Academy Beta: Meian and Amaya (R, DE)

[Zeich Yajuu]

((OOC: Wonderful posts, both of you, and a fantastic second year. I've got individual gradings for each of you, and then you are welcome to move onto your third year, to do with as you please.

Amaya - You did fantastic throughout your years, really showed how Amaya developed in her classes, how putting her nose to the grindstone has developed her in the art of Kido, her boxing style, and her development of Kaido. Normally I would have said something about how it was just classes with a paragraph or two, but you mentioned several times that her results from the year before made her put her social life on hold, which makes sense and is the reason I'm not marking it down. It's well-explained. Overall, I will grant 230 QP for a well-written year.

Total QP: 640


Meian - Your year was phenomenal, touching on the classes and social sections in equal terms without making them feel particularly boring. You gave life to each class, making them more than facts and training, and since Meian isn't under the social constraints Amaya has put on herself right now, he had a fantastic chance to make friends as well as enemies. I really enjoyed reading not only his classes, but the major events overall, even the exams. I can't do anything but give full marks for this year. Great job! +250 QP.

Total QP: 690))

[Nakazawa Meian]

Ah, the third year! The year when things truly began to become interesting. Even at the very beginning of the year, Meian quickly understood that his Shinigami training was now much more serious than before, just by hearing the former titles of this year’s teachers; a veteran from the 11th squad for Kendo, a mastermind of the Kido Corps for their Kido class, a brilliant scientist from the 12th squad to teach about hollows, and even a tactician from a past war to explain the inner-workings of the known history. If this wasn’t enough to pump up the moral of the new recruits, then nothing would!

Still, the year didn’t start nearly as well as it should have; a single event came to disturb Meian’s routinely life. On the very first day, before he could even reach the first class on his schedule, one of his so-called friend came to intercept him on his path; Taguchi Toyokuni. The man came to blame Meian for his loss in the previous year’s exams, accusing him of cheat and trickery. Albeit unknown to Meian before then, this loss had caused the failure of his friend’s Kendo examination, and because of his poor grades in other classes too, he was sent out of the Academy. Despite all the reasoning that the soon-to-be Shinigami tried to use, Taguchi kept holding him responsible for everything happening to him and, in a vain effort to obtain vengeance, tried to kill Meian using a rusty knife. Even though Amaya managed to thwart the assassination attempt through a swift reaction, it was still enough of a traumatic event to come haunt him in his dreams for several years to come.

Nonetheless, aside from this unfortunate event, Meian’s third year was one that he greatly enjoyed. One thing, in particular, made it a lot more interesting than the previous years; he was now able to communicate, although with difficulty, with his Zanpakutou spirit. For Meian, this seemed like a huge improvement and one that he appreciated, and that showed up in his behavior; he spent a lot more of his time meditating in this year than he had in both of his previous years together. He even went so far as to meditate between his Kendo matches, something he would have never done before! Through this, he managed to learn a great deal of things about his unnamed Zanpakutou, but the first thing he noticed was clearly the most troublesome; the voice stopped answering as soon as a girl, either Amaya, Rei or Maru, was in the vicinity…

However, this wasn’t nearly the most noticeable thing about this year, not at all. What marked it the most was the partnership that Meian made with one of his friends; Amaya. Through the two years they spent together so far, one thing easily became apparent; each lacked something important the other had. Meian had real trouble whenever he had to deal with some sort of Kido, yet he had a lot of experience with the sword, while Amaya mastered the idea of using Reiatsu, but failed to grasp the basics of swordsmanship. Realizing this, it didn’t take long for both of them to cooperate and try to counter each other’s weak spots, and therefore they both agreed to meet often through the year in order to train for this common goal.

Unfortunately, this task was easier said than done. The tricky thing, with any form of swordsmanship, was that comfort with using a sword could only be attained through experience, and that comfort was required for taking most talented fighters. Even so, while the odds were against him, Meian still managed to make something fairly good with his friend’s natural skillset. After making sure that Amaya’s stance was a sturdy one, knowing that what could be her greatest asset in a spar would be her ability to outmaneuver an opponent, Meian’s training mainly focused on making a good use of sidesteps and deflection moves at first. He knew that, simply by being able to invade a foe’s personal space, his friend would already be able to defeat anyone in the lower half of her class. The real problem, though, lied in the other half, which wouldn’t fall for such small tricks, and would require a lot more hardwork to defeat. As such, in order to put all the chances on Amaya’s side, Meian made sure to give her as much experience as possible with the sword by casually sparring with her, while still making sure that she could get something out of their spars.

Up around the middle of the year, though, Meian started to train her in a different way. Even though the training reached good results so far, he knew that Amaya would develop flaws which would be hard to deal with if she always fought the exact same opponent. As a result, for the second half of the year, Meian involved both Hisato Shiba and Shirane Maru in the training’s spars in order to help Amaya develop against other fighting styles, since he knew that both of his friends would be able to lend a hand for that. On top of that, he also started to focus a bit more on how to effectively attack; as of yet, he had trained her about how to effectively move and counter an opponent’s blows, but she would need more than that in an actual match. As such, Meian taught her about how to use her speed and small frame to prevent retaliation from her opponent, which would prove to be truly useful to her, yet he still made sure she understood the importance of not being reckless in her battles. Through all the year’s training, Meian hoped that Amaya would be easily able to defeat the small fry within her class, and hold her ground against those in the middle; only the highly-skilled opponents of her class should still truly prove to be a challenge.

As for her side of the partnership, Amaya took as an objective to enhance Meian’s Kido skills, which wasn’t an easy task either. Fortunately for him, though, she seemed to have understood the core of his problems quite fast, since her training quickly revolved around reducing the excessive amount of power within his Reiatsu. Although he indeed had troubles with the very concept of controlling his energy output to this extent, he also reached amazing results when he finally grasped it and, for once, managed to handle his Reiatsu in the ways he wanted, which was in itself quite a remarkable feat in his case. With the assistance of his friend, Meian actually managed to work his way up to a much more adequate level, and that meant it was truly worth the efforts.

Now, this year also had another thing of great interest for Meian; the duel class. This class proved to be truly entertaining for a simple reason; for once, Meian had the chance to show what he was really capable of. Sure, he already showed to be skilled whenever he was in one of his Kendo classes, but even so, his true capabilities were never shown so far; his usual fighting style, Iaijutsu, was unable to be used in his Kendo class. As such, his numerous battles in this class were truly delightful for him, who didn’t get the chance to fight normally for two whole years. Contrary to what may be thought, even if Kido was soon proven to be fearsome to most swordsmen in the class, Meian had no trouble dealing with it; even though his skills with Kido weren’t so great, he had been on the receiving end of it numerous times, and therefore knew how to deal with it. Combining his truly unusual Iaijutsu style, his natural affinity with survival, his efficient use of Shunpo and his ever-increasing skills in Kido because of Amaya’s help, he quickly became a force to be reckoned with in this class.

The other subject which wasn’t really approached in the previous years, Hollow Knowledge, also proved to be interesting. Unlike with most other subjects Meian had to deal with in the Academy, he actually had good general knowledge on this class’s subject from his discussion with the shaman; it was unlikely that anyone else in the class knew about what an arrancar even was, after all. Nonetheless, he was fully attentive while in that class, but not because it was necessary. No, he kept entirely focused because he cared about the subject, which was, in fact, totally normal for someone who tried to understand every races without constraints, in order to one day find a way to attain peace and stability among them.

Additionally, the power class was also one where significant outcomes occurred. Unfortunately, the beginning days of that class went badly for Meian, who had only strength behind his Reiatsu; he hoped for that class to actually teach him a bit better how to keep a better hand on his power, even at full strength, but it became clear from the very start that it was rather meant to force even more destructive potential out of a Reiatsu at its maximal power. This class, in fact, was in great part responsible for why Meian required Amaya’s assistance in the first place. As a result, his skills increased dramatically throughout the year in this class, something which was quickly noted and praised by his teacher. However, even though his teacher may have thought it was his doing, Meian knew better than that… Still, this class managed to teach him an important lesson about Kido manipulation, and combat in general: having full control over a power is the only way to go beyond its limits.

One thing Meian wasn’t aware about his year, however, was how he had been tricked. In both his history and speed classes, things kept going on as usual, except for a single detail; another student started to approach him quite often, a man by the name of Yasuhiro Hike. Even though this seemed as an attempt to become friends from Meian’s point of view, with a wider look at things, his motives were obviously a lot more selfish; he clearly didn’t give up when Amaya rejected him and, seeing how close she was to Meian, tried to approach her by using the clueless student as his pathway. Unfortunately, too many facts were unknown to Meian for him to spot the trickery, which meant that he fell right in it and became friend with the young man.

And finally, at the end of the year, exams came for a third time. This year, the students had been gauged on the two same classes as usual, Kendo and Kido, but a third one came in the fray; an exam about what they learned in their Hollow Knowledge class. Although Meian didn’t really fear this exam, it was rumored to be truly a fearsome exam… and no one expected the gossips to hold so much truth in them. Officially, the students had been told that they had to identify the weaknesses and strengths of a living hollow restrained by a Bakudo, and that was indeed what they did at first. The true exam, however, didn’t last even five seconds. At some point, the teacher released his Bakudo, suddenly letting the hollow free in front of the students gathered for their exam. Of course, everyone quickly understood the situation and panicked, but another Bakudo was soon cast in class some seconds afterward, this time targeting both the hollow and all the students. The teacher then proceeded to grade his test based on each student’s reaction; those who tried to flee like cowards failed the test, while those who took some sort of defensive stance passed it with a perfect score. Simple as that.

As for Kendo, the odds were against Meian this year. Since the class had an uneven number of students for the year, and spars required two participants, someone would certainly have no sparring partner, and Meian was the unlucky chosen by the teacher for that. In the class, everyone knew what happened when you had no opponent on the exam day; you were paired with the teacher himself. Although Meian was actually quite happy about this challenge, it made the test a lot harder than it should’ve been. The battle that ensued was a fierce one, in which Meian was on the defensive almost all the time, and from which the teacher emerged victorious. Still, the several good moves that he managed to pull off were, given the circumstances, sufficient to get a good grade out of it.

Of all the exams of that year, though, Kido was likely the most important for Meian. This year’s test didn’t take it easy on the students, unfortunately, since the teacher asked them to impress him, which could easily prove to be a challenging task. A lot of stress had been put on most of the class because of this, but even so, Meian proceeded to cast a Byakurai without the incantations. Not only did he manage to cast a Byakurai and, on top of this, without relying on the incantations to stabilize it, but the great control he got from Amaya’s training even allowed him to shrink it to the size of a needle, showing what he had accomplished within the year. Taken out of context, this would likely not prove to be much, but hopefully, Meian’s teacher had been impressed not by his result, but rather by his progress; this student, after all, had been having trouble to even just stabilize basic Kidos at the beginning of the year, even when he had access to the full incantations to aid in his task.

Now, with all of his exams complete, it was time for Meian to move on with his fourth year. There would be many things he would remember from his third one, though, notably the various discussions he had with his Zanpakutou spirit, the many duels he got to do through it, and of course the assassination attempt he had been a victim of. However, it was evident that the very first thing he would remember about this year was how it had been decisive in learning Kido, which was all due to one of his friends; Amaya. Truly, this year had been an enjoyable one for several reasons, but the partnership with his friend had obviously been the main one.

SPOILER: Click to show

• Amaya Azarola (of course!)
  
• Hisato Shiba
  
• Shirane Maru
  
• Hiratasuka Rei
  
• Yasuhiro Hike
  

[/b][/li][/ul][/spoiler]

SPOILER: Click to show

• Genda Idemichi (and other bullies, if there are more than one)
  
• Shigi Matsuta
  
• Tawaraya Mina (and her friends)
  
• Taguchi Toyokuni
  

[/b][/li][/ul][/spoiler]

SPOILER: Click to show

• Yasuhiro Hike
  

[/b][/li][/ul][/spoiler]

[Deleted]

Year three… the hump year. Hoo boy was that a double entendre! Amaya’s second year had been surprisingly anti-social, and that had left her in a bit of a funk. She was a social creature. The kitsune thrived around other people, and the lack of others in her life meant she was close to burning herself out. That being said, she also knew she couldn’t go as party-hardy as she did in her first year. She needed to find an appropriate balance between work and fun. Part of her simply insisted that this should be done by learning to love her work more, but that simply couldn’t be done. She enjoyed a few of her classes quite a bit, but that wasn’t enough to offset the physical and mental exhaustion of continuous effort.

