3/3

I thought I'd left the delicious sensation of learning a new word behind when I'd finally become fluent in Japanese. Clearly I was wrong. "That's her released form," I said, putting special emphasis on the pronoun so I didn't have Arashi nagging me to stick up for her. "At least, I think so. Technically I don't have Shikai yet since she didn't have time to give me a technique."

Shinji crowed with laughter. "Ha, see there," he told everyone else. "Told ya I could catch up!"

I turned my best sickly-sweet smile on him as I sheathed Arashi. "Not really. I'm heading over to get her registered after this. Himura-sensei said they've got rooms for people who know they're close and don't want to wreck their bedrooms."

His face dropped so fast it was almost comical. "Aww, c'mon!" Shinji considered for a second before his smug smile reappeared. "Well, it'll only be a little bit longer 'til I get one! An' I won't have a girly weapon!"

My smile widened into smug smirk territory. "Sorry. Reason I'm doing that today is that Himura-sensei wants to brag about having the youngest student to get Shikai." I savored the shock on their faces, letting a little pause hang there before I added, "Ever."

"...maybe I should study more," Nanase managed. My eyes locked on him, slight frown crossing my face. Seeing Nanase reminded me that he was my current biggest problem to straighten out, Momohiko being a lesser concern if I knew how well the rumor mill worked here. The story of my confrontation with Oshiro would've spread across campus before even one of the days I'd been missing had passed. Nanase beamed at me, eyes crinkled practically to slits with how wide his smile was. He looks less like a kicked puppy than he used to, I noted affectionately. "I mean, now the standard's so high! The Gotei'll never let me in if I don't have something to recommend me!"

I grinned. "You'll be fine, Nanase-kun—can I call you that?" At his nod, I continued, "Gotei'll take just about everyone, I hear. I mean, you might be unseated, but still."

"Yeah, yeah, enough about the tagalong, what about ya, Narin?" Shinji interrupted. I frowned sharply at him. Dammit, Shinji, I'm trying to get close to Nanase! Your paranoia can come later! "Oshiro didn't hurt ya? Why'd Unohana grab ya? Is that ink on yer face?"

"I'm fine, no, not allowed to tell you, and ditto," I said wearily. "Can we get back to something that's actually interesting?"

Shinju nudged me. "Oh, come on. You can spare some time to let your little brother fuss over you, you know?"

No, you can't, daoshi, Arashi argued. We have to know!

I suppressed a giggle at the lightning zing of curiosity in her voice. Shinju's right, I replied. My relationship with her and with Shinji is more important than finding out what Nanase's hiding right now. And before you argue, yes, every interaction counts.

Disappointment rolled back to me like muddy water, but there was grudging understanding mixed in with it. No problems with my Zanpakutou just yet, thankfully.

"Fine, fine," I said aloud. "It's complicated, but Captain Unohana-sama put seals on my face. I'm not completely sure what they do or how they work, but she thought they were necessary." I shrugged, as if to say, 'Who would argue with Unohana?' and hoped they took that for an answer.

"Ya ain't tellin' the full story," Minoru observed, narrowed brown eyes shaded by unkempt hair.

Genius. I rolled my eyes at him. "And like I said, I'm not allowed to tell you on pain of onmitsu."

Shinju's eyebrows flew up. "Oh, that's not good." I refrained from saying 'no shit.' "Can't you get your family to intervene?"

I shook my head. "Wish I could, but that'd do more harm than good. Don't suppose yours has any sway there?" I said half-heartedly. The chance of that wasn't too likely, since the Shihouin had something of a monopoly on information and espionage, but all of the Great Noble Houses had some way of keeping tabs on their rivals.

She bit her lip. "None. Isn't there anything we can do?" Shinju directed that question at Shinji, which made a bit of sense. Odds were he'd have more knowledge about our clan capabilities than me.

Shinji shrugged, tilting his head back to let the sun gild it. "Sounds like as long as Narin doesn't mess with whatever the seals do she'll be fine. Better protection than anything Dad could give her."

