Making Enemies Left and Right: Hate on Squad Eleven (Solo)

The Otter Awaits - Live Life Terribly - Halcyon Avarice Toenail

“Today is a day to become stronger. Today is a day that one should spend, not learning, but advancing oneself to become better. Today I should work myself tirelessly until I have achieved the limit I have set for myself today.” He said cheerfully.

“Uh-huh…” Gina nodded, unenthused. “And what exactly does that mean for you?”

There were five people in the room. It was large; wide like a hallway, and tall like an auditorium, but also incredibly crowded. Machines for working out were organized into different parts here and there. In the end that he and Gitanasaki were standing in, it was all different simple machines that one would load weights onto and work with from there. Gina had agreed to spot for him, if he would try and do the same for her. Unfortunately, she was leaning against a pillar in the room and swinging a two-hundred-pound weighted disc back and forth with some ease; he was struggling to load a fifty-pound weight onto another machine.

“Well, maybe if we work together, I can get strong enough to finally graduate this place and become a fully-fledged Ankou.”

“Uh-huh…” Gina followed. It wasn’t that she was annoyed, but rather that she was distracted today. She loved coming to the gym here, as she could show off her strength to others, as she was now. It was one of the few times that Gina became self-obsessed, and the entire school could burn down around her while she was in the gym, and she likely wouldn’t notice. And she had long since acknowledged that the name her friend preferred to go by, and the name he called her profession, meant the same thing more or less. Soul Reaper, or, Shinigami, he had explained, had an ostentatious or grim sound to them, while the word Ankou meant almost the same thing, but with some humility attached to it.

Without her help, he managed with much difficulty to load the last of the weights onto the machine before mounting it himself. He had to adjust himself into the machine at an angle, his feet planted solidly at shoulder’s length apart on the base, with his shoulders bearing the weight of the padded harness. He had added a hundred pounds to each side of the machine, and with the natural weight of the setup, estimated it to be around a hundred and forty pounds. He was going to do four cycles today of eight different activities, with each of the activities paired up into sets of tens each.

He tensed his legs, preparing to lift the weight up, before letting them relax. If he kept his muscles tense while he did this, he’d likely tear something, and be the worse for it. He relaxed a little before pushing up, unlocking the machine from its safety point, and bringing the full weight on his shoulders. He lifted incredibly well, the weight not at all as much as he had thought. But it was too light, and he needed to add more. He began to lower himself back to starting position, his hands fumbling at the sides of the machine for the bars that would lock it back into place, while Gina had decided to take the weight firmly in both hands and begin to do squats. Once locked, he got out of the machine and grabbed some more weights, adding them to the machine as well until he had made it weigh an additional fifty pounds.

Trying once again at one hundred and ninety pounds, he settled in and lifted off, unlocking it once more. The weights this time were better, not too heavy, and not too light, but just enough to get his blood pressure up a little more from its slow snail-pace. He lifted up, straightening his legs beneath him before slowly easing down into a squatting position. If he were to go too low, he would become stuck, and require Gina’s help. But this was not his first time working out, and he stopped just short of his bent limit and slowly raised once again.

Across the room, another Soul Reaper was working out too with dumbbells. He was pumping them fast, too fast to have them be effective, although he appeared to be doing it for the group of women who had entered the gym and surrounded him in a giggling fit.

“Idiots.” He huffed, moving slowly but rhythmically in the machine, his time being matched by Gina.

“Airheads and jocks.” Gina replied, also unimpressed by the Soul Reapers on the other side of the room.

“He’ll do nothing but hurt himself.” He continued. In his head, he was counting his repetitions, up, down, four-five. Up, down, four-six. “And those idiots make for poor excuses of Soul Reapers too. What unit are they from Gina?”

He pumped on the machine a final four times, completing his set of fifty on the machine, leaving his thighs and calves feeling warm and strong. One the final descent, he pulled the safety back on and exited the machine. Gina put her weight down, and he picked up a lighter one than the two-hundred-pound disc, opting for a fifty-pound instead. He began his set of squats, while Gina added more weight to the machine and spied the group of four Soul Reapers.

