Bleach: Awakened — Chapter 65 - The Ordinary Days of the New Semester (?)

"We're ready, Leader."

In a dim, shadowed space, a massive armored figure knelt on one knee, speaking with quiet deference to the white-haired man before them. Around them, several others in the same armor stood waiting.

"Has everyone gotten themselves in order?" The white-haired man's face was weathered, marked by hardship. "Any leads on the Shinenju's whereabouts?"

"Not yet. But its birth has been confirmed. Barring anything unexpected, it should be drifting through the World of the Living."

"Then start searching. The moment you find it, bring it back." The white-haired man's fist clenched, face twisting with something ugly, words thick with burning hatred. "And then we'll destroy that damned Soul Society and avenge our people."

World of the Living. September 1st. First day of the new school year.

"I'm heading out."

Bag over his shoulder, Ichigo called back a quick goodbye and stepped out the front door with a piece of bread dangling from his mouth. First day back, and he'd already slept in.

"Safe travels!"

The voice of the head of the household followed him out. Ichigo waved a hand without turning around and finished off the bread in a few bites.

It had been nearly half a month since he returned home from Soul Society. He'd given his father a brief rundown of everything that happened there, and had asked in detail about the truth behind the Hollow attack from years ago.

Before, Ichigo had only known in a vague sense that the Hollow power inside him came from his mother. He hadn't understood the specifics. That conversation had changed that, he came away with a much clearer picture of what lived inside him.

In the days that followed, Ichigo had barely left the house. That whole journey had driven one thing home: raw power alone genuinely wasn't enough.

Take his clash with Sosuke Aizen. The man had been weaker than him, and Aizen had still played Ichigo like a piece on a board, scheme after scheme, until Ichigo was being used against himself, handing Aizen an even bigger advantage in the process.

After a lot of thinking, Ichigo figured there were only two ways to deal with something like that.

The first was to sharpen his mind, to build patience and strategic instinct, to actually notice when something felt wrong and hold onto that feeling instead of immediately reaching for Getsuga Tensho. Swinging first and thinking never was exactly the kind of thing that got you turned against yourself.

The second was to go harder on the brute force. To get stronger. If his Trinity State were powerful enough to cleave the Hogyoku in a single swing, none of the rest of it would matter.

Enough power and every scheme becomes a petty trick. One swing doesn't finish it, use two. Two swings still don't finish it, that just means the training wasn't enough, the power still wasn't there.

...Right. After all that deliberation, Ichigo had arrived at the same answer. He needed to get stronger. He was aiming to reach the level where he could split the Hogyoku in one blow within a month.

So for those two weeks, he trained. Single-minded, no distractions. And because he'd come to understand the nature of his power more deeply, those two weeks had actually been productive.

The old man at home had watched his son and noticed the change. Smiled quietly to himself.

He'd also quietly dropped any thought of picking fights. Something about the way Ichigo was carrying himself lately gave the old man a feeling, if he kept recklessly pushing his luck, one swing would be the end of him. Even with Bankai, he probably wouldn't walk that off.

Walking to school, watching the scenery shift around him, breathing in the fresh air, feeling the morning sun, the temperature was just right, and the tightness that had been sitting in Ichigo's chest eased back a little.

The two weeks of training had been physical punishment, yes. But it had also been a mental weight. Lately, every time he closed his eyes, his mind went back to the same place: the sky above Sokyoku Hill, and the countless images of Sosuke Aizen.

Nobody had said a word of blame to him. But Ichigo felt it himself. If he hadn't thrown that swing, if he'd let Aizen retreat to Hueco Mundo first, without the spatial lock in place, would Aizen have already been dealt with by now?

Looking back on it, that so-called spiritual pressure suppressor was never meant to suppress anything. Its whole purpose was to make Ichigo feel manipulated, to stoke his rage, to push him into unleashing a Transcendent's power, all to stimulate the Hogyoku and seal off the space. Ichigo had handed Aizen exactly what Aizen needed.

If he'd just never swung at all...

The thought kept turning in his mind, wouldn't leave.

"ICHIGO!"

The moment he hit the school entrance, a familiar voice rang out from behind him. Without turning around, Ichigo sidestepped and swung his left fist back in a lazy arc. It landed squarely on the face of whoever was rushing at him.

"Ow..." The attacker grabbed a reddening nose, eyes watering. "Ichigo... feels like your punch wasn't as hard as before."

"Are you a masochist, Keigo?" Ichigo stared at the other, the corner of his mouth twitching. "You can actually tell that?"

"Obviously!" Keigo grinned wide. "It's super obvious! Before, it would've made my nose bleed!"

"...That's not something a normal person says out loud."

Still talking, the two of them drifted to the classroom doorway. Inside, Yasutora Sado, Uryu Ishida, and Orihime Inoue were huddled together, talking over each other in a lively back-and-forth. Tatsuki Arisawa and Mizuiro Kojima stood nearby listening with straight faces, pens occasionally moving over notebooks.

"Hey!" Keigo charged past Ichigo before he could say anything. "What are you all talking about?!"

"Didn't we agree to wait until I got here?! Now I've missed a ton of stuff!"

"Mm... who told you to come so late." Tatsuki waved a hand in Keigo's direction like shooing away a fly. "Ignore them. Orihime, keep going."

"Wait—that is way too mean?!"

"Asano, please lower your voice."

"Mizuiro, why are you using my last name?! That's so cold, isn't it?!"

"What are you talking about, Asano? We're classmates, aren't we."

"You, "

"Alright, alright, class time." The homeroom teacher cut across both of them, attendance register in hand. "Is everyone here... right, Rukia Kuchiki has transferred again for family reasons. If any of you get the chance, you're welcome to go visit her in, hmm... Seireitei? Somewhere like that."

"Just drop the Kuchiki name when you get there... I hear the Kuchiki family is doing pretty well over there. No idea where Seireitei even is, though."

"No, no, no, you can't just go somewhere like that." Keigo, who knew better, muttered under his breath. "To even get there we'd probably need to wait seventy or eighty years."

"I have a feeling you'll be visiting Kuchiki quite soon, Asano." Mizuiro smiled pleasantly. "You just seem like that type of person."

"What type?! And Mizuiro, that's enough—stop—"

WHOOSH,

A white stick of chalk flew past a face. The homeroom teacher went on writing on the blackboard without missing a beat, but the words that followed sent an involuntary chill through the room.

"If this keeps up, I'll let your family know that on the first day of the new semester, you were harassing a male classmate. Asano."

"Y-yes..."

"Honestly..."

Ichigo propped his chin on one hand and watched the whole scene play out. The weight in his chest kept slowly lifting. Right now, he was nothing more than a first-year high school student starting his second semester. His job was to study properly... hm?

Something purple flashed at the corner of his eye, just outside the window. Ichigo glanced up.

Nothing there.

He scratched the back of his head and turned back to the board.

➤ Next: Friends