Shinōreijutsuin.
Shin’ō Academy.
The Spiritual Arts Academy.
The home of the six-year curriculum that taught all Shinigami the fundamentals they needed to become stewards of the balance of souls, correcting mistakes in the cycle of life and death, birth and rebirth. Mistakes known as Hollows.
It proved busier now, in 1363, than at any time in its history. No longer reliant on those with spiritual power—typically Class 2 or higher—enough to manifest their own Zanpakutō naturally. With the introduction of the Asauchi, a vessel to ease its manifestation and open the ranks of the Shinigami up to those who did not previously possess the potential, more students than ever wandered the halls. Already, the Tenth petitioned for the funds and resources to expand it, and designs were already being drawn up to have the Academy take up even more of its hilltop location with the fortress of the Seireitei.
Courtyards, dormitories, training and lectures halls, offices, and more, already filled the Academy’s walls. A main, stone staircase led to a central path through the tree-filled Academy grounds, right up towards the primary building’s main gates. Before it, in the center of a paved circle, stood a stone with the first and last lesson of the Academy engraved upon it:
Do not seek beauty in battle. Do not seek virtue in death. Do not make the mistake of considering only your own life. If you wish to protect that which you must protect, slice the enemy you must defeat from behind.
“Jodan. Chudan,” the warm, encouraging voice of the Tenth’s famed Lieutenant Tachibana spoke. Her red hair the color of raspberries in the light that poured in from the open dojo wall, less saturated in the shade.
“You’ve practiced relentlessly, all of you, for months upon months now, and you should all be proud for it,” she encouraged. “I can see how red and rough your hands are. How worn the tsuka of your Asauchi have become. Good. That’s how you begin to put your soul in it.”
She took a different form, her own Asauchi in-hand: tsuba wrapped in light pink to match the hair of one of her guests, blade of steel that looked more like silver, hamon of petal edges. She kept the blade at her hip, tip down.
“Gedan,” she explained. “Best for stability, fending off low strikes, of which many Hollows are fond, I promise you. Excellent for sweeping strikes of your own. Even the Hollows with good regeneration often struggle with legs.”
She looked over her shoulders at her guests who sat, politely—if perhaps not the most patiently—in _seiza_ out of respect for the Lieutenant they had been assigned to aid today. Two women of the Eleventh, already introduced:
Fourth Seat Hattori, of the well-known Hattori Clan, with a mane of untamed white.
Fifth Seat Mibuchi, smiling even as she sat there, her bright pink hair all the brighter in the sun that beamed down upon her.
The young, male students across from the three women tried not to make their slack-jawed staring too apparent.
They largely failed.
“Our guests from the Eleventh have generously offered to help you all get off to a strong start in your practice,” she explained. “Both will providing guidance and instruction as you begin. We’ll close the day late into the evening with sparring, and they both will be your opponents.”
Nobuko smiled dangerously.
“Their Captain has insisted that they not hold back; something about the honor of the Eleventh,” Nobuko lied. “Please do practice well, we only have so many guests from Fourth today and I would rather we not lose another student.”
They had no lost a student in over a century. Never while at the Academy, either. The suddenly-flushed faces of the students showed Nobuko that they did not know better.
She did her best not to giggle.
“Now, everyone, on your feet an—”
Crimson silhouetted the faces of the women from the Eleventh.
Hummm.
A wall of flesh-searing red swallowed Nobuko and the entire class of students before them. Then, the red turned to fire as the entire mass of spiritual energy detonated. The ground erupted, floorboards ignited, and neither Ayane nor Suzume could hear the screams as other blasts rent the Academy asunder. They were, instead, flung into the air while wreathed in flames and smoke, through the debris, and out into different sections of the Academy grounds.
From above the Academy, a veritable sea of Hollows, like one mass of stampeding animals, drool falling from the lower jaws of their bone white masks, ascended the hilltop from ripples in the air.
