Tale of Swords and Souls: Prelude 0

It was late morning as the group of twenty excluding one well-dressed shinigami with long, tamed, white hair were walking through the Rukongai, seeking for the secret entrance that leads directly into the Shino Academy and into the Seireitei. The wall which they walked along still stood tall throughout the history of power struggles and strides. Without a hint of hostility, they continue unchallenged by the residents. The well-dressed shinigami assured their safety with a straight face and a focus that seemed to be able to detect the littlest of details of occurrence from the back of the group. Few are girls within the group and only one with a secret related to a zanpakuto. By fact, all, but one did not know about that secret, and it is the girl who already has a zanpakuto. She stood as a teenage girl with honey-blond hair that drapes down to her shoulders and cuts off on the line. Her dark rouge ribbon flapped wildly with the moderate wind as they seem to be the suspect of keeping her hair from hiding her face as protection to her fragile view upon the world around her.

Her winter skin always not shine by the sun as she continue to follow close by the shinigami, slightly shy from the other nineteen people. The pale blue mini dress flaunts side-to-side as if it has a meaning behind them other than being a distraction. In truth, she picked that dress for a more sentimental reason. Her gray eyes looked towards the leading shinigami for a brief moment and her face was graced with innocence disturbed by confusion and fear of uncertainty. The shinigami looked back at her with the same focus, but it seems that the girl can see through the hardened expression as she faintly smiled at him. She then looked away into the sky like something caught her attention. "Restore...?" the girl spoke quietly with an enigma in her tone, which is curious. The shinigami heard it as he spoke quietly to the girl, "Yes. We, the soul reapers of past, present and future are always here to restore order to chaos in the spiritual realm such as the Soul Society itself."

The girl looked back at the shinigami as he spoke. To her, he understood who she is and what she can do, but how much does he know in truth? The girl looked back to what is ahead of her and she noticed something off to the side. She picked up the pace ahead of the shinigami and squatted down with her legs paralleled and hands on the knees. The shinigami noticed the girl's approach to an object of interest. He took his time to examine what the girl was looking at. He looked at the girl with a smile before picking something off the ground and stashes it into his robe. The girl smiled back and spoke quietly to the shinigami like a gratitude given. They both continued on like father and daughter. They approached a natural staircase that leads straight into the wall. The geta sandals that the girl was wearing was clacking against the rocky surface as they approached it. The shinigami touched the wall and a silver thread of energy outlined a large rectangle as if tracing a door. The wall piece shifted a bit towards the group as the shinigami opened the wall piece like a door.

The girl walked inside and into a dark hallway that was lit only by the blue spiritual torches. It was definitely a secret passageway as the other nineteen people entered after her. The hallway seems wide enough to fit three people in a row. "Keep going, it is only a straight hallway to the Academy." The shinigami encouraged the group of new students. The girl kept walking down the hallway, leading the pack uncomfortably. After the shinigami entered after the last one, he shut the door with the sound of grinding stones before a boom. The girl puts her hand on the right wall as if she was lost, but she is still walking forward, still uncomfortable of where she is. Deeper and deeper, it seemed that the hallway was longer than the wall's thickness, but the darkness suddenly stopped the girl with a collision. The girl grunted sweetly before rubbing her left arm, the arm that she bumped the wall with. The shinigami weaved through the group and looked at the girl before pressing his hand against the wall. The wall happened to be another door leading to the main entrance of the majestic complex known as the Shino Academy. The girl with her right hand over her left arm, she looked at the building with intense curiosity.

The girl was looking upon the gates in a daze as if there is some nostalgic value to them, but she does not speak at all. The shinigami was approaching the gateway as the girl still stood. She must been thinking a lot for someone new and something was still prodding her nerves, making her uncomfortable with herself. Her heart was slightly weighed down, silence emitted from her lips other than her necessary breaths and her knotted stomach. They are subtle, but it bothers her to no end. She looked at the group behind her and she noticed that one was missing. She planned to tell the shinigami about it, but would that help a bit or serves as a foreshadow to her that he would soon desert her and the Gotei 13? She frowned and relaxed her eyes a bit, feeling betrayed for a reason that is dismissive. She counted the people in the group, hoping she is wrong with her suspicions. Turned out to be eighteen left, leaving her as the nineteenth. She began trying to remember of why that recruit left the group.

Ever since they are grouped up by the shinigami, the boy that left was not happy and the girl can feel that. A lot of things made him angry, but why? She pondered upon that question. Something told her that he is bound to be unruly and she could try at her own risk. During the walk through the Rukongai, the boy's aura grew and grew, making it harder for someone very sensitive to spiritual activities like the girl having trouble keeping composure. The weight pressing down upon her each step forward as the boy's aura continued to rise. The girl's sensitivity to spiritual activity left her in a dire disadvantage as anything related to spiritual energy or death energy doubles in strength against her. Then he left when something told her about restoring something. The girl could not understand what they meant, but the boy who left also relieved her because she would not be affected by the aura. Still, she felt the anger chilling her being as she was passively aware of anything spiritual. Suddenly, the sound of rumbling heavy wood and squealing, grinding irons snapped her out of that daze.