I smiled. Second tenet of the Hirako: don't waste energy on a solution when you can avoid creating a problem. "Yeah, makes sense enough." I took a seat in a patch of shade and patted the pollen-smeared stone beside me. "Have you fussed enough now? I want to know what I've missed."

Taking seats of their own, my friends were happy to spill. My Reiryoku Manipulation teacher had finally gotten together with the First's Twentieth Seat who'd been sneaking around campus with her ever since school had started. The Shiba Clan Head had stormed onto campus and ripped Isshin a new one over money issues. Classwork had been all but suspended with Oshiro's death, which had spawned more rumors than there were students. Momohiko, most interestingly, had actually shut up. Shinji's smug smile at that bit of information told me everything I needed to know about his involvement there.

"Nobles," Minoru muttered, but there was no bite to his words. "I swear I'd go right outta my head if I had to learn all those ceremonies and ranks and whatnot."

"I imagine you'll have to learn those anyway," Aizen observed, "with so many nobles being in the Gotei."

Nanase made a face. "Don't remind me," he groaned, flopping backwards onto some tree roots and immediately sitting bolt upright again when a particularly gnarly one dug into his back. I giggled. "You haven't heard anything yet. There're some kids in my Zanjutsu class who are already talking about cousins who can get a spot in this division or that division. Drives me nuts."

"It drives everyone nuts," Shinju said, "but we're just used to it." She twirled a lock of ashen hair around her finger. "My brother started telling me whose palms he'd have to grease to get me a seat in the Tenth before I even enrolled. Our parents scolded him so much for that." Her mouth turned briefly downward, as if she was reliving the argument. Shinju shrugged, smiling again. "That's life."

Eventually I did make it over to the registration building, no thanks to Himura. Directions would've been nice.

"Are you lost?" The woman at the front desk asked, peering down at me over an unnecessarily tall desk. "Or waiting for a friend, perhaps?"

I shook my head, sliding Arashi out of my obi. "It's a two-part trial," I explained, holding up Arashi for her to see. "Himura Kyou-sensei said I should come here."

She raised an eyebrow at the first part and sighed at the second. "I'll assume Himura-san knows what he's doing then. This isn't at all usual. Lisa!" She called over her shoulder.

"I'm coming, Keiko-soba!" A familiar no-nonsense voice called from one of the back rooms. Dammit, I thought as its owner appeared, twirling a scroll like a baton.

Lisa, out of all the future Visoreds, had changed the least over the years. Blue-green eyes appraised me coolly from behind familiar red-rimmed glasses for a second before she glanced at the woman I presumed was her aunt. "What, did she get sentenced here too? i thought first-year delinquents got hit with safer stuff."

"I'm not a delinquent!" I protested before I could remember to keep sizing her up.

Lisa tossed her head, ink-black braid lashing like an aggravated cat's tail. "Not what I heard, but suit yourself."

The lack of malice in her voice didn't make the statement sting any less, but I didn't get the chance to say anything as Keiko intervened.

"She's... apparently here to achieve and register her Shikai." Keiko cast a doubtful look at Arashi again, rather stupidly, I thought. What else would I be doing with her? "Take her to one of the rooms and I'll let you leave early for the day."

Lisa nodded sharply and turned on her heel, leaving me to follow. I suspected she wouldn't care if I didn't. Regardless, I did, so I trotted after her.

"So, got an inkling?" she asked, maintaining the same blasé tone. "Of what her name is?"

"Tennyou no Rai'arashi," I replied, enjoying the surprised twitch of her shoulders. "I did tell the woman at the desk that it was a two-part trial."

"Good for you," Lisa said after a second. I wondered where her own Zanpakutou was. As I recalled it was some kind of humongous polearm. "Alright, let's use this one." We stopped at a training room best described as spartan. As in, it had a few small, square windows cut into the wall—which, come to think of it, was incredibly weird to see after getting used to sliding screen walls—and a zabuton cushion in the middle and nothing else. No, that wasn't quite right. A nodachi lay by the cushion, half-sheathed. Lisa strode over, retrieved what I supposed was her Zanpakutou, and walked back over to me.