Shin’ō Academy.
The Spiritual Arts Academy.
The home of the six-year curriculum that taught all Shinigami the fundamentals they needed to become stewards of the balance of souls, correcting mistakes in the cycle of life and death, birth and rebirth. Mistakes known as Hollows.
It proved busier now, in 1363, than at any time in its history. No longer reliant on those with spiritual power—typically Class 2 or higher—enough to manifest their own Zanpakutō naturally. With the introduction of the Asauchi, a vessel to ease its manifestation and open the ranks of the Shinigami up to those who did not previously possess the potential, more students than ever wandered the halls. Already, the Tenth petitioned for the funds and resources to expand it, and designs were already being drawn up to have the Academy take up even more of its hilltop location with the fortress of the Seireitei.
Courtyards, dormitories, training and lectures halls, offices, and more, already filled the Academy’s walls. A main, stone staircase led to a central path through the tree-filled Academy grounds, right up towards the primary building’s main gates. Before it, in the center of a paved circle, stood a stone with the first and last lesson of the Academy engraved upon it:
Do not seek beauty in battle. Do not seek virtue in death. Do not make the mistake of considering only your own life. If you wish to protect that which you must protect, slice the enemy you must defeat from behind.
“Jodan. Chudan,” the warm, encouraging voice of the Tenth’s famed Lieutenant Tachibana spoke. Her red hair the color of raspberries in the light that poured in from the open dojo wall, less saturated in the shade.
“You’ve practiced relentlessly, all of you, for months upon months now, and you should all be proud for it,” she encouraged. “I can see how red and rough your hands are. How worn the tsuka of your Asauchi have become. Good. That’s how you begin to put your soul in it.”
She took a different form, her own Asauchi in-hand: tsuba wrapped in light pink to match the hair of one of her guests, blade of steel that looked more like silver, hamon of petal edges. She kept the blade at her hip, tip down.
“Gedan,” she explained. “Best for stability, fending off low strikes, of which many Hollows are fond, I promise you. Excellent for sweeping strikes of your own. Even the Hollows with good regeneration often struggle with legs.”
She looked over her shoulders at her guests who sat, politely—if perhaps not the most patiently—in _seiza_ out of respect for the Lieutenant they had been assigned to aid today. Two women of the Eleventh, already introduced:
Fourth Seat Hattori, of the well-known Hattori Clan, with a mane of untamed white.
Fifth Seat Mibuchi, smiling even as she sat there, her bright pink hair all the brighter in the sun that beamed down upon her.
The young, male students across from the three women tried not to make their slack-jawed staring too apparent.
They largely failed.
“Our guests from the Eleventh have generously offered to help you all get off to a strong start in your practice,” she explained. “Both will providing guidance and instruction as you begin. We’ll close the day late into the evening with sparring, and they both will be your opponents.”
Nobuko smiled dangerously.
“Their Captain has insisted that they not hold back; something about the honor of the Eleventh,” Nobuko lied. “Please do practice well, we only have so many guests from Fourth today and I would rather we not lose another student.”
They had no lost a student in over a century. Never while at the Academy, either. The suddenly-flushed faces of the students showed Nobuko that they did not know better.
She did her best not to giggle.
“Now, everyone, on your feet an—”
Crimson silhouetted the faces of the women from the Eleventh.
Hummm.
A wall of flesh-searing red swallowed Nobuko and the entire class of students before them. Then, the red turned to fire as the entire mass of spiritual energy detonated. The ground erupted, floorboards ignited, and neither Ayane nor Suzume could hear the screams as other blasts rent the Academy asunder. They were, instead, flung into the air while wreathed in flames and smoke, through the debris, and out into different sections of the Academy grounds.
From above the Academy, a veritable sea of Hollows, like one mass of stampeding animals, drool falling from the lower jaws of their bone white masks, ascended the hilltop from ripples in the air.
Last edited:
