An Impromptu Hado Lesson

"Who is it then?"

"How should I know?"

"Well we're gonna go find out right?"

"That is not my job."

"Oh, you're right. I forgot how busy we were with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING."

Shin couldn't really argue with that point. With the exception of that one hollow Shin hadn’t seen a single soul in hours, or at least what felt like hours. As annoying as he was, Shin had to admit he shared his partner’s boredom. More importantly, if he didn’t find something to occupy the spirit he was just going to start annoying Shin for fun. He did that half the time anyway.

“Point taken. Let’s find this anomaly then.”

It wasn’t difficult. The soul in question wasn’t even trying to hide themselves, and within a few minutes Shin was standing in front of a cave in the middle of the woods. The reiatsu was coming from inside without a doubt, but Shin wasn’t really keen on the idea of walking into an enclosed space, occupied by a powerful soul, who may very well be hostile, and may have turned the cave into a base of sorts, possibly even setting up some traps or other defenses, all for curiosity’s sake?

“What? You’re not chicken are you?” The spirit taunted childishly. Were it anyone else Shin would have simply ignored them and walked away, but seeing as he couldn’t walk away from a voice in his head, and that if he left the cave the spirit would spend the rest of the day torturing him with a combination of “bock bock” noises, insults, and begging to go back and see what was inside the cave, Shin decided to go inside. Cautiously.

As he walked through the dank stone walls of the cave Shin pushed his senses to the limit trying to detect any kind of danger. All of his senses, sight, hearing, reiatsu perception, even smell. It was actually probably better training than anything else he had done on this mission, but he wasn’t thinking about that at the moment. All he was thinking about was what kind of human would have the level of power he was feeling, and live in a cave in the middle of the woods outside of Tokyo, and wondering whether or not he actually wanted to meet that kind of person.

WC:386

GP:7

TGP:16

Most members of the second division would have been envious of this human girl’s powers of stealth. Even with all of Shin’s senses on high alert she somehow managed to get within two short feet of him without being detected, before vulgarly asking him why he was in her cave. Shin jumped… about twenty feet backward… with shunpo. Yeah, she got him good. The voice of the mortal came out in a simple chuckle, the voice of his zanpakuto on the other hand roared in laughter.

Shin looked at his tormentor with wide eyes. She was tall for a girl, taller than him actually, and had an athletic frame. Brown eyes and green hair barely poked out from under an oversized hat, which complimented her dark boyish clothing.

Fighting back a blush at being scared so easily Shin straightened from the combat stance he had instinctively taken before addressing the girl.

“Your cave? I didn’t realize mortals usually lived in caves.” Was that an answer? No it was not. Was he stalling? Yes he most certainly was. He had been so focused on finding the source of that powerful reiatsu and then avoiding any traps that he hadn’t thought about what he was going to say when he found out who it was. “Of course, it’s also unusual for a mortal to have as much reiatsu as you do.” And like that he had an idea for his excuse. “I am a shinigami, and as such it is my duty to investigate any unusual spiritual activity. Such as a large reiatsu signature in the middle of the woods.”

 It was… sort of true… mostly. Technically he wasn’t a shinigami yet, and he was under no obligation to have come looking for her. In fact protocol would have been for him to find Hayate and just report what he had found, like that was ever going to happen. To another shinigami these half-truths would have been obvious, but hopefully a mortal wouldn’t know enough about them to figure that out. Regardless he had established a story and a role as the authority figure, and he was going to stick to it.

“Are you out here trying to avoid hollows? If so you should know that they come out here too, even if there are less. In fact I just killed one on the way here, right outside your doorstep. And when they come close, yours is the only power they will sense, and they will all come for you. You realize that don’t you?”

He wasn’t entirely sure where that came from, but it was all true. The girl was in danger out here, and it was his responsibility to protect her from hollows.

“You would really be safer in the city. There might be more hollows there, but hollows are everywhere, and we shinigami have a lot more patrols in more populated areas. At the very least you would be much less likely to have to face a particularly powerful hollow alone.” 

WC:502

GP:10

TGP:26

She was not buying it. Not one bit. She might have fallen for his act, though he somewhat doubted it, except for the fact that this particular mortal new what the white and blue uniform he was wearing meant. How did a mortal know that? Regardless the irreverent human did agree to answer all of Shin's questions, as long as he would answer some questions for her afterwards. His eyes narrowed at the sound of that. What kind of questions could a powerful mortal like her want to ask him? It was possible that she was just curious about something having to do with shinigami in general, but Shin wasn't going to bank on being that lucky. More likely she would want some sort of sensitive information, maybe even something dangerous. Of course, the thing about that was Shin didn't really know anything like that. Besides that, he was curious as to what the woman had to say, and what she wanted to know. Deciding to take the risk, Shin nodded his head in agreement, though she didn't actually wait for him to acknowledge her deal.

She had apparently decided to live in the wild because there were very few hollows in the area, which he had already made his argument against. Where she lived was her business, so at the end of the day he didn't really care if she followed his advice or not. The next part however, that peaked his interest.

"Raikoho, and, you controled a raven?" What kind of mortal could control animals? Was she lying? No, probably not. For one thing had no reason to lie, for another she had to know about his hado somehow, and besides that if a mortal could create ice then another controlling animals wasn't all that outlandish.

Of course then she decided to go and lecture him on the use of hado. Like a mortal could possibly know more about hado than him? Except that everything she said seemed to make sense... Maybe it would be worth looking into during his next training session. Her description of the academy was spot on too, although he would never admit that out loud. However the fact that she had so much knowledge was quite... suspicious. Just who was this person?

And then she was done with his questions, and wanted the answers to her's. Or, the answer. She only had one question. What happened to Karakura? He was afraid she was going to be very disappointed in his answer.

"It is classified. And as an academy student I do not have access to that information. However..." He crossed his arms and looked down. He didn't really have any obligation to tell her anything. He had never agreed to her deal, and she held no authority over him. However, he had come into her home, and he also had no reason not to answer her. "Something that big is difficult to hide. People talk, people overhear things, and rumors spread. Take this with a grain of salt, but what I've heard is that the king of Las Noches himself attacked Karakura town along with his espada. And its a good thing you don't care about why, because rumors range from hosting a banquet to bringing home human-hollow halfbreeds." He said with a shrug.

"Now how about another round of your little game?" He was pushing his luck a bit with this one, but the girl seemed like an OK person. Hopefully she would answer a few more questions. "How does a mortal get your level of power? And more importantly, how do you know so much about the shinigami?" Besides, if she was going to kill him she probably would have done it anyway.