章 19: 19 - To the World of the Living
Later that day, Rumi decided to go back to the innerworld and find her Zanpakuto spirit.
Once she was in the innerworld, she started to walk around and find the spirit. Then, just like the other day, the tornado came chasing her so Rumi activated her Shunpo and boosted it with her own wind reiatsu to get away from it. At the same time, she tried to find the spirit now that she wasn't struggling to just survive through the chasing tornado.
But, to her surprise and disappointment, there wasn't any sign of presence other than the tornado. Rumi wasn't sure how that could be, since the tornado was there, surely the spirit had to be around there too. And since the Zanpakuto spirit resided inside the innerworld, Rumi was quite sure that the spirit had to be in there, somewhere.
However, Rumi couldn't find it. It got a bit worse when the tornado picked up its speed to not let her get too comfortable and soon, Rumi found herself unable to focus on finding the spirit.
After a while, she had to leave the innerworld again without any success. Two days were over, Rumi had five more days left.
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Rumi decided to refine her Shunpo again and also try to improve her reiatsu control, hoping that they would help her in the challenge. Then, she went back to the innerworld, only for the whole thing to repeat and yet again, Rumi left without any success in finding the spirit.
It went on for another three days and by the end of sixth day, a day before the deadline, Rumi started to doubt that she was missing something important here, while she was getting carried away by the tornado chasing her. She couldn't help but think there had to be more than what she was seeing, something she was missing because just running around as the tornado chased her wasn't doing anything to find the spirit.
She was starting to feel a little frustrated as the deadline was getting closer but not too anxious as she still had one day. Even with the practical in the world of Living, Rumi figured she'd have enough time to figure something out.
The next day, it was finally the day they had to go to the world of living and for Rumi, it was also the final day of her mission.
As the students from Class One lined up on the roof and in front of the gate to the world of living, Rumi joined her classmates.
"Oi, Rumi, you're almost late." Renji scoffed, "And you said to worry about myself."
Rumi rolled her eyes, "Please, one minute before the start time isn't late."
"Whatever," Renji said, "You ready for the practical?"
"Yep," Rumi replied.
"Alright, everyone. First, a short introduction." The three sixth year students who were apparently facilitating the practical came up to the front. There were two guys and one girl, signifcantly taller and the girl were standing on the sides while the shorter guy stood in the middle. He seemed to be the leader.
Rumi noticed everyone started to get all excited about seeing them but all she could think as she noticed the tattoo on the leader guy's face was, 'Wow, it must take a lot of courage to tattoo your favorite position on your face like that'.
Renji on the other hand, or any other students, didn't seem to share her sentiment or even get their thoughts to that direction when they saw the tattoo.
Without noticing what Rumi was thinking, the leader guy introduced himself, "I'm a 6th year student, Hisagi."
The girl introduced herself as "Kanisawa" and the other guy introduced himself as "Aoga".
Hisagi then continued, "The three of us will guide you."
Renji seemed to be intrigued by the excitement of the other students, so he asked to Kira who was beside him, "What? Are those upperclassmen famous?"
Rumi turned to listen in the conversation as Renji asked what she'd been wanting to ask.
Kira replied, "Don't you know? Not all of them, just the one in the middle."
"The one with 69 tattoo? pfft-i can't.." Rumi asked, with muffled laugh.
"Why're you laughing?" Renji looked at her in suspicion.
"Come on, tell me you know what 69 means." Rumi said.
"What's that?" Renji and Kira looked a little lost there.
"Pfft, you guys don't even know that? I guess Soul Society is really lacking in that regard." Rumi said playfully. "Anyways, it's not like I can ask you to google it so.."
Renji raised his eyebrow but he decided to not play into Rumi's game early in the day. He then turned to Kira and waited for Kira's explanation.
Kira seemed to get the message, "He's Hisagi Shuhei. He's the first one to ever get accepted into the Gotei 13 before graduating. That hasn't happened in the last few years. They even say he'll be a ranked officer."
"Eh, he's that amazing?" Rumi muttered, he looked too depressed and rigid for someone with a 69 tattoo on his face, though.