While Amaya fluttered about and debated about how best to find this balance, she came across a situation that made her realize her problems really weren’t that bad compared to some. The Kitsune had been walking and talking with her closest friend when one of his issues made itself apparent. She knew Meian had a reputation for getting bullied a bit, but this was a whole different level. Some crazy freak actually tried to shank him! Both of the students were unarmed, which put them at a disadvantage. Meian was definitely better off with a sword, but Amaya was far more adept at Kido. On top of that, she was a skilled Hakuda combatant. With a single fluid motion, she had blocked the attack and restrained the attacker with a Bakudo.

She really needed to do something about those bullies…

This was the year that was make or break for a lot of students, and Amaya wasn’t any exception. Her Kendo grades were far from excellent, and only the best of the best were going to make it through this year. Kendo was a core class, so doing poorly in this regard simply wasn’t an option for her. She had little choice… she needed a tutor. Sure, she had already worked with Taien a good bit last year, but he felt like either a teacher or a guy at a bar, not a tutor. It took her awhile to get over the embarrassment of asking, but she eventually resolved to talk to Meian about improving her swordsmanship. That conversation went far better than expected. It turned out that her friend was ready to ask her for help with Kido training as well! The two friends enjoyed a good laugh about the situation and started training each other.

Kendo training went surprisingly well for Amaya. Her difficulty previously had mostly come from simply trying to out-muscle her opponents. She was a small, young girl without a ton of upper body strength. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why she was having trouble, but it did take an outside perspective. Through Meian’s guidance, Amaya began to develop as her Zanjutsu to an acceptable level. Admittedly, her skills were far from great, but she had a few tips and tricks that allowed her to hold her own. She learned how to invade an opponent’s space, and from there she could just score quick easy hits. Most people at her level simply didn’t know how to counter that.

There was also a second innovation that she came up with for her Kendo classes. Meian improved her core skills to an acceptable level, but she was more concerned with being able to fight well overall rather than specific Zanjutsu principles. She realized that while you can’t channel a Sho through a bokken, you can disguise a blast of Shoken as something like a hilt strike. The techniques that Meian showed her actually worked very well to put her in a range where her other talents could become more useful. Trained swordsman knew how to react to close-up attacks from a sword, but a mix of swordplay with point-blank Hakuda and Kido was something that few people knew how to deal with.

On the other side of things, Amaya was also responsible for teaching Meian more about Kido. By the end of her second year, Amaya’s talent for Kido had grown well beyond the level that was expected of her. Weeks of one on one training with a technique master simply pushed a student to a completely different level. While her tutelage wasn’t on par with that of Taien’s, she was still miles beyond most other students. Amaya picked up on a few things about Meian’s style. He seemed to have better abilities with raw destructive power than with finesse. She still remembered his reiatsu orb from the first exam. That thing had a ton of power in it, but Meian had struggled to contain it.

Her choice for what to focus on was pretty easy. Amaya’s friend was doing plenty fine in terms of destructive power. Hell, he was probably almost as good as the kitsune was in that regard. What he lacked was control. Amaya decided to take a simple step with him. Rather than working on techniques that required a ton of control, she simply showed Meian how to reduce the amount of power he put into a technique. For someone like Amaya, that was a very simple process. It was just like punching without trying to break someone’s nose. Meian had a bit more trouble with it, but he eventually was able to grasp the concept of relaxing his reiatsu enough to not use his full strength. From there, it was an easy step to move on to things like Kyakko.

Thanks to all the tutoring that went back and forth, Amaya’s classes actually went fairly well this year. Meian’s help meant Kendo actually went acceptably well. There was still room for Amaya to improve. The cream of the crop in that class were able to see through her basic swordplay pretty easily, but if she stayed on the defensive she was able to hold her own decently well. The idea of deflecting blows rather than clashing directly made it easier for her to deal with physically stronger opponents. She really owed Meian for that one. Still, it could only get her so far. Her speed and ability to read attacks was solid, but sometimes she simply lacked the skill to angle her sword in the right way to deflect a blow. In Kendo, Amaya was probably doomed to be a B level student at best.

Over in Amaya’s world – aka Kido class – things were far better. The training with Taien last year had pushed her far enough ahead that she barely even needed to glance at that material for this year. She still showed up to class, but, like last year, it was spent working on notes for the Kaido, or doing other homework. This year had a new instructor though. He hadn’t seen her before, but he had learned a lesson from the instructor in Kido 3-4. Amaya had already created a reputation for being at the top of the class in Kido. Instead of Amaya clashing with the teacher, there was simply an occasional request for assistance in demonstrations. Aside from that, Kido class was basically study hall.

More interesting challenges were afoot in the Power Class. This class could probably be renamed “blowing shit up” and it would be a bit more accurate. There wasn’t a whole lot for Amaya to learn about increasing the power of her Kido that she hadn’t already learned from Taien. She already knew how to increase the density of her reiatsu. It was a simple technique that reduced how much reiatsu you had to spend, but made every bit of it that much more potent. She also knew about the added power one could get from incantations already. For her, this class was simply an opportunity to show off. Others seemed to get a good deal of benefit from it though. Not everyone had received her level of training, and thus others got to learn those useful skills.

Hollow Knowledge, oddly enough, was the class that Amaya made the most progress in. This progress wasn’t actually about the topic of the class. Oh no, that would make too much sense for the kitsune. Her progress in Hollow Knowledge was in her efforts towards communicating with her Zanpakuto Spirit. Whoever he was, he seemed to have a lot more to say on this subject compared to the others. Comments like ”Ooooh, I remember fighting things way scarier than that! or ”When are they going to talk about Arrancar?” made it a bit harder to focus in this class, but they were still rare enough that it wasn’t a huge issue. Amaya seemed to zone out occasionally when trying to start up conversations with her spirit, but they never lasted long enough for others to notice.

Outside of Hollow Knowledge, the majority of advancements in communication with her Zanpakuto Spirit came during Healing Class. Apparently her spirit knew a good deal about healing. At first, he was just full of the usual complaints of boredom. ”All this is sooooooooo basic. When are they going to get to the fun parts?” Around the middle of the semester, his tone changed quite a bit. Apparently dissections were the fun part… but not because the spirit liked the activity. Nope, he was just having fun commenting on whether or not the corpses would’ve been hot if they were still alive. Amusing though it was, he still was a long way off actually being helpful to Amaya. Still, perhaps the interest in healing gave an idea about his power. That was something good at least.

Spirit Communication itself wasn’t especially noteworthy. Their grades in that class were rather arbitrary, and based more on what they said than anything else. Apparently Amaya’s spirit was simply bored in that class. It was either lectures or meditation, and neither of those was interesting enough to warrant a snarky comment. Also on the list of not very interesting was Advanced Combat. It was basically just an extension of the previous hand to hand fighting classes. Amaya had already developed her style fairly well, so that was primarily just making refinements. She got a bit better at using Shoken, but most of the progress in that class was in Jujitsu style throws. People knew that Amaya fought well in a more controlled fight, so they simply tried tactics like charging her. It only worked once before she just remembered the good old Tomoe Nage, and everyone stopped trying bull rushes.

The final piece of the “not interesting” puzzle was History. Sure, it needed to be learned, but Amaya ended up spending most of her time doodling in that class. The teacher this year had a habit of repeating everything important several times. If it was a key point, you heard it at least twice. If it was an exam question, you heard it a dozen times. With Amaya’s analytical ability, this meant she really didn’t need to pay any attention at all. She just spent that class completely zoned out. The only days she paid attention were those in the week before a scheduled test. This guy gave review sheets, practice questions, and even spent a whole day reviewing before every test. It was boring, but at least it was an easy A.

The last class that was on Amaya’s list that year was dueling. No, this class had nothing to do with children’s card games. It was simply a more general combat class. Students were given a bokken, and then basically told to beat the shit out of each other however they wanted. Amaya generally disregarded the bokken and simply used her Hakuda and Kido skills to bully her way through the class. She was in the top few students for Hakuda, the top percentage for Kido, and was above average at Kendo thanks to Meian’s help. Most students simply didn’t know how to deal with that much variety. Everyone had a specialty, and that made duel class like playing janken. The only problems with that were the people like Amaya and Meian who could throw down three signs at once. It simply wasn’t fair to anyone else.

Academics and social life were finally at a good balance this year. As has been shown, Amaya did fairly well in almost all of her classes, even if they were a bit on the boring side. On the social side of things, she got out to a party once every two weeks or so. Usually she went to the Saturday night ragers. She got completely wasted most of the time, but that’s only because she had a magical hangover cure. Being a medic in training certainly had its perks. Saturday night was her night out for one big reason: timing. Friday nights she was too tired out from classes, and Sunday night risked her being exhausted for classes. Saturday nights still gave her all of Sunday to recover before classes and get her homework done.

Even with that foolproof timing nailed down, Amaya still didn’t end up at a party every weekend. The first half of the year was fairly party heavy, and with the partying there was usually a new guy every night. The second half of the year was completely different. For the first time, Amaya was actually in a steady relationship! This guy, Ryan, was a real sweetheart. He was probably a bit too sweet really. The kitsune was still firmly entrenched in her rebellious stage where she wanted to party a bunch, but Ryan was usually just too tired. He was the type that would rather just cuddle on the couch and watch a movie. While that was fun for a while, the breakup after a few months of dating really didn’t surprise anyone.

Amaya wasn't the type to do anything without purpose though. Ryan was a good experience for her, but, oddly enough, it was actually a better thing for Meian. Ryan ran with some of the crowd that gave the kitsune's friend a hard time. While Amaya wasn't super keen about that fact, Ryan had promised he was trying to get them to stop. Lo and behold, the girl had actually hit a small goldmine with this guy. He was actually honest about his intentions there. His word didn't carry the most influence in that group, so it didn't stop the bullying altogether, but it did help lighten the load a bit. A few of the guys who were more loyal to Ryan than Genda stopped completely, and others participated less often. It was a good gesture, but that still wasn't enough to save the relationship from how different each side's lifestyle was.

Eventually, the exams rolled around. As always, the Kendo exam was a simple one-on-one fight. You were purposely placed against someone around your skill level if possible, and that meant Amaya’s secret plan came into action. She was middle of the pack as far as the Kendo teacher was aware, but that was because she had been holding back in class. Most of her serious efforts in Kendo were reserved for her extracurricular training sessions with Meian and some of his friends. This meant she got paired with a fairly easy opponent for her exam. It wasn’t a free win, but it was basically guaranteed from the get-go. This was an opponent who didn’t really know how to deal with someone being inside their space, and that meant it was a sure win for Amaya. Was it a bit underhanded? Yes. Was Amaya more concerned with her grade than her methods? Also yes.

By comparison, Kido was a far faster exam. There was no essay about theory, nor was there a long practical examination. This test was simple. ”Dazzle me!” Those were the words the instructor had used to explain their exam. For some, this was a tall order. Many students tried to dazzle him with raw power, but it quickly showed that wasn’t going to be enough. Anyone was capable of blowing something up, but few were able to do something unique. Amaya a trick up her sleeve that was, at this point in time, unique to her arsenal among academy students: spellweaving. It was the most basic of the basic fusions, but a Sho+Tsuzuri Raiden combination that effectively created telekinesis was still more than enough to dazzle the instructor.

Last of the noteworthy exams was the one announced for Hollow Knowledge. It was initially announced as a simple analysis test, and that was easy enough for Amaya. Her medical knowledge was primarily focused towards Shinigami, but she’d become more familiar with hollow biology than anyone who wasn’t taking healing classes. The healing classes were small, and that meant a few students had a good advantage over the others… except for the part where that wasn’t actually the test. Part way through everyone writing their notes, the Bakudo holding the hollow in place was broken. Amaya’s initial reaction was to simply make a startled gasp, but she quickly reeled that in. Just before the second Bakudo came in to paralyze the entire room, Amaya had sent a Sho towards the hollow, knocking it back towards the wall. It was a good gut reaction, but her initial hesitation cost her slightly when final grades came around.

