Time to Wake Up (Shin Kinsen)

Kuro stood on the flat grounds of the Rukongai away from both the Seireitei and villages. There was no forested area in the vicinity. Nothing but open dusty wasteland stretched out as far as the naked eye could see. Kuro had chosen this spot away from innocent bystanders and prying eyes to begin Shin's training. Under one arm, he held a large bundle filled with various supplies needed for the intense training he had in mind. Now all he needed was the pupil. He'd looked into the courier services of the Soul Society and had to admit that he'd been pretty impressed. Looking to make good use of such a service, he'd left a message to be given to Shin informing him of this spot for his training. It was a fair run further than where Kuro assumed he normally lived, as he'd told him to check with the couriers of district 5 if he was looking for him. Kuro had chosen a desert out in the 9th district. Just the trip here would be a fair start to Shin's training. He did want to get faster after all.

Shin had checked in with the office a little while ago and had discovered that Kuro had left him a message a little while before to meet him in the desert in the 9th district. Shin had dropped everything in order to meet up with him, he was really eager to learn how to teleport and do all those little tricks that he had seen him doing before. He quickly thanked the man who took the message and read it one last time, devoting it to memory and he headed out to meet him.

It took shin a while to get there because he was purposefully restraining himself so he wouldn't get tired, but fast enough that he wouldn't keep the captain waiting too long. He stopped once on the way to get some food, a couple of sealed skins of water and a small sack of pork buns. He figured that this time he should treat the two of them to food since last time the captain had treated him.

Once he got to district 9 it took him very little time to find the desert, but he couldn't find kuro at all, at it was worrying to shin, and the fact that there was a giant wave of sand and dust coming up after shin, he started running faster to escape the dust wave to protect the food which was wrapped in a cloth which he held to his chest to protect, until that became his priority, then he spotted a spec off in the distance and ran to it, recognizing Kuro once he got closer, and forgot about the dust wave following him and skidded to a stop right in front of Kuro, sending dust flying everywhere over the area, he quickly curled over the food bag to protect it.

Kuro endured the waiting with anticipation. This was the first time someone had asked him to be their teacher on such a scale. He still didn't feel all that confident about his ability to deliver a viable training regimen, but it couldn't hurt to try. The dry, cracked dirt of the wasteland suddenly had a cloud dotting its horizon. Kuro focused on it and waited for it to come closer. Sure enough, Shin was making his way across the ground with fair speed for such a trip. With Shin's halt, the cloud his progress had kicked up blew over both of them. Kuro simply chuckled and decided to get things started.

"Nice to see you made it. I guess my message found its way to you. Hope you're ready to train."

Kuro set down the bundle he was carrying and fiddled with one of the strings keeping it tied shut. Soon he had it undone and reached inside to find the objects he was looking for. He stood upright again holding a sheathed katana and a stiff piece of paper. He first tossed Shin the paper. "I looked into that pass you talked about. That should allow you passage into the Seireitei if you ever wish to visit. As for this other thing..." Kuro lobbed the katana at Shin parallel to the ground. "That's what we call an Asauchi. It's a nameless sword for those still in training. You'll use it until you have your own weapon."

Shin looked up at kuro and smiled as he greeted him, then set his things down when kuro did, right next to kuro's things. He took the pass and carefully set it with his most important objects he carried on him, then Kuro handed him this giant sword which was obviously too large for Shin, or at least in shin's mind it was, the only ever weapon he had used before was a dagger which he had on him, why did he need this weapon? he could just use his dagger.

Shin said, "That sword is too big for me, besides I already have my own weapon." Shin reached into his hidden little pocket where he hid his blade and pulled it out. "See? I already have my own weapon. Oh yeah!" Shin put his blade back in it's little pocket and opened the food pouch and said, "I brought food for us this time since you brought it for me last time." Shin reached down and grabbed one of the many pork buns and took a quick bite, he hadn't eaten yet today. "Thanks for the pass, that will really help me out, now il be able to get special jobs!" Shin chewed on the bun happily.

Kuro had given it some thought that the katana was a little long for someone of Shin's height, but he'd still brought it as he didn't know if Shin had a weapon of his own. "Very well. I thought it better safe than sorry. You'll need a weapon for this first part of training." Kuro took the food he was offered and neatly wrapped it up in his pack. "Thank you for the food, but I've already eaten today and feel it would be a mistake for me to eat more before starting. Don't want the teacher to have to quit early because of an upset stomach." Kuro chuckled lightly at his joke.