"Sorry. Keiko-soba lets me do jinzen in here when the place is slow. Usually is. Try not to blow yourself up." With that valuable wisdom dispensed, Lisa brushed past me and left, still twirling her scroll.

I stood there at the threshold for a second, butterflies beginning in my stomach. Stupid as it was, I couldn't get over the fact that in front of me was a milestone. All I had to do to reach it was walk in.

Arashi made a sound that was too polite to be called a snort. You worry too much, daoshi. Now begin before I decide you are too delicate for me.

Delicate? Me? Ha. Still, they were the words I needed. I entered the room fully, shutting the door behind me just in case achieving Shikai brought a geyser again. Aizen hadn't seemed terribly happy to be soaked and I doubted anyone else would be.

I settled onto the cushion, deliberately delaying by folding my legs so my feet were soles-up on my thighs. Drawing Arashi, I laid her sheath in front of me and rested her across my lap. I put my hands on the blade, ready to call reiryoku to my hands like I had so many times before with Oshiro-

I swallowed hard, hot guilt displacing bubbly anticipation in my chest. I thought I'd long ago accepted the knowledge that as a Shinigami I'd have to kill. I'd said it to Oshiro and Shinju and been so sure. Really, truly thinking about it? My past self would've been sick. My present self felt a distant regret, the sort one would have for replacing a beloved but broken toy.

Arashi, am I damned? I asked.

The sensation of hesitation came before she answered. If you are damned, then I am with you, daoshi.

I didn't mean that, I snapped. Would He- did I- was it right? I scrabbled for long-unused tenets, for a faith in a God I was no longer sure existed, for anything that could justify or condemn me beyond a warped society.

Hesitation again, but gentler. I believe so, daoshi. You sought to protect and save the lives of others. And if you still worry, I do not have to agree with you. That is the truth as I know it.

I knew that voice, mincing and unfailingly precise, if hesitant, with every word as it tried to present something complex simply. Arashi was mine for sure.

I shut my eyes and dove into the lightning-well inside.

There was no sensation of transition, of numbness or static or anything like that. I closed my eyes on a plain room and opened them to see a slightly less spartan temple, simple as that.

"I thought you'd change the world," I said aloud, assuming Arashi could hear me despite being nowhere in sight, "since you want to give me the test before real Shikai."

A fluttering sound came from behind me and I turned to see my Zanpakutou, every bit as regal as she had been against Oshiro. Although maybe I needed to check my belongings for rabbits' feet and four-leaf clovers, since it appeared that I had an inordinate tendency to encounter beautiful women. At least this one was beautiful in a more abstract way, like the moon on water, or a forest fire—remote and primal.

I frowned. "You're dressed differently," I said.

"I am dressed the same as ever," she replied. "I'm showing myself differently."

Ah, there was my daily dose of cryptic. The simple deep blue kimono she'd worn had been replaced by a five-tone chuufurisode, long sleeves falling to her knees. No better, its hem brushed the ground. The 'background' was now indigo, patterned with white and slightly lighter blue waves. Ethereal silver clouds shimmered above the waves, metallic gold thread forking down to imitate lightning. Even the maru obi she wore used those colors, thin gold and silver stripes on blue with a white obi cord. It was a dramatic kimono, the kind I'd always admired from afar but would never be caught dead wearing.

Some aspects had remained constant, I noted. Her chiisagatana hung at her side, tied tightly with a white cord. The wide sakkat still graced Arashi's head, opaque silver fabric hiding her hair like a curtain. White rice powder still made her face an unreadable ivory mask—by design, I suspected.

"Are you done admiring what your soul has produced?" Arashi's tone was wry. "We have a task before us."

That one sentence brought me firmly back to earth. I nodded sharply. "Let's do it."

Arashi drew her sealed form. The metal fractured, smoothed, and darkened into war fans. Taking one for herself, Arashi held out the other to me. I took it, flicking it open in front of my face unthinkingly.

Her eyes crinkled. "You carry out their intended function without even realizing, daoshi. Tell me, if you can, what a fan does."

