Final Moves

The next day, Chiaki woke up with numerous aches and pains. Urahara hadn't been lying when he'd said that it would be a good workout, but even so, she couldn't help but feel pumped for the day. Now that she had more power and knowledge, she felt practically invincible, and it made her want to jump out of bed and celebrate.

["Getting cocky are we?"]

[Aw, piss off Ayane. You know this is a special occasion.]

Even the complaints of her mental companion couldn't put a dent in Chiaki's mood. A goofy grin still plastered on her face, Chiaki jumped out of bed and grabbed the change of clothes she needed for the day, getting herself prepared as she hummed a tune to herself.

["Just to be clear, you know what day it is right?"]

"Hrm?"

Chiaki paused for a moment and cocked her head. She'd gotten so wrapped up in her fights that she hadn't paid much attention to what had been going on in her usual life, and so she was completely unaware of what Ayane could be talking about. It couldn't be that bad though, right?

["What do you mean "not that bad"?!? You're gonna be late for your last day of finals?"]

"OH FUCK"

Her tests had completely slipped her mind as a result of her tired state; Moreover, Chiaki vaguely recalled that earlie, while she'd been in a half-asleep state, she had a groggy memory of some voice yelling at her in her half-aware state and trying to wake her up, an endeavor which was entirely useless for someone as totally burned out as Chiaki: that stamina she'd had last night had mostly come form adrenaline after all.

"Shit, that must have been Ichigo trying to wake me up! That bastard hung me out to dry when I didn't wake up!"

["I mean, it's your own fault."]

"SHUT IT!"

Rushing as quickly as possible, Chiaki put on her uniform and ran down to the kitchen, chomping down a piece of bread in about 3 seconds flat before rushing out the door with a speed that must have been empowered by forces deep within her soul. In no time flat, she found herself in front of the school, and dashing up the steps, came face to face with her teacher and a classroom of students already at work. Seeing the panicked student, Ochi-sensei raised an eyebrow.

"The Shaman Princess returns! You know even celebrities need to come on time for their finals though right?"

"I'm really sorry, I'll take the time penalty for it if I have to. Just uh… don't make me retake the whole year?"

Misato shook her head, before handing Chiaki a piece of paper, eliciting a sigh of relief from the panicked student. Bowing in gratitude, Chiaki would quickly rush over to her seat, writing out the necessary identifying information on the sheet as she rushed to make up for post tome.

["You know you've lost a little over 35 minutes, right?"]

[If you're going to talk, be useful, ok?]

Chiaki grimaced as she looked over the questions she had to answer; Under normal circumstances, she could answer all these questions with a snap of her finger. Even if it was just a time penalty, it would be fairly easy for someone of her caliber. But tired as she was, plus being stressed and unprepared, she wasn't sure she could go up to her usual standard, especially not in the given time.

["Tell you what, I'll give you some help. But you're going to owe me one, alright?"]

[No offense, but having a voice in my head isn't going to help me. Don't take this the wrong way Ayane, but I need to f o c u s.]

Chiaki knew her words sounded harsh, but there was reason for it; After all, Chiaki had achieved a far greater processing power by way of Ayane's integration; If she could just focus to tap into that-

["That's too backwards Chiaki. Look, just trust me: I do need you to relax, but not like you are now. With both of us thinking, it's eating a lot of processing power. What I need is for you to just try and sleep, and let me take over for a bit. Just relax, and I can get you through this, alright?"

[…Alright alright, fine. I trust you.]

Chiaki shook her head, but no matter how she looked at it, she didn't have many options but to take Ayame's advice. Closing her eyes, Chiaki tried to clear her mind and allow herself to give over control. Heading into the darkness, Chiaki allowed her brain to give one final thought before turning to the unknown:

[You better not use my body for anything fishy though!]

——————————

In the darkness of her inner world, Chiaki once again found herself in the room of the four doors. The reddish-orange of the Shinigami door was now open brighter than ever before, but there was still some lingering shadow passing over it. There was one noticeable change that had appeared since Chiaki had last even here though.

"Who are you?"

At the center of the room was the same one eyed woman that she'd seen before during her training at Urahara's, now standing in the middle of her mental world. In spite of Chiaki's words, the young woman's expression and body language remained as inscrutable as ever, and her one red eye stared into Chiaki's soul, her gaze boring into her as if it was the eye of some monster from a long forgotten mythology, coming to judge her worthy of whatever power lay beyond those doors. Rather than create discomfort however, under the woman's gaze Chiaki felt… oddly comforted.

"You're my Zanpakuto spirit, aren't you?"

Once again, Chiaki received no response. This time, however, the young woman turned away, looking towards another one for the doors with a certain amount of interest. The subject of her gaze was that had once been a grayish white. Now however, the door was almost entirely enveloped in a powerful green light, and a shadow seemed to be emerging from within, disturbing the flow of light like a massive beast rising from the ocean to intrude upon land.

"There's something coming!"

Chiaki got into a battle stance, but just as she did, something in the ground gave way once again. Try as she might to find some sort of foothold, it felt impossible to fight against the flow of rubble that fell upon her, and as she was about to see what would emerge from within the door, the darkness swallowed her once again.

——————————

"Thank God, it's finally over!"

Chiaki would awake to the celebration of her classmates, the alarm signaling the end of the exam period. Looking down, Chiaki saw that her sheet had been completed just as promised, in a handwriting remarkably close to her own to boot. She had to admit, Ayane did good work

"Well, I'm just glad the summer can finally start properly! Besides, it's not like any of us have a shot at any of the top spots."

"Yeah, I mean, just take a look at the midterm grades…"

Chiaki had to stifle a chuckle as Keigo and Muiziro pulled out a sheet of the midterm grades, probably to try and comfort themselves by making sure that none of the people they knew were too much higher than they were. Unfortunately, she knew their dreams were about to be shattered; The two guys would suddenly look in her direction with shocked expressions on their faces.

"2nd place!!!!!!! Second place in the entire grade? What are you, some kind of secret agent? Is being a delinquent just your cover story?"

"Heh."

Chiaki just leaned back in her seat, a smug expression on her face. Sure enough, almost every character in the original had been dropped down a place due to the addition of Chiaki, who had blown most of the grade out of the water. It was expected to be fair, since she was already super intelligent before being brought to this world, and had all those memories to boot.

"Don't hold your breath either, Ichigo got a high score in those too. And Chad. And Orihime. Basically everyone but you two."

"…How."

[Sorry boys, that's why you're side characters.]

As the two sulked at their own lack of intelligence, Chiaki noticed Rukia and Ichigo give each other a knowing look, before heading out of the room. Chiaki's expression began to sour accordingly. Right, this was an important day for reasons other than finals, the day a certain Quincy made his displeasure known to the Shinigami and brought down a hail of hollows onto Karakura Town. Chiaki steeled herself mentally, grabbing her own back to head out: she knew where the biggest threats would appear, and she knew she had a duty to make sure everyone lived through Ichigo and Uryu's ego clash.

"Make your move Uryu. I'll crush you in more than just finals today."