Kuro stood by patiently, letting Shin eat his meal before he started his explanation. "Today's aim is to get you in touch with your spiritual power. I'm sorry that I don't know any better way than this. We are going to fight. There's no way I know better than to draw a person's powers out in the heat of battle. So come at me when you're ready."

Kuro stood relaxed with his feet spread and his arms held loosely at his side. He didn't even have a weapon in hand. But his face showed no weakness or carelessness. His eyes were light, but focused and attentive. There was no doubt to be had that he was carefully watching every move Shin made.

Shin munched on the pork bun as he listened to Kuro explain what today's goal was, and was about to take a second pork bun when he realized that he shouldnt exert himself with a decently full stomach. He paused and went for some of the water instead taking a few gulps before sealing the waterskin again and pulling out his weapon and looking at it, it's handle was about 4 inches long and the blade 8 with a little guard on it.

Despite what most people may have thought he was trained how to use a blade, he had to be able to use one to be able to deliver confidential and high priority packages. He knew how to knife fight, but this was a captain of the gotei 13, he knew he wouldn't be able to touch him, he usually relied on his speed to cripple the opponent, but he was fairly sure that it wouldn't work here. He was going to have to be clever and devious in order to do anything. There was a little switch in his mind to be brutal and cunning, he didn't know why but when he had to fight certain things didn't phase him anymore.

Shin walked towards Kuro casually and said, "Is this really the only way to do this? I mean isn't there anoth..." And dashed to the side of kuro running low, and swung his blade at the back of kuro's leg trying to hamstring him as he dashed by.

Kuro grinned in response to Shin's sudden attack. Such a move was to be expected, and he had no intention of letting his guard down after telling Shin to start the fight just because Shin put up an appearance of disputing his decision. As Shin darted in and struck towards his leg, Kuro's knees bent to give him a better position while a sheathed short sword appeared like a flash from inside his robes grasped in his hand to block the knife swing. Using his larger size and weight to his advantage, Kuro pushed out to throw Shin off balance. Following the movement, Kuro struck with his opposite leg to kick at Shin on the ground. He stood by without anything else afterwards, only looking to pile on more pressure. That was essential if this training was going to work.

"You'll have to do better than that Shin. We're going all or nothing with this fight. Either you get in touch with your spirit power and put up a better fight..." he raised his zanpakuto parallel to the ground and took hold of its handle, drawing it from its sheath in a menacing looking display in front of his face, "...or you'll die out here in the desert."

Shin thought that his tactic might work, but Kuro was prepared, he whipped out his own blade and blocked then knocked him off balance and shin fell on the ground. He started to get up when a foot colided with his side sending him spinning through the air and he landed in a dusty heap on the sand. It hurt, a lot. Shin started to tear up but sucked it back and started to get up and looked over at Kuro, who was saying he'd better try harder or, he would die. Shin started to become extremely worried as Kuro drew his blade.

Then Shin forced himself to calm down again and think. He bent down and picked up his dagger in one hand, making a wide grip so that he picked up some sand too, and gripped tightly, then he charged Kuro with a yell, his dagger thrusting out towards Kuro's head as he got close, then he let go of the blade, letting it fly towards his face with the fist full of sand while he ducked down and tried to hit Kuro in the same place that had been so effective against that Onmitsukido.

Kuro watched Shin's prone figure as he slowly began to advance towards him, drawing each step out and pressing down on the dry loose ground with a loud sound like a death knell. His eyes never left his little foe, watching everything he did and what took place around him. As Shin picked himself up and faced him again, Kuro noticed a disturbed patch of dirt loosened up by where Shin's hand had been when down on the ground. A small spot of darker dirt dug shallow into the ground in four distinctive trenches. This led Kuro to only one sensible conclusion. When Shin reached him, Kuro followed the thrust of the knife, knowing that from Shin's height and the attack's angle that it wouldn't stop with a simple stab. But that was irrelevant as he intended to dodge anyway to avoid the perceived sneak attack from Shin's clenched hand.