I blinked. "It deflects, parries, cuts, clubs, signals troops, keeps you cool... what?"

She shook her head. Though I couldn't see much of her face, I could read exasperation in the lines of Arashi's body. She began to circle me, geta clicking on the floor. I matched her, crossing my steps carefully so I didn't ruin the moment by falling. "Perhaps you've spent so much time preparing for conflict that you've forgotten the arts of peace. True, a fan may deflect a strike, but it can also help you to avoid an uncomfortable question. It may accent a well-worded retort, or signal your mood, availability, interests... You are allowed to be a person before you are a tool, daoshi. The crimson girl is not the only one who can wear ornaments. The flower-shadow maiden is not the only one who can take time to grow up instead of rushing ahead." Arashi paused. "The true liar should not be the only one to love."

I nearly tripped over my own feet in spite of my caution. "Are you trying to get me to be girly?" I sputtered. "Sorry, but that's not me! I know what's coming! I can't just- just relax! What if they come early? Or I'm not strong enough? What if they win because I didn't train hard enough?"

Her fan fluttered. "You are as feminine as you need to be, daoshi. But did you listen to a word you just said? You think you are the only one responsible for the fate of the world and you aren't. You aren't good enough to be."

My hand froze, no longer rippling the fan. I'm not good enough. My soul doesn't think I'm good enough. Who would want me? I stared at Arashi, whose dark eyes showed no sign of mischief.

Focus. Focus, you good-for-nothing piece of shit. This is a problem. Solve it. She wants you to deflect? Deflect.

"And?" I said, forcing loftiness into my voice. "I'm here to grow stronger. That's what's important."

Her fan snapped shut. "Stupid, stupid girl," she said softly. "I tell you you can't be the only one to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders and you ask how to manage the burden. Daoshi, you cannot. This is a society that has lain in its filth for millennia and you want to scour it clean with only your hands. Do that and you will be forced to take measures that leave your hands covered in the same filth."

"It doesn't matter!" I yelled, voice pitching high and whiny like the little girl she seemed to think I was. "I don't matter the way they do! This- this place is rotten," I said my voice cracking as it quieted. "If I have to ruin myself so everybody else can live better, that's what has to happen. 'It can't be helped,'" I quoted the often-heard saying. "People are composed of many individuals. If one of them chooses to be hurt so the rest can be happy... isn't that good? Isn't that right?"

"No," Arashi said, expression cool, tone blunt. "You may make your choice to do right, but that doesn't make it the right choice. Perhaps you're right, daoshi. Perhaps you and I don't matter. Perhaps we are a tool to accomplish an honorable end. But we can be used another way. When I said that you would dirty your hands if you tried to clean this place alone, I did not mean that you must not kill, or strike preemptively, or follow the system to reach a place where you can change things. They are necessary. But so are you."

Arashi came to a halt. I stopped too, warily. Was this where we fought for her power?

No. All at once the fan vanished from my hand and reappeared in hers. Arashi snapped both tessen open, silver beads blossoming on the silk, and with a flick of her wrists, fog filled the room.

When the fog cleared, I stood in the Zen garden from before, Arashi nowhere in sight. Fluttering came from behind me and I turned to see her once again. Arashi reached up, removing her sakkat, sleeves dissolving into mist and skirt flowing into something more like a loincloth.

Long, iridescent black feathers now shimmered along winglike arms, hands tipped with talons, only slightly shorter on crane-like legs. Not geta, I realized. Claws. Even the shadow of hair I'd seen beneath the sakkat was a mane of coal-black feathers.

Harpy, whispered a girl steeped in myths of toga-clad gods and proud, princely heroes.

Tennyo, corrected the part of me that had soaked up tales of faceless women and dragons of water instead of fire. Beautiful.

And that was what vaguely unnerved me, not her appearance: the fact that feathers and talons were so much more natural than skin and nails. I'd been walking on a battlefield without armor and weapons before. Something within me settled. Before the seals Arashi had filled me to the bursting point, barrier between Zanpakutou and Shinigami tenuous at best. Afterwards it'd felt as though she'd found a gap I hadn't known existed and filled it, but parts still grated. I breathed in cool, fresh air and exhaled contentedly. Now she fit exactly as she should.

