35 - Peaceful Days
From the next day, Rumi started to train her Shikai and spar with Kazehime using Shikai in the innerworld.
As for the official Shinigami work, now that Rukia was new to the division, Rumi started to dump more of her work to Rukia in the name of training and she had to admit it was a nice feeling to have others work for her. It was so nice that Rumi couldn't wait for the end of the academy year and the time when the new graduates would join the division.
As a sixth seat, fortunely, Rumi could boss around a lot of non-seated officers and lower seat officers, which meant a ton of more freedom and lighter workload depending on how well she could play her cards and avoid raising concern of her superiors like Kaien and Miyako.
Three months passed by quickly after that and Rumi was glad to say she had made a huge progress on her Shikai training and now, she had already mastered Shikai to 80% of its capabilities.
At 80% of mastery, Rumi had learned two more abilities of Kazehime, which were Wind Shield and Whirlwind attacks by pointing the Zanpakuto to the desired area of attack. She still needed to finetune the details and master each ability thorughly for more damage and efficiency but she could now use all of Kazehime's Shikai abilities.
In addition to that, Rumi had already learned Hado and Bakudo spells up to 60 and with Sloth's efficiency, she could skip the full chant while still maintaining 80-90% of original spell efficiency. That said, her Kido mastery level had yet to go up, although it wasn't like she was in a hurry.
She was enjoying her slow peaceful days with just the right amount of efficient trainining everyday.
And today, after her daily Shikai training and naps, Rumi decided to go check on Rukia as she had heard that Kaien would be training her with the way of sword.
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Rukia was sitting under a tree, watching other division members practice their Kido spells. It was truly impressive, as most of them could easily do low level Kido spells without full chant and the effect was about half of the original.
Rukia had always thought even though she didn't have much of a talent in Zanjutsu like Renji or Rumi, she was talented enough in Kido. Sure, she wasn't at a monster level like Rumi or as talented as Renji's other two friends, but still her scores in Kido were among the best back in the academy.
Yet, witnessing Gotei 13's level of mastery in Kido made Rukia doubt herself a little.
Did she ever belong here?
Why was she here?
Was she here simply because she got adopted into Kuchiki family-
"Yo, Rukia! What're you doing here all alone? Could it be that my art of idling had rubbed off on you?!" Rukia heard a familiar voice and as she looked up, she saw Rumi waving at her from the tree branch above her.
"Rumi! what-what're you doing up there?" Rukia asked after a moment of shock had passed.
"Eh, I was looking for a place to nap. Just kidding, I'm here to see how you're doing." Rumi said, while hanging from the tree upside down like a bat.
"I hope you fall from there." Rukia muttered with a straight face.
"Come on, Rukia chan! Now why would you say such cruel things?" Rumi dramatically complained.
Rukia sighed in reply, "Seriously.. you never change, do you?"
"Nope." Rumi flashed a grin, making Rukia relax a little and smile.
"That said, when will you stop dumping all your work to me and other non-seated officers?" Rukia asked, crossing her arms.
Rumi laughed nervously, "What do you mean? I don't do that."
"Rumi, I swear to god, I know what you're doing!" Rukia replied.
"And that is?" Rumi tried playing dumb because there was no way she could admit to it or Rukia would use it to snitch on her to Kaien. And Rumi didn't want to get Kaien involved and get scolded.
Rukia sighed, "Why am I even bothering again? Of course, you'd be lazy and make others work in your stead."
"Well, I'm not going to reply to that." Rumi looked away, she then straightened herself back up from the upside down position and sat on the branch.
"Anyways, don't you dare give more of your work to me or I'll tell sir Kaien what you've been up to." Rukia said.
"Ara, that's scary, Rukia chan." Rumi faked a shiver and said.
"Don't call me that, idiot!" Rukia raised her voice, earning curious looks from the other low ranking and non-seated officers. Seeing their strange looks, Rukia realized that Rumi was higher ranked than her, and her shouting Rumi an idiot in front of others wasn't exactly appropriate.
Rumi laughed at Rukia's reaction anyways, "Feisty as ever. It's good you're this comfortable around here." She gave her a thumbs up. "I've heard sir Kaien is training you with Zanjutsu. How's it going?"
Rukia was a bit taken aback by the change of subject but she answered, "Well, I'm not that talented with a sword so it's tough. Sir Kaien taught me a lot tho so I guess I'm learning."
"That's good," Rumi laughed. "He's real tough but I guess he's also great at teaching."
