with the Squad. Regardless, Rumi didn't want to go there for a bit.
Then, finally, Rumi also didn't want to join Squad Twelve because she didn't really want to dedicate much of her time in a lab researching everyday and also potentially end up as a test subject by the captain.
So, Rumi directly crossed those Squads off of her list.
After thinking for a while, Rumi also figured out which squads she didn't have much interest in. She wasn't very interested in Squad Four, Seven and Nine. Squad Four was mainly comprised of healing and relief so they used Kaido, a healing Kido, and they weren't known for fighting. So, while Rumi was interested in learning Kaido, she didn't really find herself being enthusiastic about Squad Four. As for Squad Seven and Nine, Rumi just didn't find them interesting or fun.
That left her with Squad Three, Five, Eight, Ten and Thirteen, which was a good start from filtering out of thirteen options but still, five was still too big of a number.
Rumi wanted to narrow it down further to one or two options but in the end, she decided to wait and see what her options could be by the time of graduation.
With that deciced, she moved on to checking her stats and progress so far.
[Name : Fujiwara Rumi.
Age : 148 days. (Soul Society).
Race : Soul (Shinigami).
Relationships : Abarai Renji (Close Friends), Rukia (Close Friends), Hinamori Momo (Close Friends), Kira Izuru (Friends), Hitsugaya Toshiro (Mentee).
Reiryoku level : Moderately High.
Stored reiryoku : 7675/10,000.
Skills : Sloth (Passive), Guradian's Vigil (Passive), Fire Resistance (Passive), Cold Resistance (Passive), Mind's Momentum, Falsifier.
Abilities : Zanjutsu(Advanced Beginner), Kido (Intermediate), Hakuda (Beginner), Hoho (Intermediate).
Tools : Zanpakuto, Disguise Pendant.
Zanpakuto : Kazehime (Shikai).]
"I'm already so close to upgrading my reiryoku level..that's good." Rumi muttered. It would be nice to get her reiryoku to High level by the time she graduated.
But, so far, Rumi was satisfied with the skills in her arsenal and the progress of her combat techniques, well, except for Hakuda. After achieving Shikai and getting to know Kazehime better, Rumi found that her Shunpo had become much faster naturally even when she wasn't in Shikai state. It was as if she had naturally understood about the secret of higher speed, her wind reiatsu could also boost her own speed better, and more efficient.
And since her stats were only reflected of her skill level, her actual performance was usually better than what the stats said because of Sloth's efficiency. Otherwise, with actual Hakuda skill being only a little better than beginner, Rumi would've been beaten up by Renji at least a few times in their spars. But, that also meant her Kido skills could be said to be almost comparable to Kido expert when using the spells she had already learned.
"If I can improve Hakuda only a bit more, I can pass the academy standards.." Rumi muttered. As long as she could level up Hakuda to a level closer to Advanced Beginner, she could fool people into thinking she had the skill level necessary to pass the academy standards.
"Okay, let's get started then." Rumi suddenly became more energetic at that.
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Rumi spent the next two weeks putting a bit of an effort in Hakuda, and by that, it meant she went to the intensive Hakuda classes and paid attention for an hour or two before sneaking away. She would also do mock battles and spars for half of the numbers it required. Ounabara was on the verge of losing it again and warned her that if she failed, he would make her life in academy difficult. But, when Rumi casually showed her progress, it was already at the required Practitioner level and Ounabara guessed that her actual level was higher than Practitioner.
So after scolding her about not putting in more effort and wasting her potential, Ounabara told her that he would be putting in applications for her graduation exams.
"Wait...sensei, it hasn't even been a month yet. At this rate, won't I graduate in another month?" Rumi gasped, she wasn't ready to graduate at all!
"Yes, that was the whole point." Ounabara said tiredly. "Get out of here already.."
"Sensei! You're being too cold right now!" Rumi complained.
"Blame it on yourself." Ounabara said, he then continued as if he remembered something just now, "Oh, wait, have you been checking the letters?"