"We're a chimera," Arashi said, done with letting me gape. "Not of this world, but a part of it nonetheless. To be true, we have to deceive. We manipulate others to keep them free. We fight for peace, do evil for good, hurt to heal." Her feathers rippled, rainbows shimmering across their darkness. "You know that. And yet," she said, crossing the distance between us in a few long strides, "you fail to grasp the two essential points." Arashi held up a curved talon. "The first is that our knowledge of weakness gives us strength. You have been weak, human, powerless. You are still a raindrop compared to the oceans of the captains. And so we can become strong, because we know what we need to be. Our rain warns them of the storm, and if they don't listen? We change them in a way they can't understand." She held up another claw. "The second is that we aren't alone. The sun evaporates the sea, the pearl steals its grit, the spear pollutes it with its children's blood, the seaweed chokes its flow. We have allies. You know this, have planned for this—don't try to get out of it."

I sagged, all the strength taken out of me by her words. "But there's so much to do," I whispered. "And they don't know."

She tilted my chin up with a single claw that was exactly as sharp as it looked—which was to say, extraordinarily. "They managed without you the first time, daoshi," Arashi scolded. "You will improve this world, but it does not hinge on you. They need you, yes, but it will go on without you, as it has for centuries."

I half-sobbed, half-laughed. "That shouldn't be as comforting as it is."

She smiled thinly. "To anyone else it wouldn't be. To you, silly girl, it is. Now, we take a step towards that peace."

Two fans condensed from a tendril of mist in front of me. I knelt at her pointed look and picked them up, flicking each open to match her.

"First things first, daoshi," Arashi said, all at once brisk as Himura. "We will work harder than Himura will ever push you."

That was all the warning I got before she lunged, front fan snapping closed as she brought it down in a classic overhead strike. I dodged purely on instinct, leaning back and letting my feet catch up just fast enough to leap away from her follow-up slash with the back fan.

Narrow, closed, high, front-weighted stance, I noted frantically, landing on top of the middle rock. Unexposed, unstable, fast, aggressive. Best bet? Run. Strategically. My eyes flicked back to Arashi, only to find nothing there. Dammit.

She reappeared above me, leading again with a closed-fan strike. I caught the whisper of gold across her open fan a split second before the stench of ozone hit me. I slammed my wrists into hers in an X block. Basic weapons training. My mind stalled for a second as I realized that with my hands occupied I couldn't follow through with the rest of the technique.

Arashi took that opening, twisting and slashing her open fan across my kosode. I shrieked, more in surprise than pain, as its razor edge tore through to my sarashi. I snapped my front fan open and swung at her—the motion was similar enough to an eclipse hand strike that I got good power out of it. I missed, naturally, failing to account for the fact that bird legs meant she didn't stand and move like me.

But Arashi didn't account for the fact that my eyes were naturally drawn to her legs, making her attempted kick telegraphed as hell. I jumped off the rock before she could connect, landing on the gravel with a faint thrill of relief. Arashi followed me, shaking her fans open, The gold pattern had disappeared, as had the buzz of electricity. Good. I couldn't help noticing the awkward way she landed, claws not quite gripping the pebbles. Inspiration hit me like a bolt of lightning, observations slotting into place into my earlier half-assed plan.

This time when she flew at me, fans a maelstrom of blue silk and silver edges, I moved. It was easier now, clad in the armor of a good if not great plan and getting the hang of my tessen, to shut my fans and use them like tantou. I'd never dual-wielded tantou, but the length and weight was similar enough that I could pretend.

"Fight, daoshi!" Arashi shouted, apparently not at all exhausted by her onslaught. I ground my teeth to keep from letting her knock the tessen out of my hands. "You get from me the power you deserve! Lose and you get nothing!"

Fire flared in my chest, tearing out of me as a screech as I snapped my fans open and whirled the same way I had for a thousand spinning kicks. The first fan failed, blocked by a casual chicken-wrist block, but the second got through. The fabric was too dark to see clearly, but the telltale sound of tearing silk declared my success.