All in all, it looked like this had been a much more balanced year than before. Amaya had done fairly well in all of her classes this time around, and she'd still had plenty of time to socialize. Sure, things with Ryan hadn't worked out, but there were plenty of other fish in the sea. Amaya saw new faces at basically every party she went to, so she wasn't about to let one bad relationship stop her from having a good time. Next year was sure to be interesting though. Only time would tell what new advances, romantic or otherwise, it would bring.

[Zeich Yajuu]

((OOC: Year 3 Grades:

Meian - Alright! I am happy to see that you've made such involvement with Amaya in this, which is a good start; part of the purpose of joint Academy threads, besides making it faster to get more students through the Academy, is to develop bonds between them... or rivalries, depending. You had several good points that felt interesting: the training with Amaya, the friendship with Hike (poor Meian, again!), and the results of some of your exams, particularly your Dueling one. However, some of your classes felt a lot more flat this time, more factual than interactive. Still, it was a very good effort, and I have no problem awarding you 220 QP for this. New total: 910.


Amaya - Much better time around than last time. There were still a few points here and there that felt more "factual" than actually getting into the story, but I do understand how wearying this gets! Fortunately, it'll be much better soon, just one year left! That aside, you definitely got into the spirit of Amaya, and I really got a good feel for her year. She did great in classes and really learned superbly from Meian, and managed to apply those in interesting ways. In addition, her own development as well as the things she learned from Hibiki certainly made her more interesting. Add onto that the revival of her social life (though, and I hate to say it, I'm shocked she managed to maintain a steady relationship), this was certainly well done. +240 QP. New Total: 800

Edit#2 - Apparently LG does NOT apply to QP, but to other things. So reverted numbers back.))

[Deleted]

((Before we get into this post, I have one OOC note. You'll notice in this post that I've completely neglected Amaya's romantic life. I've talked about her non-romantic social life a bit, but not much is done there on purpose. This is because she's now got multiple ongoing threads with potential RPC partners, one of which appears to be progressing rapidly towards an actual relationship. Because of that, I'd rather leave less in these threads that might need to be retconned due to a relationship with an RPC starting in year two. As it stands, I already might need to retcon the fling in year three >_>. That being said, I'm only writing this to explain the absence of it. I'm totally expecting a QP hit for not writing it, and that's fine with me.))

Year four was a very mixed bag for Amaya. This was the point at which most Shinigami really began to shine through with their specialties. For the kitsune, this meant she was excelling in some areas, but not even training with her friends one-on-one was enough to save her from falling behind in some of the areas she wasn't excelling it. The biggest example of how she fell behind was in Kendo class. The tricks Amaya had learned were really just that. They were tricks Meian had discovered to beat opponents of a lower caliber, but now almost everyone in the class was at a level they could see through them. Heck, even Amaya knew how to defeat those moves now, but her answer was Kido or Hakuda, not a sword. She simply couldn't understand the more advanced parts of swordplay, and thus she was doomed to fall behind.

Kido was a completely different story. This was, and had always been, Amaya's strongest subject out of the core classes. The only place she showed a stronger aptitude was in the medical field, but the only people who ended up there were generally the people who enjoyed it anyway. With Kido, Amaya's head-start from her training with Taien had started to wear off at long last. She was still doing well in this class, but she actually had to pay attention now. There was no more time for Kaido notes, nor was there time to daydream. They were working on learning some fairly strong Kido, even as high as the 50s levels for the more advanced students. That was definitely within Amaya’s range, and she picked it all up easily enough, but it meant her progress on the Kaido suffered.

Hollow Knowledge was a far more practical course this year. They wouldn’t be focusing on actual combat with hollows until next year, but year four was an interesting transition. Year three had mostly focused on the basic questions. It answered things like “What are hollows?” and “What are their normal capabilities?” This year, they delved into a lot more specifics. Shinigami were given a basic understanding of things like Cero, Bala, and Sonido. Obviously this wasn’t so they could try to learn them, but simply so they knew how to fight their enemies. They also learned what little Soul Society knew about Arrancar, and the Espada specifically. It wasn’t much to go on, but they at least knew what most of the Espada looked like. That was something, right?

As always, history was nothing but a snorefest. This year was ancient history, literally. They went in-depth about the origins of Soul Society, Shinigami, and Hollows. Amaya was at least able to stay interested in the earlier coverage of modern history to a minor degree. She figured it was useful to know about the current captains and their accomplishments, but stuff that happened 30,000 years ago just didn’t seem that important to the kitsune. To keep herself focused in this class, she actually had to resort to continually chugging caffeinated beverages in class. Only downside of that? The professor didn’t allow drinking. This meant Amaya would get in trouble if she got caught, and that definitely happened on a few occasions.

It was a constant game of cat and mouse. Amaya was always trying to find new ways to hide a drink, but he was a sharp one. Simple things like hiding it behind her textbook weren’t good enough with this professor, but that wasn’t enough to stop the medic. She had some crazy tricks up her sleeve… rather literally. One iteration of her main trick was to hide a flask somewhere on her person, and then run surgical tubing down her arm. The tubing acted like a straw, and she could just rest her head on her hands while sneaking a drink. Sadly, that didn’t work forever. Eventually she had to get even more creative, but this was a medic that the professor was dealing with. Not even the sharpest of eyes were able to counter a slow-drip caffeine IV hidden underneath a layer of clothing.

Of course, this led to a problem. Caffeine, contrary to popular belief, is a drug. It’s a legal drug that’s completely unrestricted, but that doesn’t make it any less addictive. Hoo boy was Amaya ever addicted. It had started with just the history class, but soon it spread until all aspects of her life. She barely had time to sleep, and that was mostly the fault of her healing class. The idea of trying to pack an entire healing education into only two years was ludicrous. Doing that while taking at least four other classes was simply insane. On average she was getting about four hours of sleep a night. Some nights she didn’t get to sleep at all, but weekends let her catch up a bit. On the best days, she might even get to sleep a whole six hours!

The problem was made even worse by the pacing of the class. Year three part one had basically been anatomy and physiology, lecture edition. The second part of year three was effectively a giant A&P lab. That left basic healing techniques, medicines, diagnosis, triage priorities, and so much more to be packed into a single year. In reality, healing 3-4 should probably be healing 3-10. They were all easily doing the work of at least three other classes, and little less than perfection was expected of them. If a swordsman makes a mistake and loses a thumb, they can get it reattached. If a medic made a mistake when repairing a major artery, they just killed someone that didn’t need to die.

This also had a huge impact on the kitsune’s social life. With the exception of a few of her closest friends (read: RPCs) she basically talked to only those in healing 3-4 with her. For the most part, her social life was cut down to study groups with the other medics. There was no more time for partying, and there was hardly even time for a friendly conversation with most people. Understandably, this meant Amaya drifted apart from several of her friends, but she made new ones as well. The med students had a bond stronger than almost any other group. Few academy students, save those who got the mysterious sixth and seventh year training, had to endure as many trials as the medics.

The final class on Amaya’s agenda was wrestling. That’s right, she somehow managed to have a year with only six classes! She opted not to take duel 3-4 or any other elective. She had heard about nightmares of healing 3-4 in advance, and she knew she wouldn’t have time for much. Wrestling, understandably, was the subject Amaya performed worst in out of anything ever. She has basically no strength, and her speed didn’t give her much of an advantage. She managed to win a few rounds here and there by just embarrassing guys when she smooshed her boobs into them, but that was basically her only successful tactic. She did learn some interesting techniques that she could apply to her fighting style, but they were the kind of things that only worked against people who didn’t already know how to grapple.

Eventually year four came to a close. All that remained was exams, but no, that was misleading. This year, there was only a single exam. Students were excused from any exam in their electives and only had a single one to focus on. The academy had decided to hold a giant tournament this year! The students would all simply fight each other, and based on what talents they showed off they would get their grades. Bonus points were awarded across the board if you finished in a good place, but as long as you showcased some skill, you were given passing marks. Unfortunately for Amaya, she had nowhere near enough time to recover from her year of accumulated sleep deprivation before this final examination started.

On a good day, in terms of overall combat capability, Amaya was probably in about the 75th percentile. She was slightly below average at Kendo, but she was in the top of her class for Kido. Hakuda was close behind Kido, though there were a few that could put her to shame there. Unfortunately, the tournament wasn’t a good day for the kitsune. It was single elimination, and that was all it took for her to go down. She had showed off a few flashy looking Kido, but her concentration was too shaky to show off her true power. Her swordplay was simply non-existent. She didn’t even try there, and simply resorted to Hakuda for her close range attacks. Obviously this put her at a severe disadvantage. She was outmatched, but her Kido did let her hang in there for a short time.

All in all, it had been an extremely rough year. Amaya had made a social transition to a new group of friends, and her workload had been immense. She had learned loads about healing this year, but almost everything else had suffered. Her classes had all pushed her far harder this year, and not having her old friends to rely on for support made it even worse. Even compared to year two where she barely had any social contact, this one was worse. She couldn’t even really take away some grand life lesson like “balance work and play” from all of this. It was simply the case that healing 3-4 really needed to be spread out over more time. If anything, she'd actually made negative progress in one aspect. She was hearing less and less from her Zanpakuto Spirit. Maybe he was just sleeping all the time since she couldn't? Oh well. That was the life of a medic.

[Nakazawa Meian]

(OOC: Sorry for taking so long)

Unfortunately, the fourth year was, for Meian, the worst of them all, and by far. For him, this year was a synonym to massive, and much more aggressive bullying. Even though Meian wasn’t really the target of much jokes and taunts in his third year, the reason for that soon showed up in his fourth; they had been preparing to cause upon him the worst they could think of. Even worse, Amaya’s indirect actions from the previous year, although done without any ill-intentions, soon proved to be a double-edged blade; on the good side, it caused a lot of the bullies to stop, but as a result, only those who truly hated Meian were left, meaning they didn’t need to restrain themselves anymore. Indeed, the outcome of this soon became evident; Genda’s group halted their small bullying, and instead evolved into outright intimidation.

This first showed up progressively through the beginning of this year, and began to grow worse as time went on. Even though the bullying was already bad when he had to search for his notes and make sure no buckets were above the doors he crossed, it now became threatening notes in his room and harmful gossips running about him, until it finally changed into him getting generally pushed in the corridors, and his dormitory’s furniture being commonly broken. It was already a living hell, and yet, they still crossed the line near the middle of the year; Meian was ambushed on his way to one of his classes, and got severely beaten up. Although he was normally good in fights, his skills still had limits when facing many opponents at once, and with Bakudos to top it off, which led him to his defeat. Fortunately, though, the arrival of an unexpected person caused the group to stop earlier than they expected; Shigi Matsuta. Even though the man disliked Meian, he didn’t hate him to that extent, but still, even with this event, Meian was stuck in the infirmary for some hours before he could leave…

However, things quickly went out of control after that. It soon came to Meian’s attention that he wasn’t the only target of all this intimidation; his friends were also starting to be targeted. Fortunately, this had the side-effect of causing Yasuhiro’s plans to halt for now, since he now feared for his safety, and Amaya avoided it because of her social transition, which made her less attainable. On the other side, though, all of his other friends, Rei, Maru and even Hisato from the Shiba lineage, were affected to different extents. This forced Meian’s hand a bit, who now had to react since he didn’t want those close to him to unfairly suffer because of who he was.

Unlike in his second year, where he had dealt with a similar problem by setting traps in his room, this time would require much more efforts; his bullies were now much more careful and more determined than before. To deal with them once more, Meian would need to be much more creative, and use something they would not think he would use; technology. When it came to using devices, Meian was dumber than dumb can be, but fortunately for him, there were several bigheads in the Academy who could help him with this project. One of such bigheads was named Nishihara Eisuke, although he preferred to be nicknamed ”Callhus Niggh’aw, the elven prince” for unknown reasons, and this man greatly helped in Meian’s goals. After several hours of explanations and many broken camera lenses, Eisuke managed to show Meian how to record things using a camera, a knowledge which he used to trick Genda and his group into providing him irrefutable proofs of their actions which then reached the teacher’s hands. After such a display of determination from Meian, Genda’s group was forced to stop, putting a definitive end to what he was a victim of. With time, only Genda himself would still hold some grudge toward Meian…

On a more “inner” side of things, Meian did manage to do some interesting progress this year. Even if he already had good contacts with his unnamed Zanpakutou Spirit in the last year, it was only this year that he started to be able to actually enter his inner-world and see her. Of course, entering his inner-world, for this year, was truly a hard process and therefore left him drained of stamina every time he did it, but even so, he enjoyed the many things he could learn from it. The first time he did it, for example, left him stunned; he had thought that once he would see his Zanpakutou Spirit, he would get a better idea of its powers, but the red-haired frail-looking girl that appeared before him didn’t bring any answers, and instead brought more questions with her. What surprised him the most, however, wasn’t even that; the most astonishing was when he realized his mentality was strong enough to have physically manifested inside his own world, in the form of a green flame…

As for his classes, they actually, unlike the social side of his year, went very well. The Kendo class, in particular, was time he greatly appreciated; partly because he was inspired from what he did with Amaya last year, and partly because the end of the Academy was coming close and he wanted to make sure he would be really for the upcoming missions, Meian started to hold a very specific extracurricular training, meant to be connected with the Kendo program, but to favor survival instead of landing hits. The basic idea was truly simple, yet the numerous strategies that could be used made it a very challenging exercise; each participant was given an egg, and their goal was to protect their eggs from other participants through any mean. It soon proved to be a truly effective training method, but unfortunately, it took until the middle of the year, when Genda’s group left Meian alone, before anyone else than his friends got attracted by the idea.

