Next day, Rumi acted as usual, slacking off skillfully by giving most of her workload to others. The only different thing was now she was trying to take a step back, trying to focus on her reiatsu and nature. Kazehime's hint for her bankai was to pay attention to her reiatsu nature and that the answer had always been there. That meant she was missing something that'd been there all along but what could that be? If she paid more attention to her reiatsu, would she find it?
For the next month, Rumi spent her days chilling with Kazehime's spirit and using her wind reiatsu more. Sometimes, when she got bored, she'd dabble in some more kido spells and she'd learned up to number 70 for Hado spells and Bakudo spells. After that, her mastery level for Kido reached Pre-advanced level. But, the most fruitful result wasn't her Kido level, it was her understanding of her reiatsu more and understanding Kazehime more. As a result of her understanding, her speed naturally increased as well and her Hoho also leveled up to Pre-advanced.
[Name : Fujiwara Rumi.
Age : 1 year. (Soul Society).
Race : Enhanced Soul (Shinigami).
Relationships : Abarai Renji (Close Friends), Rukia (Close Friends), Hinamori Momo (Close Friends), Kira Izuru (Friends), Hitsugaya Toshiro (Mentee), Shiba Kaien (Mentor), Ukitake Jushiro (Mentor).
Reiryoku level : Great.
Stored reiryoku : 12490/1,000,000
Spirit class : 3.
Skills : Sloth (Passive), Guradian's Vigil (Passive), Fire Resistance (Passive), Cold Resistance (Passive), Mind's Momentum, Falsifier.
Abilities : Zanjutsu(Advanced), Kido (Intermediate), Hakuda (Intermediate), Hoho (Pre-advanced).
Tools : Zanpakuto, Disguise Pendant.
Zanpakuto : Kazehime (Shikai).]
"It's been a year since I came to Soul Society..." Looking at her stats, Rumi saw that it's been a year since she came to Soul Society. Back then, she was lost and couldn't even guarantee her own safety to sleep for a few hours. Now, she had a roof over her head, decent- even delicious and nutritious food to eat, and didn't have to worry about sleeping in a cave full of bodies. She even had people she could boss around as a sixth seat officer and well, she could say she was starting to have a great life here, Bankai or not.
Maybe she should just stay in this division for a long time...
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On the other hand, Kaien had been suspicious about the amount of paperwork and patrols the new recruits and lower ranked officers are doing for the past few months. It wasn't until he saw some new recruits crying and thanking their sixth seat Fujiwara for the honor of learning how to do these paperworks that everything clicked.
Fujiwara Rumi had been dumping her workload on other people, especially the new recruits and those lower ranked than her. And that was confirmed when he asked everyone different questions and then Kuchiki Rukia a different question. Honestly, he was pretty shocked to find out that she'd been doing that since day of joining their division.
"No wonder she'd improved this much in a short time.." He muttered, although another part of him also knew that even if Fujiwara did make others do her work and trained her abilities all the time, it was still outrageous for her to surpass him in Zanjutsu in such a short period. Not to mention how her reiatsu grew..
But, still, the more important thing right now is to confront Fujiwara about her doings and give her a suitable punishment. No matter how powerful she was or how great her potential was, Kaien wouldn't let this power abuse and manipulation slide.
"Kuchiki..go and get Fujiwara. We're going to have a very long talk."
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Well, in the end, Rumi was temporarily demoted (unofficially) to unseated officer until she could catch up on all the work she was supposed to do in the first place and from then on, she'd be closely monitored to ensure she wouldn't try doing the same thing again. Kaien even gave her extra patrols to do, leaving her with only a few hours of sleep a day. Needless to say, her passive skill Sloth turned off automatically since she no longer got her usual ten hours of sleep that the passive skill required. For four months, this continued and Rumi couldn't store any reiryoku as a result or train her abilities much. Without sloth's passive, her productivity dwindled more and as a chain of results, it made the lack of sleep longer.
For a moment, after four months, Rumi felt a bit of resentment for Kaien. She knew Kaien was just doing his job and it was her fault in the first place. Yet, because she now couldn't use Sloth or do anything productively, she felt that she was suffering too big of a loss here.
The loss of all the reiryoku she could've stored and used to level up her reiryoku level...
The loss of time that she could've used to finally gain 100% understanding of Kazehime and Shikai...
The time that she could've used to potentially get Bankai..