"Second blood," I panted, fighting the urge to stop and laugh at her expression, eyes wide and lips forming a delicate O of surprise. She looked like one of the old paintings Shinji and I loved to mock.

The wind went out of me as she slammed a closed fan into my side like a club. Wheezing, I staggered back, flicking my fans shut as Arashi resumed her assault with the fury of her namesake. The world narrowed to a tunnel, her fans the only things I could see at its end. I would've liked to be in the box in my head that i went to during kata performances in class, but instead I was in the driver's seat completely. Blockblockstepblockblockblockstepstep in rapid sequence.

Straw sandals slid on wet gravel and I was scrambling upright, dripping wet. Something cold and scaly slipped past my ankle. Koi? I hoped so. The shock of the water had made the tunnels retreat, at any rate.

Arashi clicked over the gravel, feather-hair flattened in... disappointment? Anger? I couldn't tell. "Lightning doesn't wait. It strikes," she said, mincing towards me. "Water, too, takes any opportunity to advance. If you do neither, you fail. Another day, daoshi." Gold shimmered across her open fan. Arashi stepped forwards and swung down-

Now! I lunged forwards, wrapping my hands in her collar, and heaved. Arashi flailed for a second, just long enough for me to hurl myself out of the pond.

Belly-down on the gravel, I didn't directly see what happened when electrified fans met water. The deafening crack from behind me, as well as the white blaze of light that painted my shadow briefly on the stone, told me enough, though. I lay there for a moment longer before struggling to my feet, ribs aching. I turned, both curious to see what had happened to Arashi and dreading the sight.

The truth wasn't as spectacularly horrible as I'd expected. Arashi was climbing to her feet, clothes and body repairing themselves rapidly as I watched. Even her tessen, scorched to metal ribs and tattered silk—which reeked—mended before my eyes.

"My ears are ringing!" I said before she could rip me a new one. "Can't hear you!"

Arashi shrugged, an interesting movement given the way the light played off her feathers. She flicked her fans shut and brought them together, ribs elongating and silk rippling until I was looking at her sealed form again. As soon as she sheathed it, the ringing disappeared and my tessen evaporated.

"No excuse now," Arashi said, as fake-pleasant as I liked to be with Momohiko. "Well done, daoshi."

I blinked. I couldn't have heard her right. No one got electrocuted and congratulated the person who'd done it. "Uh, what?"

"You heard me," Arashi said, lifting black brows. "Your plan to deceive your enemies will come along well if that performance was any indication. I was convinced that you were too scared to fight with an unfamiliar weapon."

I sighed in relief, smiling. "Well, I didn't use them- you-" I stopped, looking at her helplessly.

"'Them' will work fine for our purposes," Arashi provided. "Continue."

"I didn't use them all that much," I said. "But once I got used to them, the motion's a little like an eclipse hand strike, and they have a weight like tantou." I grinned. "Keeping that in mind, it was easier for me to use another weapon: the environment. Er, are the koi okay?"

Arashi's lips twitched, though she was too dignified to smile at that. "They belong to your soul, daoshi. They can withstand a little electrocution. How did you plan that?"

"I bought time at first, obviously. My first plan was to run until I had a better plan," I explained. "Then I saw how you walked—no offense—and realized that I had a better footing. I'd noticed the pond before, so it was easy to figure out that water would make the gravel even more slippery. And water and lightning don't mix well. All I had to do was get you near it." I shrugged. "Besides, I figured water would weigh down feathers."

"They're waterproof," Arashi informed me. She lifted a hand and water streamed out of the pond, wrapping around her. Instead of soaking her, it darkened into fabric, reforming her sleeves and skirt, and paled and solidified into her sakkat. The water dripping down from its straw surface shimmered into silver fabric again. "Other than that, you think better on your feet than I thought. We'll have to work on your technique, of course, but you did well for your first time. For your first time," she repeated, giving me a pointed look like she expected me to declare myself master of my Zanpakutou right then and there.

