School daze (Maxulus)

After the recent system freeze most of the network was restored. Unfortunately there were some minute problems at the Academy still. The 12th squad received many notices and complaints. Emails and searches wouldn't go through properly or not work at all. Arawn and several others were sent out to fix the problem. The size of the school demanded at least 10 people, but only 4 could be spared. In other words they would be doing twice the work. And toil they did. Arawn spent most of the day testing connections, reapplying software, and changing boards. The small band split up and worked their way through the complex trying to set everything back in order. They would call each other up on their phones to better coordinate their efforts. The time passed slowly. As he moved down the hallways Arawn got stares from some of the students others just ignored him. All in all the day was rather uneventful until after lunch. One of minor benefits was that he got to eat for free. Sitting under a tree Arawn leisurely at a small boxed lunch. It wasn't much, but a free meal always tasted better than a purchased one. It was after he was done that tragedy befell him. The bell ran signaling the end of the lunch and the students made their way He had barely walked twenty paces when a student ran into him. And the remainder of his lunch splashed across his shirt. The poor student's eyes went wide upon seeing what he had done. Arawn counted at least thirteen apologies within the first twenty seconds. It took a little time for the young man to calm down. Some student snickered as they passed the two, others were too busy getting to their next class to care. The shaggy haired man quickly tried to wipe the tomato soup from Arawn's black uniform which only served to press more of the food into the fabric. Again came a string of apologies.
"Wait, I can clean this for you! And I can get you a change of clothes." he exclaimed yanked on the shinigami's hand. Arawn followed, he had no desire to spend the rest of the day smelling like soup.

The power led him to one of the many bathrooms and then disappeared. He reappeared some time later with a student uniform. He instructed Arawn to change into the student garb, while he cleaned shinigami robes. A simple enough plan. Arawn changed in one of the empty stalls and passed the dirty uniform out. He could hear the student's footsteps as he exited the bathroom to go clean it. In the mean time Arawn donned the fresh and clean student uniform. It was a decent fit, a little baggy in the pants, but it worked. Better than standing around naked. Exiting the stall Arawn examined himself in the mirror by the sinks. He laughed. He looked exactly like he did when he attended the Academy. Well that was a given his looks hadn't changed aside from his longer hair. Slowly he looked around, there was no one else in the bathroom. Arawn began posing in front of the mirror.
"Yes, sir!" he said standing at attention. "The answer is 'B', Professor." he said pretending to answer an unasked question. Indeed the look took him back. It was just then a older gentleman burst into the room. Arawn froze like a dear in the headlights. He wondered if the man had seen what he had just been doing. His face burned as it turned bright red in embarrassment.

"What are you doing in here!?" the man exclaimed, Arawn's face burned brighter and his mouth hung open. "The bell already run, you're late for class!" The man stomped over and grabbed him by the hand and hauled him out of the bathroom. Still too shocked to speak the man easily drug Arawn down the hall and into a classroom. Most of the seats were filled with warm bodies, but there were quite afew empty ones. The teacher at the front of the class was already talking. When the older man entered with the red headed student all eyes were on them. "I found this young man in the bathroom. I think he might be one of yours." the older man told the gray teacher.
"Really?" came the man's reply "What's his name?" Arawn had already come out of his shock by this point and regained some speech. He smiled at the two instructors.
"I'm sorry this is a misunderstanding, I'm not a student here, I'm actually a shinigami." he began, the students laughed and the two men shared a smile.
"Yes, you're here to learn to be a proper shinigami." The teacher spoke, "Now what's you're name?" he picked up a data pad sitting near his desk.
Arawn's eyes lit up. If he does tell them his name then they'd see he wasn't a student at all.
"My name is Arawn Dan'Shir." he said quiet clearly. He thing took the time to spell it since the teacher had some difficulty.
"Hmmm, I don't see his name at all." the teacher said after some searching. "Is he giving us a fake one perhaps?"
"I swear to you that it's my given name...." he said with a smile.
"Well the system has been on the blink today. We some people from the 12th division currently fixing it." the instructor spoke. Arawn's smile faded and his mouth hung open. "Any case, please join the class for now, we'll find your real classroom after the session is over. You can take a seat over there." Arawn could only stare blankly at the instructor. This can't be happening he thought to himself. Wait, I'll just call my squad and they can explain all this. came the next thought. He grabbed at his shirt and felt nothing. He had left his phone in his uniform. Arawn hung his head in disbelief. If he did anything too showy to prove he wasn't a student chances were he'd be in quite abit of trouble. It was probably best to wait til the class ended and quietly leave. With a sigh he moved down the isle and sat himself down next to a grayish white haired young man. As he moved the older man that had found him the bathroom left. It would seem that he was stuck in school until things got cleared up.

