"Truth can be a heavy burden, but it's the foundation of understanding." — Itachi Uchiha.
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They had been foolish. They all had the same realization at the same time. The morning gave them a warning, one they adhered to and followed through with duly noted caution. They knew it would get worse, they had expected it to. But in the end they got it all wrong.
The day got worse.
Their mistake had been that they failed to capture what 'worst-case scenario' meant.
They had thought about it. The chance that everything they did would be in vain and their inevitable crumble in front of a foe they could no longer fight, but they failed to accept it as a highly probable outcome.
Their numerous wins, even through harrowing odds, reaffirmed their strengths and bolstered their confidence. They knew that they would keep fighting to the last man standing.
But what if it didn't matter? What if their worst and best outcome meant absolutely nothing? What if the truly strong among them and the weakest of them were both reduced to the same baseline?
They never truly considered it. They never truly confronted the fact, even once, that nothing they did mattered.
That was how they survived day after day, until they were forced to confront those very questions. Although not for long as the answers were already before them before they could arrive at it on their own.
A truly bona fide Adjuchas class Hollow.
Nothing mattered.
There was no glorious battle. No intense moment where both sides struggled for the upper hand.
No brilliantly devised plan that blindsided it for a moment. No last stand shout where they pushed out everything they could to topple their foe.
There had been nothing.
It blasted straight through Tōshirō's chill and broke his left arm in the process. The Kidō practitioners behind Momo were destroyed in an instant by the magnitude of the Cero it created. Nothing like what they had ever seen.
Kusaka and Kuko were on the ground before they even realized it.
They were dead and they knew it.
It had told them so, right before it mocked them with its sickening laugh.
The sinister drawl with which it spoke sent a chill down each of their brittle spines. They are going to die, they knew it, and the Hollow took its sweet time in making sure they knew exactly why.
Their strength did not matter. Their confidence did not matter. Neither did their unity and resolve. None of those fanciful thoughtful flights helped them. None of them broke through their limit in a show of defiance and grit to surpass the immovable foe in front of them.
All that settled after the despair ran its course was the hollow acceptance of the very simple fact they failed to acknowledge: The strong determine the fate of the weak. They were weak and the strong Hollow gets to decide what to do with their lives. It was its right as the strong one. If it told them to die, then that is what they'll do.
Nothing else mattered.
They couldn't even cry out in despair, or even try to run away in escape. It would change nothing. In fact, its eyes practically pleaded with them to do so.
We're dead. They thought.
"You're dead." Came the reply.
We're dead. They thought.
"Yes you are." Was the reaffirmation.
Everything is over. They accepted.
"No, it is not. But congratulations are in order. You all passed." The voice explained.
It took more than ten seconds before the first awkward sound was made. Awkward blinks started, a lot of awkward blinks, and soon after came the stream of unintelligible exclamations.
"I said you passed, and with that your assessment has concluded."
".... Captain Uchiha?" The voice who asked sounded hesitant and uncertain.
"Yes?"
"Eh.. How are you here? No, no, I mean, um, why are you here?" The awkward air to his words sounded as if the silent Captain was such a foreign entity and that his presence there was both unexpected and unnatural.
To not only the speaker, but also the students, the questions asked were entirely valid.
Itachi looked over at them and gave them the obvious and basic answer. "I assigned you this special assessment. It should be expected that I would be its supervisor."
"... Huh."
Clarity and the realization of a second chance at life slowly roused the horror-drunken students from their stupor.
"The main aim for this exercise was to teach you two things. The first is 'Acceptance'. Not in the sense of agreement or acknowledgement, but cold acceptance. Everything that happened, happened. Anything that can happen, will happen. Whether you accept it or not, whatever happens, happens."
They were too stunned, not even knowing how to properly react to what the Captain in front of them was saying. Itachi meanwhile, paid no mind to whatever their minds were doing and continued teaching.
"Whether it favours you or not, whether it destroys you or not, whether it affects you or not, always have the clarity of Acceptance. You are neither too important enough, nor are you that strong, nor are you that blessed by fate that you become infallible. Accept this, and then continue on with your journey."
A few students who finally managed to escape the quagmire of their thoughts and catch up with Itachi's lesson swallowed dryly.