"I understand," I said, smile fading. Time to be serious. I folded my hands in front of me. "Thanks for the lesson," I said, inclining my head. It never hurt to be respectful to one's teachers.

Arashi returned my slight bow. "Do you understand? We are water, aggression and change. We seem to move through life by others' grace, when in reality everything would fall apart without us. Destruction and life in the same being. And when we must, we are constant. But we are also lightning, potential waiting, then realized. Brilliant, unmistakable, more powerful when put to use than uncontrolled." She paused to straighten her chuufurisode. "We love strangely, freely, warmly, like a summer storm. But as you saw today, one wrong move and we can destroy ourselves and those close to us. Freedom and caution together."

I smiled slightly, hiding the worry that welled up in me. I didn't like to think of myself as self-destructive, but... I'd resolved to befriend Aizen. I'd decided to take Hiyori's place, knowing what would happen to me. Heck, being a Shinigami could be considered self-destructive. "A chimera," I said. "I didn't realize I was so complicated."

"Everyone's complicated," she replied. "I simply have the privilege of picking you apart."

I laughed, a loud sound that clashed deeply with my mountain temple world. Her words weren't particularly funny, but it felt good to laugh like a real person, not the way I did to be polite or express ladylike amusement. I tilted my head back, body shaking as I laughed until my sides hurt. As my laughter began to fade, I noticed a quiet giggling coming from a certain Zanpakutou's direction.

Arashi sat there with a long sleeve covering her mouth, dark eyes crinkled. I had to confess that her laugh annoyed me, not because it was ugly but because it sounded exactly like I would expect a female Momohiko to laugh, proper and restrained. Still, laughing meant our encounter had gone well, so I suppressed my irritation.

"Are you laughing at me?" I asked, faux-annoyed. "I thought you were supposed to be above that, Miss 'Heavenly Maiden.'"

Arashi shook her head, though her amused expression stayed. "Not at you. At the way you laugh. The average person doesn't have a seizure every time they laugh, you know."

I made a face at her. "I'm aware." I hesitated, not wanting to seem greedy, but the whole point of my coming here was to get a technique from her. "Um, Himura said I was supposed to learn a technique...?"

She nodded, seriousness returning. "Yes, that's true. Its name is Justo Rayo."

Short, sweet, and since as far as I knew no one here spoke Spanish, nonindicative of its effects. Perfect. "Justo Rayo," I repeated. "Thanks." I glanced up at the sky, deep blue with wispy clouds drifting across the surface. "Not to be rude, but how do I leave? Dinner is soon, I think."

"All you have to do is want to leave, daoshi," Arashi said, walking past me towards the temple. "Return soon."

"I will!" I called over my shoulder.

It was only as I was leaving that I realized that we'd both spoken English.

Lisa was the one to get me registered, her aunt having been called to deal with some troublemakers by the other end of the building.

"You didn't blow yourself up," she said, tone so flat I couldn't tell if she was joking, "so there's that going for you. Name?"

"Mine or hers?" As always, my fingers couldn't help brushing Arashi's hilt.

"Yours first, hers after. Not like it's hard to tell the difference." Lisa glanced at the paper. "Fuck. Full name. How much space'll I need?"

I sighed. Names were a tricky thing in Soul Society—best exemplified in noble names, which tended to be incredibly long and archaic. Mine included. "Plenty. Sorry."

She brushed an unruly strand of hair out of her eyes, bending over the paper. "Alright. Start talking."

I drummed my fingers on my thigh, thinking for a second—it'd been a while since I'd had to recite my full name. "The Children of the Flatlands's Daughter of the Lords of the Just Pines's first daughter, the Lady Nariko," I said wearily, immensely thankful for the fact that my parents hadn't made me go to many formal events, where I would've had to introduce myself that way every time.

Lisa nodded briskly when she'd finished. "Those the right kanji?" She turned the paper to me. I squinted at it.

"Yeah. Um, I think you forgot the furigana." I pointed at the space above the characters where kana should've been. Roughly. My eyes were refusing to focus again.

