"Concentrate on the spiritual energy around the wound, flow your own inside of the patient. Visualize a circle surrounding the area, ensure your own energy and pressure erases the foreign one."
Sweat dripped down her face, the mental strain caused her fingers to shake. Underneath the protective membrane of her Soten Kisshun, laid a male Soul Reaper atop a hospital cot. The young woman wore a Soul Reaper uniform, while she tied up her hair into a pony tail.
The Soul Reaper her patient, he wore an ivory gown and had a wound at his side that created a massive hole in his body. While he was underneath her shield an ominous red energy escaped the wound, hollow spiritual energy.
Beside her stood the dark haired Unohana, the captain of the fourth division of the Gotei. Orihime and her were in the squad's critical patient ward, the ward was sterile down to the air.
Decorating the ward had walls and floors of ivory, every corner found themselves illuminated by soft squad members patrolling the halls in faint green gowns. Each of them had the squad's signature symbol surrounded by serpents.
Inside her mind the image of vibrant flowers swirling around the wound was projected, removing latent spiritual pressure was similar to removing a splinter. Sadly instead of tweezers, Orihime relied on her spiritual powers.
She added in more energy causing the speed of the flowers in her mind to increase, the Soul Reaper beneath her membrane squirmed. He was not in pain, it was a reflexive response to her power.
'Come on! Faster, faster, faster!' Using every last bit of control she could muster, the orange haired girl forced her spiritual energy to move at lightning speed. The alien spiritual energy disappeared, being annihilated by her own, she wiped away the sweat on her forehead.
"Well done Orihime."
She heard her mentor's voice behind her, pride welled up in her chest. Despite that she had eyes glued on the Soul Reaper, the destroyed section of his torso began to reappear.
After the last vestiges of flesh returned the young woman dissipated her shield, and sighed. Her chest rose and fell. She could feel the strain that took on her, a warm and gentle sensation came from her back.
Unohana placed her hands on the younger woman's back and an odd orange energy radiated from them, Orihime could feel her spiritual energy reserves rise.
It felt as though she just had a full eight hours of sleep!
"T-thank you, Captain Unohana. That was a lot tougher than I expected." The older woman simply giggled.
"It only seems like that due to your inexperience, the more you implement this technique, the more it will become second nature. Honestly, Inoue, you're quite terrifying, most Shinigami need years to learn this. You, however, accomplished it in barely two days, ugh, you, Ichigo, Ishida, Yasutora, Rukia and Renji all have seemingly unlimited potential. Makes me think back to simpler times, you're all making me feel like I was wasting away my youth with your achievements." The dark haired woman seemed to turn grey.
"Aah! No, Captain I'm pretty sure you were even better than me! I can barely pull this off properly and for you this could just be something you could do without you even breaking a sweat!" Flailing her arms about in a comedic manner, the auburn haired young woman hurriedly said.
Seeing the dispirited captain was terrible for her, the idea of hurting others never felt right to Orihime. From the very start she wanted to stand by the side of her friends. She needed to improve and fast.
"Uh, Captain Unhonana, if that is all can we please begin with the other half of our agreement? If that's ok with you of course, not to try an-" Raising a hand, the captain in question caught the younger woman's attention, shaking her head caused her single long braid to sway. Elation rose from within her, the mention of combat sparked a desire that could consume everything in the world and reduce it to ashes.
She calmed her heart, making sure her student did not notice anything wrong.
"Yes, of course, however I am terribly busy at the moment." The dark haired woman saw her student lose the once vibrant color from her almond colored eyes. Guilt quickly washed over the captain forcing her to shout, "Wait! Please stop that. I was just trying to say I will not be the one teaching you combat, I have requested the lieutenant of squad three to take you under his wing. After all, you and the latest captain seem to get along well enough."
Orihime felt as though she could go and hug the woman there and then, her eyes gleamed with excitement within them. She rose, bowed and left the room avoiding any extreme displays of affection with the older woman, Orihime truly cared for the woman.
In her heart of hearts, however, she was truly frightened by her to the core. Remembering the room she spent nearly her entire morning within, the oddities were the several wooden charms that hung from the advanced medical equipment. Those souvenirs made her think he was a man with a high status, the only oddity about him physically was his white, braided hair.
"Leaving already?"
"Oh, come on, a few of us want to buy you lunch, at least Inoue."
"You can't leave yet! There's so much I need you to help me with!"
"Didn't you just push all of that onto her without any notice?"
"Shut up!"
The young woman smiled and nodded as she left the barracks, in the two days after the meeting and assigning of the new captains she got closer with new Soul Reapers and reconnected with others.
She and Uryu did pretend to be squad four members when they invaded the Soul Society, so the others talked, describing her and the Quincy archer.
"Hanatoro, isn't here? He must be off in surgery right now! Or maybe he's hiding from an angry patient?"
Leaving the healing unit behind her, Orihime made her way to the third division, many Soul Reapers greeted her, ignored her, or threw insults at her.