“He’s with squad eleven, and they’re from….squads four and three.” She said with disdain. She finished loading the weights and got into the machine herself, matching his time and going with it as well. Gina wasn’t working out to get stronger, she was working out to work out.

“What squad are you with again?” he asked her, honestly unsure of where his friend was situated. The weight he clung to his chest was heavy, but he continued anyways, cheating by using the pillar to keep himself from falling backwards. Up, down, two-three.

“I’m not exactly with a squad. I’m a truance officer of the academy. Although I did apply to go to Second Squad after Natsuchiko. I never made it, and I enjoy hanging out with you and the students.”

He shrugged and continued to do his squats. Up, down, three-nine. Up, down, four-oh. Across the room, the squad eleven jerk had taken to sitting a girl on each hand with his weights while he lifted them, and the other two girls were practically glued around his hips. He hoped that the guy tore a muscle and dropped the girls, hurting everyone there.

He finished his set with the squats and traded places with Gina again, continuing the second half of his first paired activities. He and Gina each did fifty of their respective activities, then unloaded the machine together and put everything away where it was supposed to go before moving onto the next activities. While the first activities had focused on the legs and abdomen, the next would focus on the arms and shoulders.

The moved to another area of the gym, where there were several racks of weights and the shafts for dumbbells as well. Gina and he each picked up a pair of shafts and assembled their desired weights onto them. He chose to adjust them to twenty-five pounds each, while Gina set her own for seventy pounds. While he did bicep curls, Gina worked her rhomboids, each going for a count of fifty before switching their activities for another count of fifty. Without much discussion, they finished their activities for their first cycle, and began again once more for the second. It went with weighted crunches and squats, bicep curls and rhomboid stretches, to stationary bikes and bench presses, and ended with balancing activities as a cool-down on exercise balls, and soft stretches with medicine balls. This too they almost completed without much further chatter between themselves, as the jock had left without incident and taken the girls with him, and the other two remaining Soul Reapers kept to themselves, exercising instead with treadmills at the hardest difficulties possible.

If he had cared about being shown up by Gina, he would have worked out with her differently, for the younger Soul Reaper had easily worked out with double, if not more, the weight that he had been working out with. But he hadn’t cared, and neither had Gina, and both worked out well enough anyways, breaking no sweat, but neither did they complete the tasks they had set for themselves without having to strain their limits a little. And both had raised their limits for the day as well, as he had increased his weights across every activity by five to ten pounds for his upper torso, and twenty to thirty for his lower torso, while Gina had increased all of hers by fifty pounds each. After that cycle had finished, they moved onto the third, and finally the fourth, when some troubles happened.

Towards the ends of their last cycle of working out, three or four Soul Reapers, all from Squad Eleven, entered into the gym and began a ruckus with some students who were working out as well. The Soul Reapers were pushing the students around, and interfering with the training atmosphere. And they had also violated gym rules by bringing their Zanpakto in with them. Gina was the first to stop and confront them, leaving him behind to keep watching and working.

“Excuse me,” Gina had begun, “But I would like it if you were to leave your swords outside of the premises.”

One of the Soul Reapers scoffed at her and spit on the gym floor. He felt angered, but was not interested in interfering with Gina and the fully-fledged Soul Reapers. The Spitting Shinigami made a remark back, and Gina held fast and ordered them to leave again. The Soul Reapers ignored her, and chose to push her around as well. Still, he held back, knowing that Gina could handle herself. But when one of the Soul Reapers drew his sword in the gym and threatened her and the students with it, he put his equipment down and stepped up to the plate.

“Excuse me.” He interjected calmly. “But having weapons in the gym is strictly prohibited. Could you please leave them behind in the changerooms?”

The Soul Reaper who enjoyed spitting sneered at him and drew his own weapon.