His Kido class, on the opposite, was the only one which could be labelled as non-enjoyable. Unlike Amaya, Meian wasn’t really in much of a rush this year, but most of the work he had to do came from this class. What Amaya had previously taught him allowed him to keep an adequate pace in his classes, but the level he was expected to be at was quite high. One good thing came out of those classes, though; there was one Kido, in particular, that he was able to learn better than all others; Kyakko. It seemed that, unlike most other Shinigamis, he was better at learning indirect spells, rather than direct damage ones…

His history and hollow knowledge classes, for once, now started to teach Meian things which would later be useful to him. His classes of this year were now allowing him to learn more about the different factions that were currently existing or once existed, and which constantly fought in the Land of the Living. As a result, his interest in the subject increased, since he once again saw a possibility of attaining some sort of peace between all of the worlds. He spent much more time at the library, looking at different records, reports and books containing information about Las Noches, the Escudo, Xcution, the Vandeinreich, the human societies, and any other factions that could have an influence on his idea of peace. Through the year and his many researches, he thought of several plans and ideas to reach his long-sought goal, and in overall, that helped him regain a lot of hope, both for the future and toward his decision to become a Shinigami…

The dueling class was, this time, a much harder task than last year. Unlike in the previous year, dealing with those who had a good arsenal of Kidos became harder and harder to defeat as each week passed, since the Kidos they were learning were now of great potential. However, Meian would likely still have been able to keep up with them, if it wasn’t for one additional detail; he was now using this year’s duel classes to experiment new things in his fighting style, and try to come up with ways to maximize his effectiveness. His main concern, in fact, was about how to properly use the knowledge he had acquired in his many times in the wilderness for battle purposes; he figured that it would be better to test it out now, while his fights were still “training”, rather than waiting to face hollows before trying new combat possibilities. As such, he earned much more losses than he should have in this class, but it did award him with some unexpected victories, by using several means which involved unusual tactics.

As for his speed classes, things were a lot different than the previous year in the way the subject was taught. Unfortunately, Shunpo wasn’t so much of a challenge anymore, at such a late time in their studies, and the teachers were fully aware of it; it was obvious that their training now focused much more on endurance than anything else. Even though he was fine at first, most of the other students suffered greatly during this class and, after a time, even Meian started to have issues; it wasn’t just any day that you had to Shunpo from one side of the courtyard to the other fifty times in a row, or that you had to do a homework which should take an entire day in less than fifteen minutes. In fact, this was the first time that, since the beginning of his time at the Academy, he actually came to dislike a class; this tells you just how bad it was…

Fortunately, the final exams came quickly, but this time, it sure was a weird one; the school had fused all their tests into a single one, a contest between the students of his year! This came as a relief for Meian, who, for once, wouldn’t have to worry about trying to do well into Kido, but he soon understood it would be harder than he had imagined; he had the bad luck of falling on Tawaraya Mina as his first opponent. He couldn’t get along with her since the second year, no matter how hard he tried, and he knew she’d use this opportunity to get her revenge. The fight that ensued was one of great trickery; Meian soon learned the hard way that Tawaraya’s specialty was in using Bakudo. He had real trouble at dealing with her, no matter how hard he tried to dodge her spells and keep her on the defensive, but as resentment started to build up because of the situation, it momentarily triggered his hidden powers, in the form of a sensory blackout. Next thing he knew, she was lying on the ground and all his senses seemed to be on a frenzy, for a reason he couldn’t understand yet.

The second round wasn’t worth very much; he faced a random guy he simply didn’t knew about, and his skills didn’t seem all that good, which led him to fall quickly. However, the third was one worth talking about very much, since he got to spar against one of his friends; Shirane Maru. Fortunately, this friendly fight relieved him from a lot of the stress he had accumulated throughout the year, and allowed him to prepare for his next, and final year. His battle was one of great swordplay, with Meian trying to control the flow and attempting to invade Maru’s attack range, while Maru skilfully used her natural agility and maneuvers to flank and make use of Meian’s flaws. Unfortunately, though, this combat was the one which marked the end of Meian’s participation in the tournament, since Shirane Maru used her trump card she didn’t show to anyone, not even her friends, to defeat him; a mentally-incanted mid-level Hado.

In summary, this year proved to be a challenging and stressful one for Meian. Not only did he have to deal with heavy social issues through half of it, but some of his classes, especially the speed one, showed that they were to be taken seriously. However, several good things had happened through it too, from the things he did to those he learned, which meant that it was fortunately not a total loss. Still, the fourth year would likely be remembered as a hard one, and one which shown that they were expected to be the best at what they did now, if they truly wanted to keep walking the path of the Shinigamis…

SPOILER: Click to show

• Amaya Azarola (of course!)
  
• Hisato Shiba
  
• Shirane Maru
  
• Hiratasuka Rei
  
• Nishihara Eisuke (Callhus Niggh’aw)
  

[/b][/li][/ul][/spoiler]

SPOILER: Click to show

• Genda Idemichi (status of friends unknown)
  
• Tawaraya Mina (and her friends)
  
• Taguchi Toyokuni
  

[/b][/li][/ul][/spoiler]

SPOILER: Click to show

• Yasuhiro Hike
  

[/b][/li][/ul][/spoiler]

[Raion Souretsu]

((OOC: Year 4 Grades first, and then continuation!

Meian – This year was fantastic, simply fantastic. I loved the balance between social and class sections, and how he's finally starting to deal with the troublemakers, thanks to Amaya's help. He's definitely showing real growth in both aspects, which is what we're looking for from the Academy. Great job so far. +250 QP. A quick check has also shown he has spent 880 QP. New total: 280 QP.

Amaya – As I said with Meian, you did a great job this year. You made a significant impact on development both socially (in helping your friend with his bully issue) as well as in your classes, particularly when you show how dedicated Amaya can get when she's not... well, Amaya-ing. Believe it or not, you don't arbitrarily get knocked for no romantic life, either. Overall you both did fantastic. +250 QP. New Total: 1050 QP.

Note that since you are both at Class 4 already, you may use that with the last year. You are welcome to have access to Shikai, but please don't overdo it. You're supposed to still be new to having it! Please post up your new stats in the post after this, as well. Also note that I switched to Raion because he'll be with you for the majority of the remaining Academy thread.))

Four years of the Academy had passed. The two students had been through a number of trials, pushing themselves physically and mentally while doing their best to survive socially. Meian was not as lucky as most when it came to his relationships with others, yet his perseverance and the few good friends he had helped him to get through the worst of it. He still had his hardships, and he had those who, for whatever reason, hated his guts, but when it came to the fifth year, Meian's grades and overall standing with the general community were fairly positive. Few of his teachers had anything bad to say about him on a personal level, though some did note his exceptional progress in some areas while others frowned upon lack of ability in others. Overall, his experience as a student wasn't far different from the usual, discounting his unusual background. It was only with his fellow students where he encountered trouble.

Amaya, on the other hand, was starting to develop two almost contradictory reputations. One had her as a laid-back partier, one who could “get down” in more ways than one, while the other was that she had to be a bookworm who never left her studies, given how well she had developed in some areas. Amaya's exceptional skill in Kido made the second reputation more common among students, but there were certainly plenty who sought her presence for the first. Cutting back on her social life had been a great way to both reduce the amount of unwanted attention as well as improve on her studies, allowing her to improve by leaps and bounds. Certainly, her fourth year had been beneficial to her.

But now it was the fifth and final year. The first days had been lectures more than lessons, with the tests becoming more serious, exams that full Shinigami were supposed to be able to pass with ease. The original group of students that had been in the same year as Amaya and Meian had dwindled over their time at the Academy, until barely half of the original applicants remained. Those who did were dedicated to their goal of becoming Shinigami, but even they struggled. Even now, in the last year, there were stragglers who just couldn't make the cut, and in time the class was whittled down even further. By the end of the fifth and final year, with the last exam coming up, an additional fifth of the remaining students dropped out, unable to keep up with the rigors of their testing. By the end of the Academy's last year, that meant that that only forty percent of the original class remained, suggesting how hard the courses and exams got as the last year rolled about.

The end of the year was marked with excitement and fear for those who remained; the final exam was said to be particularly brutal, and there were rumors that deaths had occurred during it in the past. On the verge of becoming actual Shinigami, in which there would be no safeguards or teachers to hold their hands, it was very possible that the students would be faced with true life-or-death situations that weren't unlike those they would encounter as a Shinigami. It created an atmosphere of tension, particularly between friends; what happened if someone they knew died? Someone they cared about, or admired? The teachers heard the rumors, but made no effort to quell them; whether it was to let the students learn on their own or confirmation of the rumors, their lack of action caused fear to spread like wildfire for the more weak-willed students. Only a handful were so desperate as to drop out right before the final exam, however.

For the final exam, students were told to gather in their home rooms, which were assigned early at the beginning of the year. Meian and Amaya, by a lucky coincidence, were together again... unfortunately, Hike managed to get lucky and join the class, as did Mina and a few of her friends. Fortunately, home room was only once a week, and it was usually updates on their progress through the Academy, updates on the current events in Seireitei—if they were going to be Shinigami, they needed to be up to date on what was going on around them—and the occasional lecture, so the troublemakers didn't have much chance to cause problems. It did leave the possibility open as time went by, however.

Once gathered in their home rooms, the students would be surprised to see that there were several strangers present, all standing at the room and speaking among themselves. All of them were dressed in some variant of the Shinigami uniform, and all wore some indicator of their rank; one or two were moderately high-seated individuals, third or fourth seats, while the rest ranged from eight to six. These were actual Shinigami; what were they doing there? Did they have something to do with the final test? Students would shuffle nervously to their desks, suddenly aware that they were being watched, studied, examined; were they being observed for their abilities? Were these Shinigami recruiters? A quick check would show that there was at least one present from all but Squad 9; it was likely in the students' minds that their actions here would determine what squads they were eligible to join upon graduation.

Finally, the teacher came in. To Meian's likely relief, the home room was headed by his Kendo teacher from the first year, Ichiyusai Meiji, a teacher he was very familiar with. The man wasted no time in approaching the front desk, standing behind it so that he was flanked on both sides by Shinigami; there were six on the left, and apparently there were supposed to be seven on the right, but the representative of Squad 9 was missing, leaving a gap in the line. It made for quite the formal show, even with the missing Shinigami representative. Murmurs broke out again as theories popped up, students speaking among themselves about the purpose of the Shinigami and how they related to the final exam. Some even suggested they may have to fight the Shinigami.

Meiji raised his hand, indicating silence, and slowly the murmurs died down. Once he had everyone's attention, the teacher cleared his throat and spoke up loudly, his voice carrying despite the neutral, quiet tone it seemed to possess. “Greetings, students, and welcome to your final exams of the fifth year. Today, you will be leaving this world, and joining another: the world of a Shinigami. You will no longer be students after this day, no longer pupils in need of instruction and guidance. No, after today, all of you you will be Shinigami yourselves. Today is a momentous day, especially with so many candidates for our noble defenders. Before we start, however, let me introduce the men and women gathered here, as they will play an integral role in your exam.”