"Letters?"
"Yes, I have heard that you've received a few invitations from Gotei 13 squads.."
"Oh..so that's what those letters are!" Rumi said, "I was wondering why people are sending me letters."
"Please tell me you read them."
"Uh..not yet?" Rumi scratched her head, "I thought those were like spam mails and was about to throw them away."
"....Go read the letters."
"Okay, okay..."
And, it turned out that Squad Eight, Nine and Thirteen had sent her invitations to join their divisions.
Squad Eight had offered her a Seventh Seat position, Squad Nine offered her Eighth Seat position and Squad Thirteen offered her a Sixth Seat position.
While Squad Five also offered her a potential seated position along with the invitation, it wasn't stated clearly so Rumi was more compelled to go with Squad Thirteen.
Besides the benefits of higher positions, the actual reason Rumi wasn't too thrilled about joining Squad Five was because she felt that there was something off about Captain Aizen. It seemed like he was hiding something big, something Rumi couldn't quite put a finger on.
So Rumi wanted to keep a bit of a distance in a natural way before she could figure out what exactly it was. After all, there was still the whole hidden mission about finding the insider from the big Hollows incident. While she wouldn't go about being paranoid about Aizen being involved in the incident, she also thought it was better to not dismiss any possibilities until the truth was out.
All in all, Rumi's strategy was to play dumb and keep her distance in a natural way. And what was better than the fact that she ended up joining another squad which offered her the best deal out of all squads?
With that, Rumi made her decision to join Squad Thriteen.
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The next day, after Rumi replied to Squad Thirteen's invitation, it was decided that Squad Thirteen's lieutenant, Shiba Kaien, would come and meet her in person to confirm her qualifications. When Rumi was waiting for the lieutenant's arrival, Ounabara sensei also came back with the news about her finals.
"So, it's been decided that you'll take your graduation exam next week." Ounabara said, "Content itself is confidential but normally, you'll be tested on theory, then, each of your four combat techniques and based on the squad you want to apply for after graduation, we will test you on skills related to it. But, since we have words that several squads have already sent you invitations, we'll be skipping that last part. Because you won't need to take additional exams to join your chosen squad after passing the graduation exams."
"So, theory exam and exams on Zankensoki?"
"That's the gist, yes. Don't think about failing it." Ounabara said.
"Sensei, why do you sound like you're more afraid of me failing than myself?" Rumi asked, tilting her head. It couldn't be that Ounabara sensei was that worried about her, could he?
Meanwhile, Ounabara was silently wishing for next week to arrive quickly and get Rumi graduated as soon as possible. He even used all his power to accelerate her program and get her graduation exam ready in the shortest time possible. That was how much he wanted to get rid of her.
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When Shiba Kaien arrived, he saw Rumi in her academy uniform sleeping under a tree. He frowned a bit as her seemingly carefree attitude and wanted to test her on reflexes so he approached her sneakily. However, as he got to the distance of within ten meters, she opened her eyes.
"Oh, hi, you must be the lieutenant of Squad Thirteen, Shiba Kaien san." Rumi said, stretching herself after the nap.
Kaien was a bit taken aback, then he laughed heartily, "Indeed, I'm Shiba Kaien, lieutenant of Captain Ukitake's Squad Thriteen."
"Pleasure to meet you. I'm Fujiwara Rumi." Rumi greeted.
"Good," Kaien replied, "You can just call me Lieutenant Kaien or sir Kaien. No need for big formalities."
"Okay, Lieutenant Kaien." Rumi nodded.
"Now that introductions are over, how about we spar for a bit? After all, I have to see what your skill level actually is before you formally join the squad." Kaien said.
"Spar?" Rumi replied, "Makes sense.."
"Good, now let's change places. If we spar here, the academy wouldn't like that very much." Kaien said with a laugh. "Follow me, Fujiwara."
With a nod, Rumi followed Kaien.
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