The girl turned around and noticed that the right gate was opening as the group walked by her. She was the only one who remained outside the gate to the Shino Academy, hoping that the boy would return with a cleared mind, not angry about something. She curled up her left hand and covered the left fist with her opened right hand before raising it over her mouth. The thumbs are paralleled as she closed her eyes, trying to find out where the boy could be now. With her great empathy, she could read a person's spirit and emotion like a book; something she has to look hard to find the right details to find out the truth of something. She stood there for sometime as if she was trying to contact the boy, beckoning him to come to the Shino Academy. However, the shinigami approached the girl and asked her kindly to follow the others into the Academy. The girl broke off from her praying and followed the shinigami with a worried look on her face.

During the time of the girl's prayer, she can figuratively see where the boy was. In the Rukongai and he was trying to get away the other shinigami and her as well. The picture was never clear to her as she tried to blindly draw out a mental map by feelings alone. For a moment, the boy could see a transparent visage of the girl appeared before him with the face of the betrayed and the lost. The very image that would churned the emotion of those who is looking to protect someone like most shinigami would. It is considered a mental phenomenon created by a strong emotion; replaying the same moment or something over and over until they can fix the problem and rest more peacefully. If the boy was truly a shinigami, he would have a reaction to the sight. The transparent visage disappeared the moment that the girl was interrupted by the shinigami. It is now up to the boy to decide whether or not that he should return to the Shino Academy to attend the orientation.

The girl was walking to the gate as the shinigami was kind enough to wait for her while holding the door for her. The girl looked at the shinigami with a smile and looked behind her because she heard something. "What?" The girl replied to nothing, prompting the shinigami to look at her with curiosity. He felt something approaching quickly, but he is assuming that it is a late student. The girl turned her attention to the shinigami with concerns on her face and in her mind. "They said he is coming." The girl spoke to the shinigami. The shinigami was a tad surprised by the girl's statement. He felt someone was coming, but how could that girl detected him nearly just as quick as he did? Who are "they" that told her so? Something did not fit together unless the shinigami was missing a piece to the jigsaw puzzle. The presence stopped above the girl, but the shinigami could not tell who is it because the roof of the gate was obstructing his view. Then it happened before his eyes as something that no one could expect at all.

The boy dropped from the sky and hacked the girl in the back with his zanpakuto. Blood is released and spilled upon the zanpakuto and the ground. The burning pain shocked the girl as the force cued her to fall forward. There is nothing she could do to defend herself as the attack was sudden. She instinctively shrieked in agony before quieting down into agonized groaning as the pain did not let up. The shinigami who witnessed it was stunned not only by the attack, but also his own failure to protect a student. His eyes widened and his mouth gaped open as he tried to call out to the guards, but the guilt rendered him speechless. The boy retreated a short distance away from the girl as the black reiatsu surrounded the boy's zanpakuto, the girl began breathing harder as if the spiritual pressure was worsening the condition. The shinigami knew an attack would kill her at this point and hardened his resolve. He flash stepped in front of the approaching dark wave and used his two zanpakuto to block the dark wave.




It was a close shave as the block was successful. As the dark energy dissipated, the boy was gone. What provoked such act? The shinigami looked at the girl and noticed her wound was bad enough for hospitalization. Fortunately, another shinigami was passing by. "Soul reaper! Alert the fourth division! Student is down and badly wounded!" The shinigami shouted to the passing shinigami. The passing shinigami looked and noticed the girl on the ground with a wound on her back. The passing shinigami did not hesitate and ran for the fourth division barrack. The shinigami who is with the girl sat on his knees and held out his hands. The best he could do is to keep the wound from getting worse by using his basic healing kidou. The wound is deep enough that it will take more than that to mend it. Captain Unohana and her squad mates are capable of dealing with this. The girl looked only away from the shinigami because she landed this way and she cannot move her body.




Under an hour, a female captain with her notachi zanpakuto and black hair braided down in front of her arrived. Originally, she would be having lunch, but the passing shinigami told her of the wounded student. "What happened, Ukitake-sama?" The female captain asked the shinigami. "This student was struck down by another student, Unohana-sama. The attack was unsuspecting, so I failed to protect her in time. I can only managed to block the finishing blow and keep her from dying." Ukitake answered. Unohana looked over the wound and noticed that the wound is indeed deep and damaged the spine, paralyzing the girl. "You two get the girl to the relief center. Third one will be keeping the wound from getting worse. I'll be staying with Ukitake and alert Captain Kuchiki." Unohana told her squad mates. As the squad mates carried the girl away in a stretcher, Unohana summoned a hell butterfly and sends it to Captain Kuchiki, requesting one of his squad mates to go to the Shino Academy for a deeper investigation. As for Ukitake, Unohana stays to help him recuperate.
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