As soon as Arawn sat next to him, Curio Meru, the white haired student who happened to be the one who was sitting next to Arawn, took a look at him. Upon seeing Arawn he was surprised. He reminded him of a person he had seen in his real life and he detested. His dark brown hair that were short and messy and were falling just below his ears sometimes covering his eyes, reminded him of THAT man that stole the most precious thing he had in the world. Arawn was looking a lot like the man who stole Ori from him, before he could express her his own feelings.

By seeing Arawn, he was shocked. At first, Meru thought that Arawn was that man. However, after taking a greater look at him, he realised that he wasn't. At first, when he mistook him for the man he detested, he took a smile on his face. He thought that he died and that was why he was in Soul Society. However, afterwards, he took a sad look on his face as he noticed that he was not him.

"WHY COULD HE NOT BE HIM?!" he thought after realising that he was mistaken. A few seconds later, he started shaking his head to snap out of his thoughts. Why was he thinking that bad for somebody that did not intend to cause him trouble in the first place? Why would he bother think of his real life problems now that he was dead? And why would he still bear such hatred for that man? He definitely had to take a look at that so that it would not bother him for the rest of his life as a Shinigami.

Despite that, though, that was not the time to take a look at his problems. After all, something else piqued his curiosity. Apparently, if he had seen that man the last three years he was in the Academy, he would remember him because of his appearance that ressembled the man he detested. "Who is this man?" he wondered with a surprised face while looking at him...

Without losing any time, Meru turned his head completely towards Arawn's way. He sighed and said "Hello..." while trying to start a conversation with him to ask him if he was an old student in the Academy or not.

A few students cast sidelong looks at him as he sat down. Arawn couldn't help, but feel slightly embarrassed. Here he was a full member of the Gotei 13 sitting with students. His ears turned red as he thought about it. So engrossed in his own situation he missed the glare from the young man next to him. With a final sigh Arawn relaxed abit and raised his head as the student gave a small greeting.
"Oh....um...... Hello to you." he said with a fake smile. Quite honestly he didn't want gain too much attention. But standing at the front had given him more than enough. All he wanted was to keep his head down, let the class finish, and get the hell out of there. Still being rude might just be just as awkward later. "Sorry about the commotion. I'm actually new here too. My name's Ash Nimen. Nice to meet you." he lied. Perhaps the best way out now was to play into the farce until he could make his exodus.

Despite the fact that usually Meru could see through lies, this time everything sounded logical. He had not seen "Ash" in the Shinigami Academy before and the fact that he stated that he was new before Meru even asked him was enough to satisfy him... However, he could still see that something was not right. Something seemed to be bothering Ash and the student of the Shinigami Academy could not understand what it could be. Could it be that he did not like the school at all or could something else be going on? He did not know. Despite that, though, he could learn by asking.

Taking a fake smile on his face, as Meru did not like talking to others a lot, he asked with a voice that was showing his desire to learn what was happening "Is there something wrong? You look strange...". Apparently, he was straight forward with his question. He did not know whether Ash would reply to him or not, but he hoped that he did. Meru wanted to know what was happening around him, no matter what, after all.

He looks strange? Arawn felt strange. As nostalgic as it was to be back in a classroom after all this time. The fact he was mistaken for a student was just plain mind-boggling. He thought with looks alone someone would be able to tell he was indeed a full fledged shinigami. But he quickly reminded himself how some people looked young and were many years his senior. The thing was people in Soul Society aged slowly. 100 years from now, he'll probably still look just as young as he did now. It was slightly comforting and yet disturbing at the same time.
"Nothing's wrong." he stammered in response. "I'm just not used to things here." Was the younger man on to him? There had to be a way to throw him off. "I used to live in the outer district of Rukongai. Being in Seireitei, feel so odd to me. People are alot nicer here." There were so many people in the various districts. Even if the young man claimed to be from a similar district not recognizing Arawn could be easily explained as just not being from the same section. Still he didn't like lying, but his reputation, what little there may be, was in jeopardy should he be exposed. "So how do you like the Academy so far?" he asked trying to change the subject. Shifting the focus to the student might be a good way to pass time as well. He halfheartedly listened to the instructor. Nothing he didn't know already. The students where making notes. There might be a test soon, or they found the subject very interesting. So tempting was it for him to just shunpo to the door and exit. But the uproar it would cause would be too troublesome.