'Maybe he's regretting the tattoo. I mean I'd also be like that if I tattooed a 69 on my face like that when I was young.' Rumi thought. She knew the tattoo might mean other than the 69 she was thinking but her way of thinking was way too amusing so she didn't really care if she was wrong.
"He is amazing," Kira said, he then rubbed his chin and continued with a smug voice, "By the way, he failed the academy's entrance exam twice. So I might be better in terms of talent since I passed with the highest score."
Renji had an unimpressed look on his face while Rumi was laughing at Kira's smugness. She tapped him on his shoulders and said, "You and me both."
Kira paused at the realization and then slowly nodded, "I guess, yeah."
Meanwhile, Kanisawa continued to introduce more about the practical, "Now, we'll break you up into groups of three. Look at the lots you drew earlier and find your teammates with the same mark."
Rumi looked around and saw that everyone, including Renji and Kira were holding a piece of paper while she had none! So, Rumi raised her hand and asked, "Sorry, I don't think I've been given a paper."
Kanisawa was taken aback by this development and muttered, "You didn't take a piece of paper when you arrived? You know at the enterance?"
Rumi smiled sheepishly and replied, "I was running a bit late so I took a shortcut.."
Hisagi looked at her with a frown, it was clear that he was displeased about the situation. "What's your name?" He asked. He had a vague idea on who that was but he still asked.
"Fujiwara Rumi." Rumi replied.
"I see," Hisagi said, "Since all the groups are more or less formed with three members, and I have word from Ounabara sensei to not go easy on you, you'll operate alone with Kanisawa's supervision."
"I don't get fun time with my friends?" Rumi asked.
"No, now, everyone, form your groups and prepare your belongings, especially your Asauchi, you'll need it for performing Konso." Hisagi said to everyone after saying only "no" to Rumi.
While the students were given a few minutes to group together and do a final check of your belongings to bring, Hisagi turned to the other two sixth years.
"Hisagi san, is it really okay to do it like this?" Kanisawa asked. Like Hisagi, she had also heard of this Fujiwara Rumi. Apparently, she was a genius in Kido and even her Zanjutsu was said to be really impressive for a student and a first year at that. Unfortunately, Kanisawa had also heard of her not going to classes or paying attention. While Rumi had a bad record of following rules, Kanisawa wasn't exactly sure if they were handling the case well.
"Why wouldn't it be? She's the one who didn't follow the instructions. If her practical doesn't go well, she can only blame herself." Hisagi replied. He knew what Kanisawa was thinking, but honestly, he didn't care.
Meanwhile, Renji, Kira and Momo were in the same group and Rumi looked at them, thinking how fun it would've been to be in the same group as then.
After a few minutes had passed, Hisagi said, "Now that the groups're formed, we'll explain about today's exercise. 6th year students have already entered into the World of the Living and built a barrier around a suitable area. You are to engage in practice combat with dummy hollows within that parameter. The 6th year students will create a combat-ready environment, but they won't assist you in the combat itself."
"Got that? Fine. Let's go." He announced before opening the gates.
Rumi felt a bit of excitement as she saw the gates opened. Stepping into the gate, Rumi kept her hand on her Asauchi. Yesterday, she had come up with the idea of just relying on her Asauchi and Zanjutsu to deal with dummy hollows in the practical.
The reason was quite simple, Rumi was thinking hard about what she was missing to actually find her Zanpakuto spirit and realized that she hadn't been paying much attention to actively contact or connect with her Zanpakuto spirit until now and she did a bit more than the bare minimum for Zanjutsu classes. She believed that because she could always win against Renji in Zanjutsu, her Zanjutsu was already good enough for now.
Rumi realized she hadn't been actively seeking to get to know her Zanpakuto spirit before and even with the mission, she was way too focused on the succeeding aspect and rewards rather than genuinely wanting to put more focus on it.
So, she figured by using her Asauchi more and practicing Zanjutsu, she might find something she was missing.
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Meanwhile, somewhere in the Soul Society,
"Is everything ready?" A man asked to his subordinate in black robes.
"Everything's ready, captain. Soon, we'll see our prototypes in action." The subordinate replied with his usual creepy smile.
"Good," The captain replied, adjusting his glasses.
週次パワーステータス
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