Motioning to the Shinigami, starting on his left, Meiji began to read their names from a list. “Araki Ryu, Eighth Seat of Squad 1. Yomai Aya, Sixth Seat of Squad 2...” The list went on down the line, with each Shinigami acknowledging their names as they were spoken, stepping forward to make themselves known. When it came to Squad 9's member, however, Meiji paused. “Unfortunately, it seems that Ikoma Tomoe, Sixth Seat of Squad 9, could not be with us today. As a result, we requested in a substitute, but he seems to be absent as well—”

“Hold up there, I'm here!”

Amaya's ears would likely perk up at the familiar voice, and Meian might have sunk a little in his seat if he recognized it, considering the trauma associated with a certain party from his first year at the Academy. The door was thrown open—almost literally, as it came off of the hinges from the enormous figure bursting through it suddenly in a rush of speed. The wooden frame crashed to the ground as a large lion-man stumbled in past the now-open portal, panting with the exertion of his run. Both Amaya and Meian would have their thoughts confirmed, to one's dread and likely the other's amusement; Raion Souretsu, Captain of Squad 9, had just entered the room.

Meiji's face remained passive, but the look on his face said that Raion was the sort of fellow that strained even the calm Kendo teacher's patience at times. “...the door was unlocked, Souretsu-taichou. It was not necessary to remove it completely.”

“Eh?” Looking over his shoulder, Raion noticed the splintered doorframe, the majority of the thick panel under his large paws. “Ah... I'll have Tomoe make a note on our financial records to repair that later. M'bad.” With a casual grin, Raion strode across the room and took his place in the line-up of Shinigami. The line had to be widened slightly, as he was a rather large fellow; standing at about seven feet tall and just shy of seven hundred pounds in weight, Raion stood a good foot above any of the others and was considerably wider. This was discounting the fact that he was a walking, talking, lion, of course; covered in fur, with a muzzle-full of sharp, pointed teeth, and far more muscular than the average person there—even if it was partially hidden by his excessive weight—Raion was certainly the cause of discussion among the students, many of which looked as though he was going to eat them if they looked at him wrong. The big Captain's smile, showing most of his teeth, didn't help that impression at all.

Meiji resumed after clearing his throat. “...resuming our introductions, this is Raion Souretsu, Captain of Squad 9...” This drew more murmurs; not only was Raion an anthropomorphic lion, but he was a Captain? Meiji, with his usual patience, raised a hand for silence again. It took time for the students to quiet this time, but after a few minutes the room finally quieted. The teacher continued his introductions, making his way through all thirteen Shinigami present. He wasn't done at that point, though. “You're probably wondering what these Shinigami are here for. As per the guidelines of the final exam, they will be serving as your proctors, watching over you and doing their best to ensure that nothing serious befalls you. There is no guarantee of absolute safety, even with them present, however; understand that, for the majority of the exam, you will be on your own, with the Shinigami only watching you and evaluating your progress. Inability to take care of yourself will reflect poorly on your evaluations.”

“With that, I will be giving each group of students their proctor assignments. There will be two students and a single proctor to each group, and your proctor will inform you about the nature of you exam. Will the following students stand up: with Araki Ryu, we have...” The list continued, with students being paired off and then assigned to a proctor. Finally, the names came around to Raion, and all of the students who had not been selected yet held their collective breaths, wondering who would be assigned to the giant lion-man. “With Souretsu-taichou, we have... Azarola Amaya and Nakazawa Meian. Please step forward.”

Raion's face lit up at the sight of Amaya, though for once he tried to maintain some professional demeanor and didn't immediately scoop her up in a big bear hug; that would wait until they weren't in the classroom, where he would embarrass his favorite little kitsune. That didn't stop him from beaming proudly at being assigned as her proctor, though the enthusiastic grin certainly made most students flinch, among which was likely Meian; the young man received a few pats of consolation at being paired up with Raion. Still, they would leave the room as directed after the Captain had been handed a packet by Meiji, informing him that all of the examination instructions were there for him to read.

The lion barely took the time to flip through the pages as they headed down the hallway, heading for the front door of the Academy. Where was their exam taking place, anyway? There was no word on what it contained or where it was located, though it was likely that the information was contained in the packet that Raion skimmed through. They could hear the lion mumbling to himself as he scanned it over quickly. “Lessee... West Rukongai... take a left... mmkay, easy enough starting point... go to there... mmkay, evaluate students based on... blah blah blah, I know what to look fer... proctors can interfere if... bah, I don't need t'interfere, mah little fox here can handle any big bad monsters...” Once he was done, Raion closed the folder and tucked in into his uniform, though where he had room for it considering that the garment seemed too small on his large frame was a mystery.

At that point, he turned to the other two, leading them towards the gate from Seireitei to the Rukongai. “So! Ya two are my lil' buddies today, it seems! We'll be headin' out o' the Rukongai in a few minutes, and we'll be making our way out to the forest out by West Rukongai. If y'all need it, we can stop by one o' my taverns, pick ya up a bit o' liquid courage.” Raion eyed Amaya and Meian for a moment. “You two are old enough t'drink, right? Eh, don't matter. We'll grab a few flasks o' my favorite sake and we'll head on to the startin' place.” The lion grabbed at the jug of sake that was ever present at his side as part of his Zanpaktou, lifting it up and shaking it a few times, listening to the slosh of the liquid. “Good timing, too; I think mah baby here is almost half-empty. We can fill 'er up while we're there.”

As they passed through the gate into the West Rukongai, Raion continued to try and make conversation. “So, my little foxy gal, it's been a while since we talked. Whatcha been up to? How's yer healing work coming? And you, little samurai guy; you two hooked up yet? Or you still into that handcuff thing? Tried that once, not really my thing. Really ruins flexibility with a partner.” Totally not an awkward conversation start to their exam, not at all.

[Deleted]

((Sorry for the super short post. My muse is suffering a bit today for some reason.))

The last year had come and gone fairly quickly. There was so much to learn and so much to keep track of that even without the medical classes, Amaya had a rough time. Still, she had survived. She was almost done with this year, and now she only had the dreaded final exam to deal with. And this was the final exam. She’d had several ones that were called that before, but until now, there had always been something more. This was different. Now, it was time to do or die, literally. It was known to everyone that there was a chance of death on this examination. They were being forced out into the real world of Shinigami, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Even with that much pressure on her shoulders, Amaya had showed up for the final exam ready and willing. She was determined to pass this test, and it looked like that was probably a sure thing. She had listened as the teacher listed off the people who were taking part in the exam, and then she hold the familiar voice of her favorite fuzzy Captain. Her ears did perk up at that sound. There was a bit of a surprise, bust mostly there was just a sense of relaxation. If Raion was running part of the exam, Amaya had a feeling there was no need to worry. If he was around, there was no way anyone was dying. If she didn’t have to stress about that, then she could focus on the exam itself and ace it.

Of course Amaya and Meian were paired with Raion. No doubt he had pulled some strings to get that one to happen. The trio set off from the classroom after all the groups were announced. Amaya stayed rather quiet for the first while, as Raion seemed to be preoccupied at first with his paperwork, and then with his usual rambling. The kitsune just kinda let him talk. She was more concerned about doing well on the exam than making small talk right now, and that tension showed in her body fairly clearly. There was only one part of Raion’s comments that really got her attention. ”And you, little samurai guy; you two hooked up yet? The question had been addressed to Meian, but Amaya felt the need to bring Raion up to speed.

”Erm… Raion… did we really not talk about this since then? I coulda sworn I mentioned it to you at some point… Anywho, no, Meian and I are just friends. I am seeing someone though, and no, he doesn’t need strangling. If anything, I think you’ll approve quite a bit.” It was at that point that she paused to make sure she had the Captain’s attention. She only continued once she was sure that he wasn’t distracted by something else. ”So… I’m kinda dating Hokori Kuchiki.” Another pause, this time to let whatever reaction Raion had blow over. If he went on for too long, then the kitsune simply cut him off. ”He treats me like a real lady, so no, he really doesn’t need to be murdered.”

SPOILER: Click to show

• [Battle: Shoken] {2}
  
• [Other: Kido] {2}
  
• [Battle: Battle Analysis] {2}
  
• [Utility: Charisma/Leadership] {2}
  
• [Body: Mental Incantation] {2}
  
• [Mental: Analysis] {2}

Stats

Strength - [100(50)] Points
Speed - [200] Points
Spiritual Pressure - [150] Points
Reiatsu Strength - [300] Points
Light Aura - [100] Points
Dark Aura - [0] Points
Instinct - [150(75)] Points
Senses [75] Points
Energy sensory - [25] Points
Healing Expertise - [100] Points
Total SP: [1100] Points

[Nakazawa Meian]

Now, Meian had finally reached his final exam. This time, he was expected to be at the very best, and that showed up for the entirety of his year; a lot of the students who were initially with him in his classes had now vanished, leaving the group at half its original size. Fortunately, none of his close friends had suffered this fate, but the same could be told of those who disliked him. Still, the classes now left no place to errors, and focused on making sure Meian and his classmates would all be ready for the challenges that awaited them as Shinigamis. Unfortunately, since Soul Society had many enemies, these “challenges” were numerous, which meant the students were pushed above their limits…

However, unsettling gossips started to circulate about their final exam; it was said that, in the previous years, the outcome of failure was… death. They would be faced with tasks which could take away their lives and, of course, that was enough to worry mostly everyone. For Meian, this fortunately didn’t hold as much of a meaning as for others, since he had been faced with death many times before his entrance at the Academy, and he knew very well that, of all the students which would have to pass the exam, he was likely the most experienced when it came to protecting his own life. Still, the threat of a friend dying was a worrisome thought, and something he feared above anything else.

Now that the final test was awaiting him, Meian soon understood how serious things were; several Shinigamis had been reunited together for the exam, and to Meian’s surprise, all of them had a rank badge which indicated a ranked position. Why were Shinigamis of this power level required for such an exam, and even more so in a time of war? This didn’t bode well… At least, Meian quickly felt relief when he saw that the teacher who was assigned to this exam was none other than his Kendo teacher of the first year, but he knew very well that, Meiji or not, this exam would be completely different from those he had participated to so far.

“Greetings, students, and welcome to your final exams of the fifth year. Today, you will be leaving this world, and joining another: the world of a Shinigami. You will no longer be students after this day, no longer pupils in need of instruction and guidance. No, after today, all of you you will be Shinigami yourselves. Today is a momentous day, especially with so many candidates for our noble defenders. Before we start, however, let me introduce the men and women gathered here, as they will play an integral role in your exam.” Oh, did Meian miss those speeches! Through all the years he had been into, no one managed to boost Meian’s confidence as much as Meiji could, and that was a welcomed benefit before the challenge that awaited the young samurai. Maybe things won’t be as bad as I thought…

Since what followed were simply formalities, Meian didn’t pay much attention to the names he heard, but the sudden pause in Meiji’s words attracted his attention back; his teacher never broke one of his speech before without a good reason. “Unfortunately, it seems that Ikoma Tomoe, Sixth Seat of Squad 9, could not be with us today. As a result, we requested in a substitute, but he seems to be absent as well—” “Hold up there, I'm here!” Oh god, noooooooooo… Meian’s body reacted almost instantly from hearing that voice; his face turned white, his hands started trembling, and his eyes kept watching the door, fearful of what would happen next. There was no way he could ever have forgotten who that voice belonged to…

As the door opened, or… rather, as the door blew open, what Meian was frightened of was confirmed; Raion Souretsu, Captain of Squad 9 and most renowned alcoholic in the Seireitei, would have a task to perform in his exam. That was already doomed to disasters! Of course, the Captain’s words proved to Meian that he was still exactly like in his memories. “...the door was unlocked, Souretsu-taichou. It was not necessary to remove it completely.” “Eh? Ah... I'll have Tomoe make a note on our financial records to repair that later. M'bad.” This examination would surely prove to be a difficult one, at least on the emotional side…

Once the silly Captain took his place in the line of Shinigamis, whispers began to travel among Meian’s classmates, talking about this weird newcomer. However, the students weren’t the only ones to react at the sight of such a man; Kaimamiru gladly joined the fray. Who the hell is that “thing”? You know him, Meian? Y-yeah... That’s Raion, someone I’d like to have avoided, if possible… Hnf. Weirdo… The reactions unfortunately amplified even more when, on top of being in front of a lion, Meiji mentioned the man’s rank of Captain. “...resuming our introductions, this is Raion Souretsu, Captain of Squad 9...” Of course, Meian understood perfectly what his classmates were feeling; he felt the exact same way when he first met this fuzzy partygoer. The fact that the Gotei 13 accepted a lion as one of their Captains was simply foolish…

Unfortunately, Meian wasn’t at the end of his surprises yet… “You're probably wondering what these Shinigami are here for. As per the guidelines of the final exam, they will be serving as your proctors, watching over you and doing their best to ensure that nothing serious befalls you. There is no guarantee of absolute safety, even with them present, however; understand that, for the majority of the exam, you will be on your own, with the Shinigami only watching you and evaluating your progress. Inability to take care of yourself will reflect poorly on your evaluations. With that, I will be giving each group of students their proctor assignments. There will be two students and a single proctor to each group, and your proctor will inform you about the nature of you exam. Will the following students stand up: with Araki Ryu, we have...” As the list of remaining students and proctors decreased, Meian instinctively knew what awaited him; clearly, Raion would’ve made sure to torture him even more. Still, he kept pointless hopes, and held his breath when the lion’s turn came. “With Souretsu-taichou, we have... Azarola Amaya and Nakazawa Meian. Please step forward.” The shock!