“Says who? A bunch of little students who don’t even have the strength to make it to a squad yet? Get real. We’ll do what we feel like doing, and you won’t say shit about it.” The Spitting Shinigami barked out, his voice aggressive.

“Well, I could tell your captain that you have not abided by the rules of the gym, and I’m sure that there’s something to be said about that.”

“Like our captain would give a shit, small-fry.” The Spitter jeered. “You think anyone cares about you? The whole academy could go up in blazes and no one would care what happened to you. Because none of you are important. Not in the least.”

“Uh-huh…” Gravelle grunted, not in the least bit impressed. Before anyone knew what was happening, he had palmed a twenty-five pound disc into his hand and swung it into the side of the Soul Reaper’s head. He heard the sick crack of the skull underneath, and watched as the man’s head turned awkwardly with the blow, his hand continuing on its path. “Then Fuck you too, asshole.”

There was a particular malice in his voice now. Lives had worth, regardless of their place or value, and killing was not something that a person should do lightly. Worth had to be balanced out based upon what could be gained by killing someone, and the cost of killing another was never lower than the profit for doing so. One of the things he hated seeing, was people who desired to kill without thought. This man deserved what he got.

“Think before you speak. All lives have value, and these students,” he said, not including himself, “Are likely the ones who will replace you or protect you one day. So think of them a little better.”

He looked at the other two Soul Reapers, who just stood there with evil smiles on their faces. His reiatsu flared up, normally blue and grey, now tinged with black and streaked with bloody-red ribbons, a feeling of hatred, hunger, and the lust for a fight surrounding him, making the students queasy, and Gina nervous. The smiles wavered a little.

“Get the hell out of here.” He scowled. “Or I will not be so kind to you as I was to your friend.”

The sword-drawn Soul Reaper drove forwards with his sword, aiming to cut him, but he sidestepped quickly and brought the weight around again into the man’s ribs. He heard another crack. But his arm fell, and he brought it around in the other direction, bringing it to crush through the top of the man’s shoulder and forcing his grip on his sword to go. The man’s arm hung low, and his bare shoulder and chest were already turning purple and brown. The man followed up with a jab from his other hand, knocking him in the chest and dropping him backwards to the floor. He coughed, winded from the blow before his reiatsu’s colour changed entirely from its one form to a more ominous one. Now he was hungry, angry, and primal, leaving nothing of a thought of mercy.

[u]”Fuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnn……………….”[/i] he managed to hiss.

Inside of his own head, he had been blindsided by the blow, not thinking of the man to strike after his own attack. Now he had sort of shut down, unable to think clearly of a strategy, and the darkness inside welling up and swallowing him under. Ira had resurfaced. On the plus side of his ID’s arrival, he knew that he would live, since Ira acted entirely on impulse, and survival was an impulse.

Sort of out of sorts with his own movements, he stood up with his limbs slack. Before the broken-armed Soul Reaper could really read his plan, he jumped forwards and slammed the weight into him again, and his teeth found flesh and sunk as well, snapping shut with a decent chunk and tearing away.

He roared with delight at the taste before Gina came up from behind him unexpectedly and knocked him unconscious.

“I order you to leave. And take your friends with you.” She commanded. “As truancy Officer of the Academy, I order you to do as I say.”

“You don’t have any authority over me.” The last of the bullies, boldly, snarled.

“I don’t need to have authority. I’m in the right and you know it. Or I could go and tell your captain that the three of you broke the rules of the academy, fought with students, and lost to a student. By my measure of you, you’re only new recruits as well, and ill-comments about you and your friends would make your life that much harder in your squad.”

“You bitch.” He snarled more.

“Don’t make me loose the dog on you too.” Gina cracked, shaking the unconscious Gravelle in her hand.

He made to grab for his friends swords, but Gina hemmed. “Those will stay with me. I promise they’ll get back to your captain in a timely manner.”

He scowled and tried to leave, but Gina interrupted him again. “You leave yours as well.”