"Yeah, he is." Rukia smiled, remembering how Kaien treated her and taught her. She felt that she was very lucky to have met Kaien and been taught by him, in addition to getting into the division where her friend was. As a warm feeling spread through her chest and her body, Rukia felt content about her life here.
'I could get used to this.' Rukia thought to herself.
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Later that day, Rukia headed to the training spot where Kaien was training her. She taught the wooden sword Kaien had thrown as usual and started the training section.
As she lacked talent in Zanjutsu, Rukia had to make sure she put all my best effort to keep up with the training itself. Although Kaien was kind, he could be a little strict when it came to training and division matters.
As a result, once the section was over, Rukia was on the ground heaving and catching her breath heavily.
"What's wrong, Kuchiki? Can't keep up anymore?" Kaien asked, looking a little concerned. His tone of voice was as usual and he talked in the same unrestrained manner, which made Rukia feel normal and at ease.
"Nothing." Rukia shook her head. "I just remembered Rumi telling me that you also trained her."
"Oh, that," Kaien rubbed his head with a laugh, "It wasn't that long since Fujiwara only took like a month to beat me in Zanjutsu. I'm telling you, that was one hell of a scary moment for me."
"I thought you taught her." Rukia muttered.
"Well, I did give a few pointers and train her with a wooden sword just like what we're doing now." Kaien replied, "But, it was quite scary seeing how fast she improved."
"I guess Rumi's still the monster she is." Rukia muttered, shaking her head. "It's even more crazy when I remember that she's not even one year old."
That froze Kaien in his tracks, "Wait, Kuchiki. What did you just say?"
"That.. Rumi arrived in Soul Society less than a year ago?" Rukia repeated slowly.
"And she already had that powerful reiatsu and learned all that? Now, that's a whole new level." Kaien said, still finding it hard to believe that a random soul not even born in Soul Society could be this powerful in such a short period of time, while normally, even developing a substantial reiryoku would take longer than a year for such a new soul.
It was at that moment Kaien realized he needed to report more about this Fujiwara Rumi to his captain and see if he could provide her more training so that her potential wouldn't be wasted.
Kaien decided to ask more about her so that he could make a more detailed report.
"So, Kuchiki, how did you come to meet Fujiwara?"
"I was from West Rukongai, 78th district to be more exact and my friend who was also aiming to become a Soul Reaper found Rumi on her first day in Rukongai. She was pretty clueless about Soul Society, Rukongai and its concepts. She didn't even know about reiatsu but somehow, on that same day, she said she was hungry, which caught both me and my friend offguard. I mean it took us years to get hungry and at first, we didn't even know what was happening to us. But, Rumi was actually hungry that day so we ended up offering her food and a place to stay."
To say Kaien was shocked would be an understatement. But, despite finding it hard to believe some details, he continued to listen to Kuchiki's story about how she came to know Fujiwara.
"The next day, my friend and I trained for the entrance exam of the academy and Rumi was..well, she just took a look at what we were practicing and then she started to exert her reiatsu. It was really scary back then that she just effortlessly learned what we've been training for months." Rukia said with a sigh.
"Then, the next day, she sparred with my friend and accidentally destroyed our house with her wind reiatsu so we decided to leave the district and head early for the entrance exam. I guess we bonded quite well during our trip."
Hearing Rukia's story, Kaien was even more sure about his initial decision.
Soon after that, Kaien found himself going to his captain and report what he had learned so far about Fujiwara.
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Ukitake had just recovered from one of his frequent illnesses when Kaien brought the new findings about Rumi and her progress. To say he was surprised would be an understatement. When he asked Kaien to personally judge her potential, Ukitake was simply hoping to invite a talented Shinigami and make his division more steady with her growth over time.
But, with all her current feats and outrageous fact of her being less than a year old in Soul Society, Ukitake finally realized his friend, Kyoraku, was right. Fujiwara Rumi would undoubtedly achieve Bankai one day if she were given time to grow.
So, Ukitake arranged to meet her personally and see if he could help her reach her potential faster shortly after that. After all, it was always a good thing to have a capable Shinigami in Gotei 13, and Ukitake would rather see a talented individual as an ally rather than the other way around.
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A/N: I'm back, finally!
It's been hard to focus on anything these two months and honestly my motivation to actually write instead of just thinking of plot points was almost non-existent.
This chapter was half-written and was sitting in my pile of drafts for almost two months and was picked up again today so if it isn't that good, please bear with me.
I'll try to update more this week.