Meian’s face was already white from the sight of the Captain, but now, he had the face of someone with a terminal cancer; it seemed as if he was doing a white-face contest with a bunch of snowmen. Crippled from what he just learned, Meian could hardly move; he was still trying to collect his thoughts. Wai-… wha… y ?... When he finally came back to his mind, he felt the stares of many on him, and he knew why very well; even if the other students had mostly just met him, no one wanted to be assigned with the Captain of Squad 9. Keeping his head low, as if ashamed of what had just happened, Meian went with the lion, worried a lot about what would come next…

Of course, Raion’s behavior didn’t make things any better for the young man; he seemed to be as confused about the exam as the students he led, rambling over what was written on the numerous sheets Meiji gave him. “Lessee... West Rukongai... take a left... mmkay, easy enough starting point... go to there... mmkay, evaluate students based on... blah blah blah, I know what to look fer... proctors can interfere if... bah, I don't need t'interfere, mah little fox here can handle any big bad monsters...” Wow… it took only three words for the lion to, albeit unintentionally, make Meian uneasy again. The Captain had mentioned going to the West Rukongai for their test, the region where Meian was before joining the Academy. Unfortunately, he was also considered dead in that part of the Rukongai, and that “false death” was in fact what allowed him to join the Shinigami ranks without being worried; needless to say that he was concerned about meeting one of his former disciples, which would force him to reveal the truth…

Fortunately, the drunken lion didn’t leave enough time for Meian to fall in his thoughts; that’d likely help him put those feelings aside, unless he indeed met one of his past acquaintances. “So! Ya two are my lil' buddies today, it seems! We'll be headin' out o' the Rukongai in a few minutes, and we'll be making our way out to the forest out by West Rukongai. If y'all need it, we can stop by one o' my taverns, pick ya up a bit o' liquid courage.” At least, on the good side, Meian knew the layout of all the forests in West Rukongai very well, which was due to more than two hundred years spent in them; there was no way he could get lost over there. Still, a long sigh could be heard at the mention of alcohol, but Meian refrained from complaining; he knew all too well, from past experiences, that there was no point in arguing with the lazy lion, because of how stubborn he was. Meian simply kept a deaf ear to Raion’s rant while he followed. “You two are old enough t'drink, right? Eh, don't matter. We'll grab a few flasks o' my favorite sake and we'll head on to the startin' place. Good timing, too; I think mah baby here is almost half-empty. We can fill 'er up while we're there.”

The samurai’s thoughts were soon attracted back, though, when the lion awkwardly tried to engage a conversation, using subjects which were definitely not the best choices. “So, my little foxy gal, it's been a while since we talked. Whatcha been up to? How's yer healing work coming? And you, little samurai guy; you two hooked up yet? …” Not even leaving him the time to finish, Amaya broke the statement almost instantly with one of her own. ”Erm… Raion… did we really not talk about this since then? I coulda sworn I mentioned it to you at some point… Anywho, no, Meian and I are just friends. I am seeing someone though, and no, he doesn’t need strangling. If anything, I think you’ll approve quite a bit.” Meian frowned when he heard that; of course, he knew about the relationship Amaya was in, but he sure as hell didn’t expect her to talk about it to the crazy Captain in front of them! For him, that was clearly a “Keep away from Raion at all costs” classified information. ”So… I’m kinda dating Hokori Kuchiki.”

Meian turned back to Raion, fearing the weird or exaggerated reaction he would have; the last time someone had tried to “wed” her Amaya, Meian had been swung around by the crazy lion, after all! Amaya sure didn’t reassure him either, with her last sentence. ”He treats me like a real lady, so no, he really doesn’t need to be murdered.” Overly frightened by the upcoming calamity, Meian stepped back to open some distance, and kept his mouth shut; he really hoped the Captain would just forget about him right now. Meian knew very well that the lion would bring his wrath on something, and he sure as hell was determined to not[/u][/i] be that “something”…

(OOC: Don’t know if that was intentional or not, but you’re bringing Meian in the side of Rukongai he spent all of his spirit-life, as well as the forests he know very well ^^)

SPOILER: Click to show

Abilities

(OOC: Meian’s skills are technically at level 1 as I write this post, but they should be at 2 after CIU. I hope this isn’t an issue (if it is, tell me and I’ll just downgrade them))

• Iaijutsu Level 2
  
  
• Battle Analysis Level 2
  
  
• Stealth Level 2
  
  
• Pain Tolerance Level 2
  
  
• War Strategy Level 2
  
  
• Calm Mind Level 2
  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SPOILER: Click to show

Strength – (150 x 0,5) = 75 Points

Speed – (300 x 1,5) = 450 Points

Spiritual Pressure – 150 Points

Reiatsu Strength – (200 x 1,5) = 300 Points

Light Aura – 80 Points

Dark Aura – 20 Points

Instinct – 150 Points

Senses – (100 x 0,5) = 50 Points

Energy Sensory – 50 Points

Healing Expertise – 0 Points


Total SP: 1100 Points

[Raion Souretsu]

((OOC: Note, I am combining objectives 5 and 6 for this portion of the exam, but I will still reward you for each individual objective. Sorry for straying so far from the original outline, but the situation changed and became more fun as we went.))

Naturally, as promised, their first stop was at a tavern nearby, one that went by the name of “The Broken Tooth.” It was rough-looking building, and the sign outside the door displayed two men fighting, one with his teeth being knocked out, which was likely the source of the building's name. Raion went in without a second glance, opening the door and sidestepping a body being hurled out onto the street by a bouncer and continuing without missing a beat. The ejected man just slumped on the street, clearly so drunk that he was about ready to pass out, and so Meian and Amaya could either back away, leaving him be, or step around them and follow Raion into the tavern. Regardless, they would spend a good half hour at the bar as the big lion met up with old friends, punched out one or two bruisers that decided the “freak” needed to go, and filled both his jug and his stomach with sake before leaving with two additional, if smaller, containers for his two companions. At most, the lion came out of the scuffle with a little wear and tear on his uniform and a bit of dust in his fur, but the usual drunken grin never left his face the entire time.

“Ah, it's always so lively here in the Rukongai, ain't it?” Raion grinned at his companions, his tail swishing back and forth behind him. “Lotsa good bars, fun ta be had with friend an' foe alike, and the occasional looker...” The lion's choice of words was appropriately timed as he watched a couple walk by, his eyes clearly on the female of the two, who seemed to be conforming to the “ideal” of a healthy hourglass shape for the fairer sex's physique. The two vanished in the distance quickly, and Raion cleared his throat quickly before resuming their walk down the street, heading towards the outskirts and the forest beyond. “Jus' a good time ta be had here in the Rukongai.”

Amaya's comment about her dating another man, a “Hokori Kuchiki,” surprisingly didn't draw the same explosion that it had three years ago at the Kido Corps's party. Raion's grin didn't slip, though his step faltered briefly and his large paws came together briefly to crack the knuckles of one fist loudly. Still, that was the extent of his reaction, so maybe he had calmed down about his overprotective habits around Amaya; he did care for the little kitsune's love life, and he did want to make sure that she didn't fool around with the wrong person—what a role model he was on that one, some might sarcastically remind him—but that was something best dealt with privately. Of course, his little fox-slash-practically-daughter had said he couldn't murder Hokori, but that didn't mean there weren't a number of other things he couldn't do, Kuchiki or no.

That was the extent of his reaction for now; Amaya probably sensed the signs of imminent Raion chaos in the near future, but at least he seemed focused on doing his job as a proctor for the Academy's final exam. Meian? Meian's mental alarms were always going off around Raion, so it was no wonder if he was also worried, albeit constantly. The lion seemed oblivious to the male student's reaction, thinking perhaps it was nerves or maybe... well, Raion knew people swooned for him on occasion, no matter how many claimed they fainted at the sight of an enormous humanoid lion. It was clearly unbridled attraction, not fear; he'd be able to smell fear. Well, at least he thought he could, anyway, since a lot of animals could smell fear when it came to people, and he was an animal. It wasn't like his senses were dulled from being around people...

The forest was reached quickly, and Meian would find that it wasn't as familiar as he thought it was. Sure, there were a lot of landmarks he recognized, positions he could easily find his way back from, yet at the same time there were changes. Structures that were not there were visible, simple buildings made of wood and thatch; temporary housing, perhaps? Yet Raion checked his papers and determined that they were to go into one of them, actually taking the time to open the door properly instead of crashing through it again. He motioned Amaya inside, followed by Meian—accompanied by a large paw on the student's shoulder and another tooth-exposing grin that was meant to be comforting, but likely had the opposite effect—and then entered after them, closing the door.

“Alright, folks, lessee... lemme pull out the paper fer this, I'm supposed t'read the instructions to ya both.” Shuffling through them, Raion flipped through page after page, trying to find the right one, before he settled on the right one. “Aha, here we go. Yer supposed to be findin' some building in the area, a big ol' one that's like some sorta shrine. Says here it was built just fer the exam, so that none o' the students would know where it was at. Yer to go there, find something or another, and then from there, make it to another buildin', more like a tower. We'll call it 'Home Base' and... well, I'm gettin' ahead o' m'self. Let's make it to the shrine first, and we'll see where we go from there, mmkay?”

“So... accordin' to the papers, the shrine is to the southeast o' our startin' place. It's up to y'all to find yer way there; I'm just here to keep ya from goin' splat, should it come to it. Oh, and the forest has some Hollows in it, but they're kept in by some sort o' fancy Squad 12 t barrier. They're minor smallfry, but they still need ta go splat if they attack ya, so I'm here to make sure ya don't die. Not that I'm worried 'bout my lil' foxy, or anything.”

((OOC: One last round of reaction posts, and then I'll be throwing encounters/destinations at you as I feel necessary. Feel free to even start into the woods and start your own path, if you want to.))

[Deleted]

Captain Fuzzy had decided that the group needed to stop at a bar before proceeding on to their mission. Typical Raion… but Amaya wasn’t complaining. She was almost as comfortable at bars at Raion was, especially now that she could easily flatten anyone who didn’t understand what “no” meant. That was definitely a nice layer of protection to have. Oh, and Raion would probably kill anyone who even looked at her right now, so there was that too. Either way, the kitsune simply stepped inside and got a cocktail while she waited for Raion to finish his fun. Knowing him, he’d probably be getting liquor for everyone, but it’d likely be sake. Amaya made sure to get a to-go flask of her cocktail to be safe. That way she could still drink, but it wouldn’t have to be sake. Of course the academy uniform lacked pockets, so Amaya just used the good old boob-pocket trick to hold that flask.

Eventually they made their way out of the bar, and the medic informed Captain Fuzzy about her latest boyfriend. Oddly enough there was no strong reaction from Raion. There was nothing but a crack of the knuckles and a sense that something was going to happen later. Amaya knew something would come of that eventually, but it looked like the Captain was actually maintaining an air of professionalism for right now. Now that was weird. Heck, that scared Amaya more than him going off on a rampage. If he was punching people, that could be stopped. There were Bakudo for that. If he was silent about it… that wasn’t a good sign. That meant he was plotting, and there was no way a plot from Raion was anything but trouble.