Not everyone forgave and forgot that easily, but that did deter her. Her vibrant smile never faded, she could not change how others felt about her, but she could change how she felt about herself.
Getting to the barracks of the third division barely took her over an hour, the barracks were more complex than single buildings.
The actual squad's barrack seemed unassuming, not that it was normal by her standards. It gave her the feeling that a passerby should overlook it.
"Miss Inoue. How good it is to see you here." Turning to the right, the young woman smiled.
"I can say the same to you, Rook- no, Captain Blonko. Is that how you say it?" Before the young woman stood the tall alien captain Rook Blonko.
Fitting his new position, he wore a long-sleeved haori. His armor now bore gold highlights around his chest and hands, his suit seemed to become more organic to fit his status.
"Yes it is, and thank you for remembering my name. Now may I ask why you are on this trip to my squad's headquarters?" Rook smiled after asking his usual pleasant voice, Orihime liked him because of that.
The man seemed to always be calm in the worst situations, he was the weakest of his team as well. She looked up to him, both due to his personality and height.
"Well, I...uhm, I am here for training. Captain Unohana told me she arranged something with your lieutenant." The young woman fidgeted with her hands behind her back.
Rook's eyes narrowed, then shut as he smiled.
"Yes, I understand now, please come with me and let us see where my lieutenant is." Walking in front of the woman, the alien gestured for her to follow.
Entering the main building, Orihime saw several of the Squad members conversing. Some were dressed in modern day clothing found in the human world, others were busy reading.
The books ranged from magazines, literature and she swore she saw some of them reading a comic book.
"Oh, yes, my squad is the clean up division. We use technology provided by the twelfth to erase the memories of any witnesses near Hollow sightings."
"Oh, so that's why everyone seems so ok with the property damage we cause...on occasions." Rubbing the back of her head, the young woman recalled all the damage her school and home received. She always remembered hearing of a strange construction company fixing, everything.
"That's right, we hid in plain sight, always watching and making sure the world keeps turning. This should be it, you can always find Izuru hiding away in a quiet place."
Orihime curled up a brow as looked at the door in front of her and the captain.
"Uh...sorry Captain Blonko, but isn't this a broom closet?" She pointed towards the brown unassuming door. She didn't know if the older man was simply joking or if he was serious.
She asked herself, 'who willingly decides to lock these up in a broom closet?'
Smiling at the younger woman, the alien captain did not respond instead he knocked on the door.
His armor gloved hand and the wooden door made a hard bang sound, moments later the young woman heard another thud, as muffled shuffling feet joined as well.
"Oh, it's your captain and you have a guest. Wait, orange hair? Hmm, oh miss Inoue Captain Unhonana told me you were coming. I apologize for not fetching you myself."
A man of average height, bright blonde hair that segmented into three parts. Two brushed over by the side of his head and the last one over his soft blue eye.
He wore the standard Soul Reaper uniform differentiated by the armband and badge on his left arm.
Izuru saw the young woman hide behind his captain, causing him to have a confused expression on his face.
His captain pointed behind him, following the direction of the finger he saw a large ominous silhouette. He could vividly feel the dangerous aura that came from it.
"Ah, sorry miss Inoue, I was working on a...personal project." The blonde haired man closed the door behind himself. He gestured for the other two to follow him, and Izuru led the way.
Orhime and the armor-clad human or rather alien shield shared a look. One pair of brown eyes spoke of careful worry, the other pair the same color as her hair in fact.
Looked at her with an apologetic expression placed on his white, black and blue furred human-like face.
Following behind the slightly creepy lieutenant, the group walked in silence, they exited the barracks and made their way to the outskirts of the Seireitei. The captain and young woman saw a rocky terrain distinguished by multiple large craters, each crater at their core had a scarred rock lying there.
The sight made the young girl think of pearls within a clam shell, except the sight before her was not a beautiful peerless stone instead it was a scarred piece of debris.
"This is it, I practice my skills here often, sorry that it appears so run down." Izuru scratched the side of his face, he knew it was not the brightest idea to feel embarrassed for a destroyed battlefield, but it was his! He believed that one should take care of their property no matter what it was, or he could have cleared out a few stones.
The young woman nodded, "Mhmm, this place is perfect, it reminds of those training grounds that I saw in some of the anime I watched as a kid."
"That is interesting, hmm, yes it does, I recall seeing such a place in one episode of Sumo Slammers." The duo chuckled, Orihime saw the lieutenant being mortified.
"Oh-sorry. Um...Izuru, what exactly is my training supposed to be about?" Returning to his usual gloomy expression the blonde man answered.
"Oh, simple reaction and perhaps something more for later." Before she could ask any more questions, Orihime heard a shout.
"Raise your head, Wabisuke!"
After his command Izuru used a flash step. He aimed for the nape of his new captain's neck only for his sword to be blocked by a triangular energy shield.
"Good, now let's get serious." With that the healer of team Karkura's training began.