Epiphany

11. Epiphany

As the times went on, Sai started to grind himself into training and training with Kuruyashiki in his weekend as revisions to his strength.

With his situation as official shinigami, Sai couldn't afford to put all gis time into training. Instead, he had to arrange his time between his duty, missions, training and his relaxing time.

As he had said, Sai didn't feel he was in rush to gain more strength. When he was training with Kuruyashiki, Sai learn that everything he had in his sleeves was just at combatants level at most. There is two more levels above which was expert combatants and Master level.

There were also combination forms of skills such as double combos like Hoho+Zanjutsu, Zanjutsu+Hakuda, Kido+Zanjutsu, Hoho Hakuda and Hakuda+Kido.

There were also triple combo and higher combination techniques to be used in fights. Sai was told that people usually chose to focus on one or two combat form which suitable for them.

There were rarely shinigami who was known to master all the forms such as the Chief of Gotei13, Yamamoto Shigekuni Genryusai.

Not only Kuruyashiki taught him to master the forms and combos, Sai also trained his combat reaction. As he was already in many fights, he was told to control his fighting instinct and reflexes

Using the hard way, Sai learned how his reflexes would cause disaster to him if his reflexes were lured or was under control by his opponent.

All in all, with so many things in his list, Sai spent a decade to raise his forms and skills onto the next level.

As for his zanpakuto, Sai had been ignoring the arrogant brat(zanpakuto) for 5 years.

It was until the day he heard his new zanpakuto voice. Then an unbelievable event happened.

His zanpakuto which had been in silence for five years suddenly glowed in white and absorbed the new zanpakuto into itself before Sai could hear its name.Then it went into mute mode again since then.

Sai almost went crazy when he saw what had happened. To make it worse, no matter how much Sai tried to communicate with it, he received the old 'silence answer' as if telling him that he still didn't reach its 'standard'.

As he had been training all these years, his reiatsu had increased 5 times more than he had during his first day as official shinigami. According to Kuruyashiki, his reiatsu was stronger than the standard for a captain. With that to be said, he still didn't reach the 'standard'.

It's ok if it kept its silence as it always had, but to interfere with his Jinzen with the new zanpakuto, frustrated Sai to his core.

Sai was thinking if he really needed to abandon his zanpakuto and went into another path.

After pondering for a whole day, Sai made his final decision.

After a decade of effort, Sai really didn't want to give up on his zanpakuto. As unruly as it was, Sai felt that his conquest to conquer the proud zanpakuto would be one of his best achievement.

Not only that, he really wanted to see his zanpakuto power after all his efforts.

Furthermore, the situation reminded him about a story that his teacher told him in the past. It was about a theory.

The story went on a guy who had been digging to search diamond for a long time. After he invested a lot of effort into it, he still didn't find the diamond he was looking for. Then he quit. Unknown to him, if he had been digging for one more day, the diamond that he was digging for would be found.

To Sai, he didn't want to miss the diamond. Maybe his next day is the next year. Or it might be the next decade. Or it maybe next century. Nonetheless, as he kept on striving for it, he would still grow stronger as time went on.

As for his luck of might not reach the diamond, maybe the pebbles that he found along the way could have some value for him.

"Stupid diamond. You better be as worthy for my efforts." Sai let out a deep breath before he left them out.

****

"Huh? What happened?" Seeing Sai enter the training room without his second zanpakuto, Kuruyashiki asked.

"Tch, it is all this brat's fault...." Sai started to complain after he heard the question.

After a decade, Sai and Kuruyashiki relationship had been developing throughout the years. Aside from being his captain, Kuruyashiki was also his teacher, his best friend and the closest person to him since he entered this world. Sai had taken Kuruyashiki as his big brother figure.

Sai had been telling him all his problems and worries. Of course he didn't mention anything about those things in his memories.

After a decade of developing under Kuruyashiki, Sai felt that he had learnt a lot more than his 100 years of his life experience.

Compared to the power that come abruptly after missions, Sai felt that the developing strength that he had at the moment worth a lot more than the former.

He understood more about his ability and potential that he had after all the harness that he had been through.

.

.

"Hahhaha. What an unruly zanpakuto. I hope I can see it soon before that fight." After hearing Sai's story, Kuruyashiki laughed.

"What? What are you talking about? What fight? What do you mean by that?" Sai was shocked when he heard his captain's words.

"Hahaha. It's just an epiphany. I feel that deadly fight is closing in to me. I wonder if I'm going to survive the fight." Kuruyashiki grinned in anticipate.

'Pang!'

A memory suddenly came to Sai as he saw Kuruyashiki was grinning.

Yes. He remembered. Kuruyashiki would die in a fight with the next Kenpachi. He remembered that the guy would come and challenge Kuruyashiki before killing him and taking the Kenpachi place.

Gripping on his zanpakuto, Sai's hand couldn't stop shaking. Knowing such a close person to would die, a lot of bad thoughts came to Sai including to eliminate the person before he came or had the power to do so. Sai already had the name in his mind. He just needed to know about his wherebout.

As he thought about it, a small murderous aura was released from Sai's body before it disappeared.

Seeing the changes in Sai's face and the instant murderous aura of him before it disappeared, Kuruyashiki was puzzled.