Sadly, there was nothing that could really be done about that. The group made their way to the start point for their exam, and Raion explained what they needed to do inside a shack. Amaya wasn’t really sure why they had bothered building these shacks if they were just supposed to immediately start travelling… but oh well. There’s no way Raion was forgetting any important details or anything… right? Okay, who are we kidding, the biggest risk to them in this exam was probably Raion’s casual attitude. After that was the touch of liquor Amaya had been drinking. The hollows were a lesser cause for concern than either of those. The kitsune was definitely a lightweight. Even after a single drink she was already clearly on the tipsy side of things. Being tiny did have some downsides.

While they hadn’t received a ton of training on strategy, Amaya was fairly confident in her ability to plan things out. The booze made her a bit more confident, and a bit worse at thinking clearly, so this probably wasn't the best idea... but oh well! Either way, there were plenty of other students in their class, and they’d all likely be moving out at the same time as Amaya and Meian. Hollows were attracted to strong spirits. These two, especially with a Captain alongside them, were some of the strongest around. There was almost no chance they wouldn’t get attacked. Even if they masked their reiatsu, which no one had really taught them how to do, Raion’s energy would seem like a feast to the often brainless hollows. They were going to have to fight their way to the objective no matter what they did.

Having considered this, Amaya discussed a strategy with Meian. ”Well, I figure there’s almost no way we’re going to manage to sneak by the hollows. In terms of spiritual strength, we’re both towards the top of our class, and Raion is in a completely different league from the rest of us. There’s no way hollows won’t be after us, so we need to be ready to fight them. I think our best bet is to just keep moving and blow up anything that gets in our way. I don’t think subtlety is going to help, so we might as well not hold back. If it comes down to it, we can always just try to outrun them. Most hollows can’t keep up with Shunpo, so we should be fine unless there’s a really fast one or a flying one. Those, we should just take down right away. Sound good to you Meian?”

[Nakazawa Meian]

The Broken Tooth… of course, Raion had to take them to a bar! Not even ten minutes had passed, and Meian was already regretting coming along. Even though the young man indeed did miss the Rukongai while he was in the Academy, its taverns weren’t really where he thought he’d first go when he would come back. However, although he made use of all his courage to enter the tavern with the drunken Captain, Meian wasn’t brave enough to even bother thinking about drinking anything, not even water; his mind was entirely focused on the task that awaited them, and the risks involved. The fact that he knew the parts of Rukongai they were heading to would surely prove to be an advantage, but would it be enough to prevent death? After all, death had been reported even though each team was paired with a real Shinigami, and… well, let’s say Meian didn’t really believe his fuzzy guide would be of much help if things went wrong. The soon-to-be graduate had to make a plan, and it needed to be good…

Once they finally decided to move on after a time which seemed like eternity, Meian wasn’t even paying attention to the drunk lion’s words anymore. He knew they were just rambling, and not worth his focus at all. The only time he really did care about what the lion said –or rather didn’t say-- was when Amaya revealed her boyfriend’s identity, which should have triggered the beast’s fury. Of course, the lion’s wrath was troublesome, but… his lack of reaction was even more frightening than anything he could have done, because of anticipation… and unfortunately, Meian’s rather flourishing imagination involved tsunamis of sake flowing over the Seireitei, aimed specifically at the poor Hokori…

As they reached the forest, Meian soon understood guiding himself in it wouldn’t be as easy as he first thought; buildings were added everywhere, which masked most of his familiarity with the landscape. Fortunately, he could still spot general landmarks here and there, but aside from that, it was as if he was in completely different woods. Ignoring that for now, he simply followed Raion until they arrived to a building, in which the group entered. Needless to say that, when Meian saw a paw approach him from behind, he quickly sped up to avoid it and turned around to make sure none other were following up. From there, the samurai simply listened to the wretched indications he was given, trying to remember as much as he could.

“Alright, folks, lessee... lemme pull out the paper fer this, I'm supposed t'read the instructions to ya both. Aha, here we go. Yer supposed to be findin' some building in the area, a big ol' one that's like some sorta shrine. Says here it was built just fer the exam, so that none o' the students would know where it was at. Yer to go there, find something or another, and then from there, make it to another buildin', more like a tower. We'll call it 'Home Base' and... well, I'm gettin' ahead o' m'self. Let's make it to the shrine first, and we'll see where we go from there, mmkay?” Raion sure knew how to give vague information! All Meian could learn from this was the existence of some sort of shrine, and a “tower” somewhere around. Even a survival specialist like Meian had a hard time knowing where to start with that!

“So... accordin' to the papers, the shrine is to the southeast o' our startin' place. It's up to y'all to find yer way there; I'm just here to keep ya from goin' splat, should it come to it. Oh, and the forest has some Hollows in it, but they're kept in by some sort o' fancy Squad 12 t barrier. They're minor smallfry, but they still need ta go splat if they attack ya, so I'm here to make sure ya don't die. Not that I'm worried 'bout my lil' foxy, or anything.” At least I’ve got a direction now… Guess I’ll just need to move and make sure we don’t miss it.

Before departing once more, clearly a plan of action was needed this time. Amaya was the first to say her opinion, to which Meian quietly listened. ”Well, I figure there’s almost no way we’re going to manage to sneak by the hollows. In terms of spiritual strength, we’re both towards the top of our class, and Raion is in a completely different league from the rest of us. There’s no way hollows won’t be after us, so we need to be ready to fight them. I think our best bet is to just keep moving and blow up anything that gets in our way. I don’t think subtlety is going to help, so we might as well not hold back. If it comes down to it, we can always just try to outrun them. Most hollows can’t keep up with Shunpo, so we should be fine unless there’s a really fast one or a flying one. Those, we should just take down right away. Sound good to you Meian?”

Well, Amaya sure summarized the situation pretty well; Meian didn’t feel the need to add much more on top of that, aside from small details. ”Hm… I agree with you, subtlety isn’t going to work. There’s no point in trying to hide when we are naturally attracting our opponents. Of course, there’s also some landscapes we should try to avoid if we don’t want to get injured, for example tall grass. However, as for Shunpo, I think we should keep its use to a minimum; we don’t know for how long we’ll be here, and exhaustion may possibly be even more dangerous in our task than the Darkhan themselves.” With that, their strategic discussion was almost over; there was only one more detail Meian wanted to let his teammate know. ”Oh, and you may like to know that I already know this general location a lot. Although the buildings change the land a bit, I actually came here numerous times before now.”

Leaving the building, their exam had now begun. Without even thinking about it, the first thing Meian did was something he was accustomed to when travelling in woodlands; making a walking stick with a nearby branch. That was truly a useful tool when dealing with savage beasts or when trying to cross a river, and Meian knew he would likely need it at some point. However, their travel wasn’t up for a start yet; they knew the shrine was at the southeast, but without a compass, not everyone would know where to go. Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem for someone as experienced in woodland navigation as Meian; looking up at the sky, he simply noted the sun’s location, knowing that it was currently pointing west. With that information, determining where to go was an easy task. ”Our objective should be that way… However, before we go, I’d like to ask one more question to you, Raion-Shogun. Are you aware of any time limit on this, or we can go at our own pace?” As soon as he’d get his answer, the group would be ready for the escapade ahead…

[Raion Souretsu]

The exam seemed to be starting out swimmingly, at least from Raion's view; after their stop by the Broken Tooth, which both of his companions seemed to enjoy in their own way—Amaya had certainly enjoyed her drink, and Meian had been so energized by Raion's bar brawl that he practically ran out of the building—they had all continued out towards the woods, the site of the exam's beginning. The other two didn't seem particularly inclined to chat, but the lion attributed that to eagerness, that restless energy before they started their final test that would allow them to graduate and make their way to their positions as Shinigami. Certainly they weren't nervous or uncomfortable; his presence alone should assure otherwise! They were with the one of the most relaxing presences in Seireitei, in his opinion.

Once explanations had been done, the two had formed a plan; Amaya had decided that it would be best for them to cut straight through to the exam site, which was an interesting choice, but not one that Raion would contend. They were fast enough to avoid the average Hollow, in their opinion, and could deal with any that could keep up. Of course, there were things besides Hollows that Raion had forgotten to mention or had thought irrelevant to the matter at hand; certainly Amaya, his intelligent little fox gal, was more than smart enough to notice some simple booby-traps. Really, who fell for the old “pack of Hollows cage match trick,” as Raion called it? Or something as simple as pitfalls designed to burn Reiatsu through the forced use of Shunpo or other techniques? Certainly neither of them would be foolish enough to encounter such things.

“Nah... they'll be fine. They're smart kids.” Raion said to himself as the other two prepared to head out, his voice surprisingly inaudible to them. Instead the lion just grabbed his sake jug and a small bag that he had apparently left in the shack in advance. It was a small thing, really, a plastic bag that looked as though he had been to the grocery store recently, but neither of the students would be able to see inside. Raion instead just let the students lead the way, doing his job by following them and keeping them out of trouble as long as he was allowed to interfere. The Captain was more than happy to leave them to their own devices and just enjoy this little camping trip, as he saw it.

Meian's question actually reminded Raion of something else he had forgotten to mention. “Oh right! I forgot to tell ya, this is one o' them long exams, prolly about two days or so in length; we'll prolly have at least one night o' campin' by the fire. Dun worry though, I've got this all planned out... I brought S'mores for the campin' trip!” The lion just grinned and held up the bag he had with him, shaking it once or twice to indicate that it was what he was talking about. This would probably give the other two pause for thought; was that really all the food they had? If this trip was really going to take two days in length, they'd have to think about food and water... and all they had was a bag of S'mores and the alcohol that Raion and Amaya had brought with them. Not quite the ideal supplies, though they were certainly adequete in Raion's eyes.

The first part of the trip was fairly tame at least, minus the occasional incident. The first happened when they came across the first of many traps, though it looked fairly innocuous; one second, Raion was striding behind the two students, and the next his height was suddenly cut in half as he found himself waist-deep in a pitfall trap that was obviously meant for someone a bit less bulky than him, quite stuck and unable to pull himself free. It took the two students digging him out somewhat to aid in freeing the heavyset lion from his confinement, and ate up a good hour of time given just how stuck he was. Fortunately, Raion was eventually able to tug himself up and out, a bit embarrassed about the situation, but they were on their way a few moments later.

The next happened after a brief encounter with a low-level Hollow, one that Raion dispatched on his own, without waiting for the other two to react. Afterwards he was demonstrating how he had slain the creature—with only a single slash of his sword, but it was a particularly weak one, yet he made it seem as though the battle was far more intense—and his sword caught in one of the nearby trees with a loud thunk, the broadsword-sized blade sinking halfway into the wood and weakening the trunk. Upon removal, however, one could only yell “Timber!” and scramble out of the way as the tree nearly fell upon the two students. At least that one was an honest accident, though Raion kept his weapon sheathed after that for a little while.

The last, and worst, was when the lion had spotted a wild boar, seemingly off by itself. Seeing as the issue of food had come up when his stomach had growled around late noon and S'mores wouldn't cut it for the large Captain's appetite, Raion had dropped down low to the ground and stalked the creature like a proper predator, sneaking up close and pouncing on it to catch the creature for the meat. Unfortunately, though he did manage to succeed in pinning the boar beneath his bulk, his struggle also drew the attention of the other two dozen that were scattered nearby. The only warning that the two students were given was Raion running past them with a struggling boar over his head while the entire pack came crashing through the trees behind them, causing all three of them to flee until they managed to lose their pursuit.

Night soon fell, the day flying by considering all that they had been put through. At this point, both students were probably wishing they had Hollows to deal with rather than their proctor, as good-natured as Raion was. Hollows were at least predictable—they tried to eat you, and that was about it. The three of them set up camp in a small clearing, leaving the small boar that Raion had captured to cook so that they could at least get a filling meal. S'mores were forgotten, having been lost at some point during the stampede, much to the Captain's disappointment, but small cups of water were at least a more acceptable beverage to go with their captured meal.

As the food was cooking, Raion paused, a small Hell Butterfly perching on his shoulder. Nearly invisible among that thick mane, especially in the shadows from their small fire, the students wouldn't see it. The small creature delivered a quick message that was likely meant for all of the proctors, and the lion fought a frown as he was told to simply abandon the two students in his care; from here on out, it was up to them to take care of themselves. The first day had been a trial period, to adjust them to the potential dangers of the woods, and now the rest was up to them. If they couldn't survive this exercise, then they wouldn't survive as Shinigami, which meant that they would be just as dead as if they failed here; in other words, they had been shoved in head-first to sink or swim.