Meru sighed as he listened to the "new student's" question. Apparently, he did not like the Academy. The three years he had been in it, he wanted to get out of it and finally start working as a Shinigami. That was what he wished. He did not want to attend stupid lectures from inferior beings, nor he wanted to take on tests that judged only the knowledge of the student. The few times he liked the academy was whenever he was on a training mission. However, that rarely happened and so he did not have many good things to remember from the Academy...

However, he had to show that he liked the Academy. If he did not lie about that, maybe a professor would listen to him and start treating him badly and giving him bad grades, resulting into never graduating from the Academy at all. While taking a fake smile on his face, Curio started speaking. He said "Of course I do...". Then, while trying to change the conversation so that it would not be centered about himself, he asked "What about you?" and waited for "Ash's" answer.

School wasn't a happy memory. He recalled his meager graduation. All his hard work, blood, sweat and tears reduced to a knock on the door and piece of paper. No grand parade or party awaited him. Unlike him there were people that were treated like royalty. Graduating from the academy was nothing more than a status symbol for them. They would never set foot out of Seireitei never draw their weapon in combat, nor would they have to fight for their lives against horrific creatures. Arawn swallowed hard as he thought about it.
"I don't mind it, but there are other places I'd rather be." he answered truthfully. He rather get back to the task of fixing the computer systems than sitting there and listening to material he'd long since surpassed. There was work to be done. "But I will admit everything learned here has it's uses. Nothing learned ever is wasted." he said with a knowing grin. There was nothing one couldn't do with a little bit of knowledge and innovation. The instructor coughed rather loudly interrupting their dialogue. Arawn swiftly nodded the man continued his teaching writing upon the board behind him.

The teacher's lesson went by slow, and the bell was welcomed not only to him, but the other students as well. They were all a flurry of motion as they packed their belongings and moved towards the doors. Arawn stood and did the same when the teacher called out.
"Wait young man, we need to take you to the office and get things squared away." Well this wasn't good, the man actually remembered!
"Sorry, but we've got another class to attend, we don't want to be late." he turned to Meru with pleading eyes Please go along with it. he shouted mentally. "Don't we have sparring in the dojo? Or was it a turn at the kido range?" Hopefully either idea could coax some sort of response from the bored looking student.

While the class was taking place, Meru was staring at the professor with a bored look on his face as soon as he realised that he was listening to him and "Ash". He did not want to provoke the professor... After all, if he did, he would never graduate from the Academy. He knew very well that professors did not use to be as good as they showed. Some of them could hold grudges and never let a student graduate. And the current professor was giving that idea to the trainee Shinigami... And so, he observed and listened to the rest of the class, without missing a word that the teacher said.

After the bell rang, he was happy enough to see that he could leave from the class. He quickly got up and was ready to start walking out of the class. Before he started moving, though, the professor approached him and the young man he was talking to, before. He listened to the professor saying to "Ash"
"Sorry, but we've got another class to attend, we don't want to be late." and then he listened to the "student's" answer as well. As soon as he heard what he said, he turned his head towards him, surprised by the fact that he involved him. It could not be helped. He was the one talking with him, so he would be involved. It was natural after all...

In the beginning, Meru would not agree with "Ash's" words. His personality was that of a person who did not like getting involved in most things. However, after seeing him looking with these pleading eyes he changed his mind. He would help him get out of this situation. He would help him avoid punishment from the professor... He smiled and said
"Indeed, we do. Today is the spar day and we cannot miss it. Me and my friend missed the last week's spar day because I had to attend your class professor, so I am asking you if it is possible for us to let as go with our spar.". Meru could be a great liar if he wanted to. He thought of a lie like that so easily... He only hoped that the professor would believe him and let "Ash" and him go...

The professor listened to the words and nodded. Far be it for him to make a student late to another class. He could catch up with the young man later and get things done then. He had to prepare for his next class as well.
"Very well, go on. But be sure to come to the main office afterwards." spoke the instructor after some thought.
"I will sir." came Arawn's hasty reply. "Come on let's go." he said to Meru and made for the door. Well now he had a way out of the room, but he couldn't just run off without the man now that he had been so kind as to lie for him. He stood just outside the doorway to wait for the student to catch up. He had to figure some way to repay the young man. Nothing too demanding he hoped. Being in the debt of a student wasn't something many anyone would want. He would probably ask for something trivial. Perhaps he could buy him lunch, give him a tour of the barracks or something. But the 12th squad wasn't a place normal people would enjoy. Something easy. It was true he had spoke of sparing, Arawn could honor the kid with a match.