"As for the second, which is also the main reason for this exercise, is for you to know and 'Accept' the 'Inevitability of Death'. Know the presence of death and keep it in the back of your mind that you, as Shinigami who have taken up the sword, will die due to it in your coming future. Know these two things, accept them, and continue on your journey as you have always have."
Itachi concluded his short lesson and slowly started walking in a certain direction, one that they slowly realized.
"That is all from me for now. As for the personal analysis of your actions throughout the duration of the exercise, we'll review those when we return to the Academy."
The students hardly paid any mind to his words as their eyes were wide open as they saw Itachi calmly walking towards that Hollow, who uncharacteristically remained frozen to a single spot without any Kidō bindings on it.
"For your supervisor's conclusion on this exercise, I'll show you an example of Acceptance. The Acceptance that there is always someone stronger."
The fear had bled out of their heart and what replaced it were the hard drumming of anticipation. Their aggrieved heart begged for the merciless display of a greater level of strength that would bring the damned thing to its knees in despair, just as it had brought them.
They never got it.
They watched as Itachi nonchalantly walked past the Hollow without even acknowledging its presence, leaving them confused. But that was when Itachi's Reiatsu, the one they only knew the presence of but never its depth, slowly started unfurling.
Horror. The Hollow and the students wore the same expression of pure unadulterated horror as the blanket of Itachi's Reiatsu fell. And right beside that horror, came Acceptance. Acceptance of the strong and the arrogance of their strength.
They expected a display of great strength that would force the Hollow to heel – they never got it.
What they saw was no mere 'display of great strength'.
What they witnessed was the revelation of overwhelming power that did not require force. Force implied a choice or an act of resistance, no matter how little. This was the kind of strength that made obsolete the choice of the weak.
There was no flash of light. No Kidō spell was fired. There was no quick draw that left the spectators astonished at its speed.
The students watched with rapt attention at what he did. And all he did was announce his presence by releasing some of his Reiatsu, and that had been enough.
The Hollow did not scream, writhe, or rage when Itachi walked right past it.
All it did– no, that would imply it was given a choice. What happened to it, under the watchful eyes of the students, was that it simply started crumbling to dust after the Captain walked past it.
Its entire being, power and all, was erased out of existence just by the intensity of the Reiatsu that fell on it.
Truly a horrific scene for all who saw it.
Itachi Uchiha, or as he was known by everyone else, Captain Uchiha, was a figure that was known by almost every Shinigami in the Seireitei. And his character as told by everyone – students, teachers, subordinates, fellow Captains and even close friends alike - was one of an aloof, calm, polite and humble Shinigami.
And truly he was all of those things....but his strength was not. It was not aloof, neither was it calm. Its intensity was in no way polite, and there was no humility in the magnitude of strength he wielded.
This was the arrogance of strength.
"We are returning to the Seireitei so do not dally. You've missed two days of assessments from your other instructors. Wasted time is not a luxury you can currently afford."
Even through the pain of their broken bones and injured bodies, they dumbly followed behind the Captain, remaining silent for the entirety of their return. They remained spaced out and glazed even through their admission to the hospital where they were all put in the same spacious ward.
Hours passed and they remained frozen in their mind even until the moon rose to its peak in the middle of the night.
"Does it even matter?" Someone finally whispered. It sounded like a dreaming mutter but the silent ward pushed it out in soft echoes.
It seemed to snap them out of it a bit. No context came with it but they all understood.
What mattered in front of strength like that? Greater strength was meaningless in front of overwhelming power. So what was it? Unfathomable might?
A few of them scoffed in mocking snickers, laughs and jeers. Was something like that even possible?
They all felt hollow, like there was a hole in their chest that they would never fill. The laughs came again, bitter and more empty.
So this was what he meant, huh? This was the Acceptance he spoke of, they realized.
The bitter laughs that were coated in despair, the ones that slowly filled the ward, came not from the nightmarish realization they had, but instead from the helpless Acceptance of the fact that they would never be as strong as that.
That overwhelming strength dared them to think otherwise. The Hollow had not been the only one that had been pressed under submission at that moment. They had too.
And unlike their strength and that of the Hollow's, the arrogance of that overwhelming strength was not one that they would ever grow to contend with.
It had dared them to.... And they couldn't dare to look up at it.
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