Raion didn't like the orders, but he knew that when he volunteered for this position, he had agreed to listen to all of the orders he was given. Standing quickly and shaking the Hell Butterfly off in the process, the lion gave his companions a sheepish grin. “I ah... gotta go take a whizz. I'll be back in a few, kiddos.” With that, he quickly hurried off into the woods, crashing through branches and tall grass, making as much distance as he could between the two of them. As he left, however, the Captain wished both of his companions good luck, and prayed that he'd see them at the final destination. No, he knew he'd see them there; Amaya was a strong little lass, and Meian was at least sturdy and dependable enough to make it this far. They'd be there, he was sure.

As Raion vanished into the woods, a loud, shrill cry rose through the trees. It seemed that there was no respite even with the lion gone; Amaya and Meian would spy an enormous, dark shape rising above the trees and feel the downdraft of two powerful wings flapping. Another loud squawk came before the being dove down towards the two students, becoming suddenly visible as the fire roared up under the winds whipping at it. An enormous bird, black in color with bone armor over each of its wings and a bleached-white Hollow mask, was revealed briefly before the fire went out completely under the rush. Both students would find themselves blown over briefly, possessing far less strength than the creature's air blast, and then it seemed that the creature was gone.

That thought only lasted a second, however, as the monstrous Hollow rose up again, making another dive at them. This time its claws were outstretched, and it would attempt to grab Meian in one of its claws. The attack came so suddenly that both students, disoriented in the dark and worn out after their long day, would find themselves off-guard. They were forced to quickly react to the giant bird attempting to consume them, and that would be difficult enough on its own; the enormous bird was fast, and even as they were recovering from its current dive, the Hollow was back in the sky, hidden by the darkness like a shroud about it. They would feel its wingbeats, hear its cry... but they wouldn't be able to see it in the darkness.

It only got worse, too; even as they were dealing with the big bird, dozens of smaller birds came out of the trees as well, surrounding the two students in a swarm. Sharp-edged bills would stab down towards exposed flesh, eyes, anything that would make a good meal from the two Shinigami-to-be. That meant that Meian and Amaya had to deal with two threats at once; if they took their attention off of the big bird, it could swoop down and swallow them whole in a heartbeat. On the other hand, if they ignored the smaller ones to avoid the large Hollow, then they would find themselves torn apart by the swarm about them.

And throughout all of this, the two probably had to wonder one more thing: where had Raion gone...?

SPOILER: Click to show

Class 3, Rank 1 Soldier Type. “Moderate” level enemy.

Strength - [250] Points

Speed – [300 x 1.5] (450) Points

Spiritual Pressure - [100] Points

Reiatsu Strength – [100 x 0.6] (60) Points

Light Aura - [0] Points

Dark Aura - [100] Points

Instinct - [100] Points

Senses - [150] Points

Energy sensory - [100] Points

Healing Expertise - [0] Points


Total SP: [1200] Points

SPOILER: Click to show

Class 6, Rank 1 Nontyped. “Typical” Level enemy.

Strength - [50] Points

Speed – [250] Points

Spiritual Pressure - [50] Points

Reiatsu Strength – [30] Points

Light Aura - [0] Points

Dark Aura - [100] Points

Instinct - [50] Points

Senses - [50] Points

Energy sensory - [20] Points

Healing Expertise - [0] Points


Total SP: [600] Points

[Deleted]

Well, Raion had said this was going to be an ordeal, and it certainly was. There was an entire day of hiking, complete with a multitude of ridiculous encounters. Most of the “encounters” were actually Raion stumbling into traps, or making problems appear out of thin air. Amaya generally enjoyed his company quite a bit, as he made the hike far less boring, but it was honestly bordering on pathetic that a Captain could fall into some of these traps. The first thing he tripped was a basic pitfall. Amaya had to spend an hour with Meian digging Raion out of that hole… literally. That put a bit of a damper on her mood, and totally killed whatever hint of a buzz she had left at that point.

After that, there was the first fight against a low-level hollow. Okay, it wasn’t actually a fight… and the students weren’t even involved in it. Raion just cut a small fry in half, and killed a tree in the process. Of course that tree fell towards the students, and they had to scramble out of the way. It wasn’t a big deal, but Raion was definitely more of a danger than that hollow was. The final bit of trouble he caused was when he found “dinner.” They came across a wild boar that Raion decided to pounce on. The rest of that pack of boars promptly appeared and started to chase the Captain down. The kitsune was really confused that he didn’t just beat them all up, but that was Raion for you. Rather than following suit, Amaya simply jumped up into a tree and let the whole show pass her by. Once it was passed her, she hopped down and leisurely walked after Raion. It’s not like it was a hard trail to follow.

Such was the first day of the exam. There was nothing more than Raion’s antics for them to deal with, but that was bothersome enough. They really ought to be given a passing grade just for putting up with him. Night brought a new set of challenges. The first was the disappearance of their proctor. He said he was just going to go use the bathroom, but he left the range of Amaya’s energy sensory soon enough. It was fairly obvious that was part of the exam. They were being left to fend for themselves, and that was fine with the medic. She was a bit tired from the long hike, but knowing they could have some time without Raion’s antics was relief enough to give her a bit of a second wind. He didn’t’ mean to make it harder, but he was the only real challenge they’d had so far.

Of course, just because Amaya thought that, an actual challenge showed up. With Raion’s presence not clouding the area any longer, it was easy enough to sense the incoming threats. Amaya’s energy sensory wasn’t refined enough to know what exactly was coming, but lack of spiritual strength meant it was either another student or a hollow. She figured it was more likely to be the latter, and she was shown to be right soon enough. An avian adversary was assaulting the academy attenders with air-based attacks! Its opening blast knocked the kitsune to the ground before she could react, but she wasn’t about to stay defenseless. Immediately, she released her Zanpakuto with two words. ”Design, Hibiki!” For a moment, she was enclosed in a protective sphere of cloth, but it disappeared soon enough to reveal a roll of cloth on her back.

After all Raion had put them through so far today, she needed a good excuse to work out some pent up irritation. This hollow would do nicely. She’d leave the small fry to Meian, and she informed him as much. ”The big one’s mine!” They were supposed to blow up hollows for this test, so she might as well show off anyway, right? Two sheets of Pinstripes rolled off the roll on her back as she stood back up to face the enemy above her. The fire had gone out, but the glow from Amaya charging her reiatsu illuminated the area slightly. Her reiatsu wasn’t strong enough to make it easy to see, but that didn’t matter. The hollow was making a large arc to get back up high enough so that it could make another pass. That meant she had enough time to set everything up.

Excessive was definitely the best way to describe this attack. She didn’t bother holding back, but she didn’t use mental incantation either. She wanted Meian to know what she was about to do, so she spoke out loud. ”Hado Number 33: Sokatsui!” The ensuing blast of blue fire was far beyond what anyone should ever expect of an academy student. Having used two sheets of pinstripes, the attack had 900 reiatsu strength. Sokatsui was widely known to get a great deal larger as more power was pumped into it, and this one was currently a Captain-Class attack. Everything above them was instantly incinerated. The attack needed some room to spread out so some of the little hollows were spared, but the larger one any of the smaller ones that were up high at the moment couldn’t escape this attack. That was especially true for the large one. It was diving at them, and it simply headed straight into the attack. It was facing down a Hado with 15 times the reiatsu strength that its body possessed. Survival was simply impossible.

Of course, this attack didn’t come without a price. Amaya wasn’t used to how draining it was to amplify her reiatsu strength by that much yet. From just that one attack, her breathing was already noticeable. It wasn’t alarming or anything, but she actually had to control her breathing a bit after that. She simply wasn’t practiced enough to know how fatiguing something like that would be. On top of the stamina drain, there was also a second noteworthy side effect of using that much power at once. A good deal of the forest around them was now on fire! A 900 reiatsu strength Sokatsui was far larger than the opening they were in, and a number of trees were set aflame as a result. The blue fire left the battlefield illuminated, and that also meant that they probably shouldn’t try to use this spot as a campsite tonight.

Reiatsu: 1200/1500
-200 Shikai
-100 Sokatsui

Shikai: 1/10

Sheets Active: 2 Pinstripe Sheets

[Nakazawa Meian]

(OOC: Since this thread seems to be attracting bad luck in the current posts, I decided to bring back good luck with a special something.

SPOILER: Click to show

)

This trip sure didn’t fit in what could be considered “ideal”. As if having Raion as a proctor wasn’t already enough trouble, the man had forgotten to bring the food and water required for a two-day trip… or maybe he mistakenly thought Sake would be good enough supplies for it. Either way, Meian would have to think about finding vital provisions in this hostile environment. Fortunately, if there was one man which knew where to search for them, it was him; any tree could provide very useful information about a source of water’s location, given their heavy need for it, and sources of food were often found in distinctive landmarks.

Of course, though, this wasn’t the end of what Raion was capable of, far from it… Not long after the beginning of the test, the furry Captain managed to get stuck in a pitfall trap. Meian realized two things from this. One: their proctor forgot to point out that traps lied ahead. Second: His worries intensified. What better way is there to become an easy target, aside from having the team’s proctor stuck in a hole !?! Needless to say that having a tree nearly fall on him “unintentionally” didn’t help with those worries at all, and neither did having to flee from a stampede of boars. Throughout all of these misfortunes, though, Meian couldn’t avoid thinking that this must’ve seemed like a “normal day” for the Captain…

And finally, night fell, putting an end to this crazy day. The team had set up camp inside a small plain previously in the day, and they had managed to start a small campfire; all that was left, now, was to cook the previously captured boar, in order to eat it. Albeit unknown to Meian, though, things were soon going to change; Raion had received the order to leave them and let the team cope with trouble in its own way. “I ah... gotta go take a whizz. I'll be back in a few, kiddos.” As the Captain was running away in the wood, making loud noise as he crashed through almost every branches in his way, Meian couldn’t avoid to let out a sigh. If he just fell into another hole, I’m leaving him there… Unfortunately, though, this wasn’t the only sound coming from within the forest…

Time passed until another challenge, funnily less bothersome than Raion’s presence, although more dangerous, showed up. A loud shriek emerged from the forest, reporting the existence of a new threat; a black bird-like hollow, which lifted off the ground nearby. Given the unpredictability of the first attack, an air blast, Meian was forced to the ground by the impact, but he quickly got back up; this was a life-to-death situation, and he was determined to make sure the result wouldn’t be the latter. As such, when the bird came back in a swoop, claws aimed directly at Meian, he was more than ready to get out of the attack’s trajectory, taking cover behind a tree in the process. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the end of their troubles; dozens of smaller birds quickly joined the fray, ready to appease their appetites. This couldn’t be worse…

Without any notice, Amaya quickly gave her everything in this battle. ”Design, Hibiki!” Wait, is that… Soon enough, Meian had the chance to see Amaya’s released form for the first time as a roll of cloth appeared on her back. ”The big one’s mine!” There wasn’t any need for other words; Meian knew very well what he had to do. Quickly joining up with Amaya, he went behind her and placed his hand on Kaimamiru’s grip, aiming toward the other side. ”Covering you.” Positioned like this, he could easily protect both of them from the assaults of the smaller birds, therefore giving a chance for Amaya to take care of the larger one.

As Meian keeping his defensive stance, his friend had the time to prepare her attack, one which would prove to be impressive. ”Hado Number 33: Sokatsui!” As those words escaped from her mouth, a blue fireball soon emanated from her hand, flying straight up toward their avian foe. However, although Meian knew Amaya was strong with Kido, he never expected her to be that strong. Even with his low energy sensory, he could easily feel that this attack she had launched was far stronger than anything he felt so far. As it detonated, his surprise could easily be seen in his eyes; its surge of power was certainly enough to burn that bird up entirely, but even worse, it packed enough strength to punch down a good chunk of the forest!

Still stunned from the show of power, Meian was quickly brought back to reality by his Zanpakuto. Look around you! As he did, he soon understood what the problem was; the forest had been set ablaze from Amaya’s Kido! Fortunately, the few birds that remained were scattered, meaning they would be easy to dispatch if they charged back, but the two students now had one bigger problem on their hands. Meian knew that, if the fire was given enough time to expand and surround them, even they would have problems dealing with it. Quickly turning back toward his friend, he started to speak, but it was obvious from his pace that he was in a hurry. ”Amaya, are you okay? Let’s move away from here.”