Kuro shifted his weight and wheeled to the right, avoiding Shin's charging body, knife, and fist. As he moved, he spun on his right foot to circle his torso around behind Shin and scooped his right fist in an uppercut motion that targeted the center of Shin's back. Any damage from this counter would be lessened by Shin's existing forward motion, but Kuro put enough strength in it to throw him through the air and to the ground again like his earlier kick had done. When finished, he held his zanpakuto in a reverse grip like he was accustomed to. It wouldn't make for much of a threat of impending death if he just let Shin attack continuously. Waiting until Shin recovered from his counter, Kuro shot across the space between them and punched out with his left hand with the zanpakuto clenched in it. The blade sliced cleanly through the air and was aimed to just finely slice the side of Shin's torso.

He let go of his blade and saw Kuro slip away, then he did something to Shin, He wasn't sure what he had done but he ended up in the air and slamming into the ground again with a thud. This time he landed on his face, his nose hurt a lot now and his eyes were watering, the thought that his nose might be broken crossed his mind, when he pushed himself off the ground he saw flood dripping off his face. He got up and turned around to look at Kuro, who turned into a blur and suddenly was gone and there was pain along shin's side. Shin turned and saw some specs of blood in the air as he fell down again from the blow.

Kuro really was trying to kill him! Shin trembled uncontrollably and scrambled back to his feet and started running as fast as he could away from Kuro, A plume of dust rising into the air as he ran through the wastes.

Kuro's face showed satisfaction to Shin's turned back as the little soul began to run. The fear was finally set in. He seriously though Kuro was aiming to kill him. Now all Kuro had to do was cut off any hope of escape and force him to face the fear and awaken his power. Kuro gave chase and easily overtook Shin's run, slicing his zanpakuto through the air above his head. He did his best to make it look like a real attack, but in reality only aimed to slice a few hairs from his head. If all went well, Shin would try and dodge and think that he avoided injury by himself. Kuro couldn't afford to let him find out he wasn't being serious. But luckily, the panic brought on by his fear should do a decent job of disguising that fact.

Shin was fleeing in terror for his life, but a part of him knew that he wouldn't be able to escape, Kuro had already proven that he was much faster than shin was, Shin glanced back in time to see a blade coming at his head, he dove to the side and tumbled through the dirt bouncing along before he managed to regain his footing and dash off in another direction. He had to run faster, faster faster faster. Shin started chanting this in his head as he ran along closing his eyes in pure concentration and running as fast as his legs would take him. Oddly though the pain in his legs started to go away and he started to run faster, could this be the spiritual power that Kuro had mentioned? But now Kuro was trying to kill him, he had to go faster faster faster.

Shin concentrated on his legs and tried to force more of the enery into his legs to make him run faster, and it worked, but this wouldn't be enough to escape, he had to do that teleporting technique, it must be a super blast of energy to your legs. Shin attemped this and succeeded in getting a huge burst if speed, things blurred by, and he put his leg back down to continue running, but there was something wrong, his leg collapsed out from under him, he had either done it wrong or his leg wasnt strong enough to handle the added power, he glanced down and his leg looked odd to him, that is all the thoughts he had time for before, he started tumbling madly across the wastes bouncing across the ground, sustaining all sorts of bruises and cuts, he caught a glimpse of what was ahead of him, he was bouncing straight towards a large rock, closer and closer he got, he closed his eyes and waited for the bone-jarring impact.

As Kuro kept up the teasing pursuit, he suddenly felt a surge of power emanating from Shin as he ran. Moments later, the child's speed began to pick up. Kuro smiled in amazement at the display. It wasn't exactly what he'd planned to happen, but Shin's determination to escape and live had brought out his spirit power. As an added bonus, he was even naturally learning to use it already to focus his legs and increase his running speed. Kuro wondered how quickly he'd learn shunpo when his level was high enough. He decided to ease up a bit, letting Shin feel a bit of accomplishment from this feat, and held back on his running as if Shin's burst of speed was helping him stay away from Kuro.

Unfortunately, Kuro seemed to have succeeded too much in terrifying Shin. Even with his new skill of using spirit power to bolster his running, he was still trying harder. Kuro sensed him pull a large amount of spirit power to his legs and try to force himself faster. He must be trying to shunpo. Kuro thought to himself as he kept in step with Shin from behind. But he's not ready for such a technique yet. He could hurt himself. Kuro's worries proved to be valid as Shin put on a burst of speed faster than before and suddenly lost his footing. His body began to tumble repeatedly across the ground, beating him unmercifully in retaliation of his ambitious attempts. Kuro found that enough was enough and shunpoed across the space between them and caught Shin as he tumbled head first again, stopping his advancement towards the rock. Looking the small boy over, he saw that his leg was indeed angled strangely. Placing him down on the ground carefully to rest, he added in some encouragement. "Congratulations, you've awakened your spirit power."