Lisa glanced at it and sighed the distinctive sigh of a person utterly done with the world around them. "Fuck. Better give me those." I did, following up with Arashi's name as soon as I'd finished. Bureaucracy, I could already tell, was going to be my least favorite part of the job.

"Category?" Lisa asked, eyes flicking to my face without any hint of interest. "That means-"

"I know," I interrupted. Her apathy was starting to piss me off. Maybe I should've been concerned, Lisa being necessary and all, about her lack of affect. Too bad. "Elemental-type Kidou. Water and lightning."

Her hand paused by the appropriate box. "Fuck, delinquent girl. Any category you aren't exceptional in?"

"Yeah, every other one," I told her. "Are we done?" A pulse of dull pain through my head underscored the question.

Her brush flashed across the paper. "Yeah. Go beat someone else up."

I was halfway out the door after 'yeah,' but I paused for a second. "I don't beat people up."

Finally Lisa met my eyes. "Yeah, you do. Better than your brother, from what I've heard. You Hirako break people with your minds."

She rose and left before I could say anything else, but I couldn't help wondering exactly how much I would have to revise my plans.

After all, everyone else seemed to know more about me than I did.

Notes:

Alright! Lots of notes!

The reason for Oshiro's villain speech? It's my belief that Zanpakutou are bound tightly to ideals and concepts, rather than being fluid like people. Otherwise how would they keep their powers when people change? Therefore, as a demented, distinctly unhinged guy, he's kinda bound to act like a B-movie villain because his concept of bad guys formed when the real Oshiro was young and idealistic and knew more about fairytale bad guys than real ones. This idea makes Zanpakutou very powerful and helpful, as they can help people to be true to themselves and are faithful to the ideals they were formed around, but also gives them an Achilles' Heel, as I've mentioned. Part of why Nariko has hers so early, too. She's got more life experience than everyone else and out of necessity has had to plan things out and determine who she is while everyone else doesn't know what's coming and is still trying to figure out whether that cute kid in their Hakuda class likes them back.

Also, on Himura. Historically, the Japanese have been racist against Koreans. Here that's very minimized due to what I perceive as Yamamoto's idea of 'you're all trash unless you're Shinigami' mentality, since that has exactly nothing to do with how well a person can wield a sword, but then again, super-rigid clan system that favors like marrying like. The Himura can afford to let one of their daughters marry a well-off Korean guy because they're about mid-tier nobles and fairly numerous. There are Korean clans as well, but due to what we've seen of Soul Society, I'm fairly certain that they're outnumbered by Chinese clans, and those are vastly outnumbered by Japanese clans. SS is an anachronism stew, though, so what the hey. Anyway, Himura's very familiar with grappling because his Ordered Strength style is modeled off Hapkido, which involves a bit of everything. Fun fact: it's similar to Aikido and in fact uses the same Chinese characters.

Also, about multi-element Zanpakutou? Hitsugaya's Zanpakutou really, really, really seems like one to me. Mostly ice, yeah, but there's a little water in there. And he's got some weather influence. I know Mask de Masculine says it, but he's a Quincy and I /really/ don't think he would know that detail about Shinigami powers. Rose agrees, yes, but I truly believe that since his Zanpakutou works by convincing its victim of its attacks' reality and thus imposing itself on them, he really does have multi-element control. And if you don't believe those? They're formed based on their owner's mind, and Nariko thinks that way.

Eclipse hand strike = ridge hand strike.

Nariko's full name is something I couldn't bring myself to get rid of, but also couldn't translate into Japanese without fearing inaccuracy. Suffice to say that her usual family name is a contraction, as are all noble family names. There were, however, a few things that I couldn't convey in English, such as the fact that 'children' here is written as ko-tachi, which I envision both as a way to emphasize being a decent-sized clan in a previous era of warfare and to emphasize military capability, tachi also being the word for a kind of sword. Kyouraku carries one.

I didn't intend for Nariko's Zanpakutou to be a pair of tessen. I wanted to avoid her Zanpakutou being dual, actually. But there's a dearth of information on naginata fighting and the tessen fit her thematically. I was dismayed to discover that they're used in pairs, but that's just what happened.