The time that she could've been using to perhaps investigate the nasty stuff Aizen was up to..
Now, she couldn't do anything other than do those nasty paperwork and most of the time meaningless patrols...
She did resent Kaien a bit for that, even if she rationally knew it was her fault from the start. And, she felt gross about herself for feeling that way. Kaien didn't know about Sloth passive skill and there was no way for him to know how this hurt her. Not to mention the reason she found her resolve in her Zanjutsu and improved it to Advanced this quickly was because of Kaien's help in the first place. Yet, with this one incident, she felt resentment even if she knew all of this was wrong.
Rumi had never thought of herself as an honorable person or a great person. But the resentment she was starting to harbor still made the rational part of herself reminded her how bad this was..
That day, she was given another patrol, one that she'd have to go in place of lady Miyako. Kaien insisted she'd be able to handle it anyways seeing how she should have the power level of sixth seat since she joined. Rumi didn't speak a word to Kaien other than accepting the mission, mostly because she didn't have anything nice to say and she just wanted all of these to be over with, so that she could stop this resentment and hate herself for these feelings.
Still, she and Kaien wasn't the same since that day. It was as if ever since Kaien gave her the "punishment", their relationship had changed to a more formal and cold relationship. Kaien still tried to act like a mentor but soon enough, he found that Fujiwara had pulled away. He saw her no longer playing around with Kuchiki or other newer recruits. She just did what she was told to, at slower pace than he thought she'd be doing, which kind of frustrated more. In his mind, he thought if she had just quit the sulking, admit her fault and actually carried out her punishment duties at her usual pace, this would've been over, already. For him, he thought she was prolonging this out of rebellion or pride issues.
But at times, he also wondered if he had gone too far with this punishment. Because they all knew how she was when they recruited her. The news about her eccentric, rebellious and lazy personality wasn't exactly a secret. Still, he believed that one day Fujiwara would understand him. Even if this punishment took most of her time to train herself and improve, Kaien thought she'd understand once she ranked higher and became a leader herself. After all, there was no doubt she would become a leader herself like a Lieutenant or even a captain. With her potential and talent, it wasn't farfetched anyways. So, Kaien hoped she would understand him later on, even if she resented him now as her mentor.
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Rumi arrived at the designated place with the assigned team in the evening when the sun had just set and the moon just about to come out. Without sloth passive activated, her actual combat abilities were lower than the last four months and more importantly, she was having an identity crisis within herself. Did Sloth define her? so much so that she couldn't do a thing without it?
So many similar questions lingered in her head that even when she had started to fight with a hollow, she couldn't place those thoughts into the back of her head. The hollow was strong, without a doubt, and the reports indicated that it had killed many Shinigami before.
Thay was exactly why it was a bad case for her to be able to push those thoughts away and focus initially.
"You seem distracted, Shinigami." The hollow, that looked like a six-limbed creature with a large flame pattern mask over its eyes, said gleefully. Rumi, at this point, had unsheathed her zanpakuto in its sealed state, holding it in front of her. She hadn't even attacked yet but she could feel the trouble.
So, she decided to tell the team behind her to run away because now that she was facing it, she knew the others wouldn't even stand a chance against this hollow.
"Run." She told the others. The hollow was strong, the reiatsu it was producing wasn't something the patrol team could handle.
"But..Fujiwara san...our goal is to.." One officer tried to refuse, but Rumi said, "Run. Do you think a dead person can relay information? What good can a dead person do? Go back."
"But..."
"I might be doing unseated officer jobs but officially, I'm still your sixth seat officer. And I was put in charge for this mission." Rumi said, "If you don't run now, should I consider this as refusal to obey orders?"
"I..I apologize...We will leave now.."
They wanted to object but hearing Rumi's words and seeing her facing the hollow head on, the rest of the patrol team quickly ran back to their division.
"Telling your Shinigami comrades to leave and you'll face me head on? You can only blame yourself when you die and become my meal, Shinigami." The hollow said with a grin.
"Is that so?" Rumi replied, "You're awfully talkative compared to the hollows I've killed."
The hollow snickered, "You said you're a sixth seat. I'm telling you, you can't win against me in a hundred years. You told your comrades to run, yet you stayed here. For what? Duty? Are you really fine with them getting out of here alive, while you would die here painfully?"
"Die here?"
"What? Are you hoping they'd come back with reinforcements?" The hollow snickered.