As Meru lied to the instructor, he started feeling well. Apparently, he had not done that before because he was afraid of being caught lying. That would result at having problems with graduating and he never did that before. After lying, though, he was happy to see that the instructor believed him. The student outsmarted the professor and he was very happy about it. For a brief moment he start thinking of something.
"I wonder who is assigning stupid people like him for professions like this one..." he thought and then he turned towards the Shinigami who was in disguise, while they were leaving away from the instructor. He sighed and prepared to speak his words.
"So now... What are we going to do?" he said. The trainee Shinigami had no idea about what they would do. Now that he helped him, an idea of asking the student a favor for helping him came in his mind. How would a student help him, though? That was impossible...

There was no greater sigh of relief as he exited that room. It almost felt like he had escaped a fate worst that death. The embarrassment and humiliation of the situation were enough as it was. Any kind of publicity would only enhance it to a rather unbearable level. Still with the student's help he had dodged that bullet. With any luck the professors would forget the strange student that showed up this day; and he could only hope the same would hold for the other academy students. The sheer number of students his face would eventually become forgotten. Arawn made a mental note to make himself as scarce as possible from the academy to speed up the process. Should he drop by it might spark some memories and lead to some troubling questions. The student that had helped him now joined him outside the class.
"Hardly call him stupid." Arawn spoke. "He taught half of the lesson without looking at the book. If anything I'd call him too trusting." he said with a mild grin. "Don't forget what I said about learning."

More students funneled out the doors and pushed by through the hallway. They ignored the pair standing by the doorway talking, still Arawn was sure to keep his voice low to avoid any eavesdropping. But it would seem they all had better things to do than listen to two guys talking
"Well now, I take my leave. I have things to do, I'm afraid." Arawn answered. "But I do owe you one for helping me back there. If there's something you need or want in return I can try my best to fulfill it." He then quickly added. "Even saying that there are limits to what I can do. So think of something simple if possible. Don't think I can speed your graduation or anything like that. I'm no god nor am I a genie to do the impossible on a whim."

Meru started thinking as soon as he listened to the man's words. For a while, he was thinking of what he could ask the "student" to pay the debt. However, he could not come up with anything. The only thing that came in his mind was to ask him to help him graduate, but that was impossible. After thinking for a little bit, though, he thought of something. With a smile on his face, the man said
"Hm... You can be my subordinate after you graduate... I believe I will have graduated at that time...". That was quite funny. Meru did not know that the man that claimed to have come to the Academy recently was in fact an officer in the Thirteen Guard Squads. He had obviously believed the lie...

Afterwards, as soon as he completed his sentence, Meru looked at "Ash". He kept talking with a smile on his face. For some reason, the person that did not like interacting with others seemed to have fun while talking to the "new student". He spoke his words
"It is quite strange... You remind me of a man that I despise, yet I have fun talking with you, Ash. You gave me the chance to fool that boring professor... You know, I felt so good when I was lying for you and he believed me... To me it seemed like I had overcome my limits as a student, that I was not a person that studied in the Academy anymore. Thanks to you, I briefly fell like a real Soul Reaper. Arigatō (Thank you), Ash."
Then, the man turned his back. He started walking away slowly and raised his hand in order to greet the man. As he walked, he shouted
"Oh... And come and if we do not happen to meet here ever again, you will always be welcome to pay me a visit in my future Squad's Barracks... Farewell" and he slowly disappeared from the view of the man... Meru had just left. However, he had gained something precious: The memory of a person he had fun with, something he had only found once again while alive...

"Subordinate?" Arawn said with raised eyebrow. Surely this student must be quite daft. "I think not. I just consider this an I.O.U until you think up something more plausible." He gave the younger man a wave as he turned and walked away. The fact that he reminded the man of someone he hated was interesting. It must be a quite strong hatred at that. Still Arawn bottled his curiosity and let the matter slide. He was in the man's debt, it was best to let matters end at that. Once he repaid said debt he make take the time to find out more about this despised person. After the student was gone from view he moved the opposite direction towards the bathroom he had changed his clothes. Sure enough he saw the clumsy shinigami pacing in front looking quite frantic. As he got closer Arawn could hear the ringing of his phone. It would seem the others were looking for him. The young man tried to stammer out an apology, but he quickly stopped him. There was no need. He rather change and have the whole ordeal behind him. Taking the now clean shinigami uniform from the lad he entered an empty stall. While he disrobed he pulled out his phone. There were several messaged waiting to be heard. With a sigh he closed the phone. He would get to them once he was out of this uniform. In moments he was back to his black robes and feeling quite comfortable. The young student waited for him at the door and apologized again. Arawn shook his head and gave him a gentle pat on the head.
"Don't worry about it. Now, you better hurry to class." The boy nodded and ran off. "And get a haircut!" Arawn shouted in afterthought. The boy was gone, and slowly the other students vanished from the halls. He sighed as he headed back to work. Maybe being a student wasn't so bad.