Rumi didn't know if they went back to get reinforcements or what, but she felt a bit relief to see everyone else gone. It was the truth. But unlike this hollow was stating, it wasn't because she wanted to be a hero or righteously wanted to take the hollow down like the mission said, she just wanted this to be over with so maybe Kaien could quit the torture of endless patrols with no time for her daily ten hours of sleep.
Sure, It might be foolish to stay here and fight while telling everyone else to run but Rumi felt that this way, at least Kaien or anyone wouldn't be able to point fingers at her for abandoning her mission or those lower ranked than her. It wasn't about honor or caring what others thought, Rumi justified, it was more about clearing herself from unwanted aftermaths like having to sit for consequences of running away from here.
Facing the hollow without distractions, Rumi could feel that there was something seriously wrong with his hollow, like there was some sort of hidden danger. Its reiatsu itself was high and would easily kill unseated officers and even typical officers below fifth seat level but with her reiatsu that could reach average captain level if she went all out, she should be able to annihilate this hollow. Yet, Kazehime was screaming, warning her silently without materializing in real world, that this hollow is dangerous. It was as if Kazehime was scared?
But why would Kazehime be scared? Did this hollow have some sort of ability that Kazehime was scared of?
Rumi activated Mind's Momentum so that she'd be able to think clearly and hopefully find out what was wrong and react quickly during combat. If Kazehime's reaction was this, Rumi felt that maybe she shouldn't fight this hollow head-on with her zanpakuto or any sort of close combat blindly.
"Alright, let's try Kido then.." Rumi muttered, putting her zanpakuto into the sheath.
"What? You're not using your Zanpakuto?" The hollow's voice was that of confused one.
Rumi grinned, "Have I ever told you I was actually a Kido genius? Back in the academy, I was among the most talented..Since you kept saying I might die here, I thought why don't I relive my good old days at the academy?"
Well, that wasn't her thought process at all but Rumi wasn't about to tell this random hollow, her opponent at that, that the reason she wasn't using her Zanpakuto was because her Zanpakuto spirit was on edge about this fight and she trusted the spirit's perception of danger or trusted the spirit itself, and wouldn't jump into or force Kazehime into fights it didn't want to or was warning not to.
"Hado number 31, Shakkaho." First, Rumi decided to try the kido spell without full incantation. With Sloth passive skill, she could usually reach 90-95% of the spell's effectiveness for spells up to 35 now that her kido mastery level had reached expert in Shinigami terms. But, as she never had used kido spells without Sloth passive skill, she didn't know how it would go, if it would even succeed or how effective it would be.
As soon as the spell name was chanted, a medium sized crimson red energy orb emerged from her palms and flew it directly to the hollow. It wasn't as effective as usual, with the effectiveness only about 60% of the original effectiveness if she were to do the full chant. Once it hit the hollow, it exploded part of its tentacles. But that was it. The explosion wasn't nearly enough to take it down.
"Huh. I thought with all your talk about being a kido genius, this would pack more punch. Who knew Shinigami are such big mouths?" The hollow started to make fun of her and Shinigami.
Honestly, Rumi herself was a bit taken aback at the lack of result. One had to know the firepower from Shakkaho spell earlier was about the same level of destruction and effectiveness she had back at the academy with Sloth's passive on. Over time, she had improved further but now, she was back to square one, it seemed.
Rumi sighed. "Seems like I need to use the full chant."
"Huh?"
Rumi muttered, ""Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hado number 31, Shakkaho!"
At the end of the chant, a crimson energy ball that had doubled the size of the earlier one appeared and flew directly towards the hollow. This time, it flew towards the hollow with more force and even though it tried to dodge it last minute, two more tentacles were caught in the spell and exploded.
Now, the hollow was still standing in front of Rumi, with three of its tentacles left.
"Seems like lower Hado spells won't do.." Rumi muttered, "Alright then. Let's try a different spell this time."
"Sprinkled on the bones of the beast! Sharp tower.." Rumi started uttering the chant of a higher numbered Hado spell but finally, the hollow had moved, its tentacles charging towards her, as if in an attempt to touch her.
Rumi quickly used Shunpo to dodge the incoming tentacles and continued to chant. "red crystal, steel ring."
Now, the hollow had started to take on offense as it realized Rumi's intention to solely do distance attacks with Kido. Its tentacles relentlessly started to chase her, so Rumi had to use Shunpo and her wind reiatsu to dodge the tentacles and keep the distance. Judging by more and more relentless chase of the tentacles, Rumi deduced that the win condition for this hollow probably depended on if it could make contact with its opponents. The chances of its special ability if existed (which Rumi guessed it did) being touch-activated were high, she deduced.
Thinking of that, Rumi's lips curled up into a smile. She didn't have access to Sloth's passive skill and couldn't enjoy the 10 times efficiency boost of Sloth, now. And all the Kido spells she had learned and practiced were also now less in efficiency, even her Shunpo was affected. For the last year, she trained and tried to improve the overall level and effectiveness of her spells, Shunpo and everything. But without Sloth now, she was almost back to square one where she started. Her improved skills now without Sloth were around the same level or close to the level of when she first learned those skills and used for the first few times with Sloth in active. She did improve in the last year, but at the same time, it felt like she didn't now that she didn't have Sloth to rely on. But..she was still here, standing, using everything she could, finally without worrying or feeling embarrassed about having to use full chants or struggle.
And, for the first time in the past four months, Rumi felt at ease. It was such a shame she didn't have Sloth for now, but it didn't have to be the end of her learning or definition of what she could do. She realized that when she stopped thinking about trivial things like having to use full chant or struggle, she felt freer than she ever felt in these four months.
Sin of Sloth.. Being lazy for the sake of efficiency.
It was a great thing to have.. But why should she be limited and chained down by the idea of it so much? Why should she feel that she couldn't train or do anything without it for these four months? Why didn't she just say screw this and free herself from what-ifs and dwelled on what she didn't have?
Rumi closed her eyes and let her wind reiatsu guide her movements. For now, in the midst of this battle, she wanted to let her wind guide her and fight freely to her full potential.
She didn't know what was the correct answer for Kazehime's puzzle or how to finally grasp the final missing piece for her Shikai. But, now she knew how to fight this battle.
With the wind, Rumi dodged the tentacles and continued her chant. Now, her heart was free and she was dancing with the wind.
"Move and become the wind, stop and become the calm."
The hollow's attacks were more and more relentless but Rumi never slowed down, neither her focus on the chant nor her moves.
"The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle!" Rumi looked at the hollow calmly as she finished the spell, "Hado number 63, Raikoho."
At the end of the chant, an orb of yellow lightning appeared above Rumi's palm and she fired it at the hollow.
And finally, with the lightning strike, the three of the tentacles that the hollow had left exploded, essentially leaving it powerless. But, before Rumi could finish it off, it disappeared.
Not in the way it would dissipate after being cleansed by Zanpakuto or Kido spells, more like teleported or something helped it teleport back to somewhere else.
"I guess it escaped..." Rumi sighed.
At that moment, Kazehime appeared beside her and laughed, "What're you sulking here for? You did a very great job, you know.."
"I did?" Rumi recalled back to the final shift she had in the battle, her dance with the wind and smiled.
She felt free the most back then, didn't she? When the wind was guiding her and she was one with the wind. She finally felt that she was overcomplicating things all this time. If Kazehime was wind and when she felt free the most with the wind, why wouldn't she just freely dance with the wind? Was there any need for strict moves and steps? Why wouldn't she let go of every strict learned move and just go with the wind?
"Kazehime..final piece for Shikai isn't about learning moves. It never was, was it?" Rumi said, looking up at the night sky and feeling the breeze on her skin. "It's about choosing to be free with the wind. If I get caught up in strict guidelines and focus on the moves only, I would never have found what it meant to be the wind and fight alongside the wind, would I?"
Kazehime smiled, stretching a hand out to Rumi, "You understood it, finally. Rumi, let's play together from now on."
For once, Kazehime wasn't pulling her forward—she was keeping pace, like an equal.
"Mn." Rumi stretched her hand out to Kazehime's and Kazehime smiled brighter, "Thank you Rumi. And congratulations."
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A/N: End of chapter whew!
This chapter was really hard to write because I wanted to show how Rumi could feel ugly emotions like resentment and aware of it and shame for feeling those. And without Sloth at the moment, I wanted to have her be vulnerable enough for some realizations to happen and see things differently. And yes, with this new realization, Rumi has mastered her Shikai :)
I was gonna set this up for Bankai but felt that something was missing so yeah this just ended up a pre Bankai state.
Also if Kaien was ooc, i'm sorry. It was really hard to write him....:(