Shin felt him thump into something, but he knew instantly it wasn't a rock, and what ever it was caught him, his mind raced, it must be kuro, but why would he save him? He got set down on the ground and Kuro congratulated him on awakening his spirit power. Shin was extremely confused, wasn't Kuro trying to kill him? why did he save him? why was he congratulating him on awakening his spirit power? Suddenly Kuro's words from the start came back to him, the goal was for Kuro to awaken shin's spiritual power, not kill him. He had let fear take over, kuro hadn't really been trying to kill him, but merely unleash his spirit power.

Shin took a few heavy panting breaths as he lay down on the ground, adrenaline pumping through him. He stared at Kuro cautiously, then asked, "You weren't really trying to kill me were you, it was all just to make me use my spirit power somehow, rigAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH" His words ended in a yelp as the adrenaline started to wear off and his leg spiked in pain. It really really hurt, he looked down at it and it was laying there at an odd angle, he remember trying to use the teleportation thing and messing up his legs. Tears started to pass from his eyes as the full force of the pain hit him, "It hurts......" Shin sniffled trying in vain to push back the tears, and his side started to ache a little and he was reminded that kuro had cut him there earlier as well.

Kuro let out a hearty laugh. "Nope, I wasn't really going to kill you. That was only to make your situation more dire so that you felt you had to succeed in using your power in order to survive. I basically made use of your most basic instincts to jump start your training." Kuro looked over Shin's leg and determined that it was beyond his skill to treat. He let out a small frown as he spoke, "I may have overdone things a little. It was my plan to cut off your escapes so that you'd be forced to desperately fight back against me and awaken your power that way. But it seems I scared you so much that running was all that was in your mind. As a result, you hurt yourself by trying an advanced move without prior training. Sorry about that."

Kuro was careful about picking Shin up again, trying to minimize the movement of his leg while he did so. Setting off as a brisk pace, he began to head in the movement of the Seireitei. "It looks like you'll be getting use out of that pass sooner than you thought. I know a place in the Gotei that can get you fixed up in only a day or two."

Shin continued his sniffling, crying and little whimpers as he was picked up by Kuro and carried toward seireitei. He looked to the side and was surprised at how fast their pace was, and how smooth and how quiet it was as well. His leg suddenly sent out a spike of pain, making shin cringe which in turn shifted his leg which sent out another spike of pain, this time however he resisted moving, knowing that it would just cause more pain, a little while later the pain lowered more, and he was able to withstand it. He had stopped crying though he was still sniffling and having slightly gaspy breaths.

In retrospect it was really stupid of him to think that he could pull off an advanced technique so easily, and he had paid the price for it, but he hadn't been thinking at the time he had been too scared to think. More pain came from his leg. He had to take his mind off it, but he couldn't think of anything, a memory from the last time he had seen kuro, where Kuro had defended him from one of those...Onmitsukido people popped into his head, he hoped that he never had to run into that particular man again, he was fairly sure that he wouldn't like the outcome there.

Off in the distance he saw the gate to Seireitei, was it really alright for him to enter? Let alone use their medical facilities? Wouldn't there be odd questions asked?

The walls of the city grew larger and larger until they were directly overlooking the two approaching figures. Kuro sped inside without a pause, nobody bothering to stop a captain. The inhabitants they passed as they made their way to the 4th squad facilities turned to glance at them, a few wearing puzzled looks about the young boy in the captain's arms. He did have a spiritual signature, but it was obvious that he wasn't an academy student. Perhaps a new recruit that the captain was bringing to begin training. They knew nothing of how accurate such an assumption was to the truth. Kuro kept up his pace until he reached the main treatment building and set about getting Shin into one of their rooms. The people at the 4th squad were extremely nice and set about treating Shin's leg right away. Kuro waited at the side of the room while they worked, thinking to himself that this was fortunate in another way. He'd read some time ago that when healing, shinigami first worked on restoring a soul's reiatsu then working with it to help heal the injuries. With that method, the healing treatment that Shin was getting would probably do some good for that bit of power that he'd managed to awaken today.

While all this was going on, three dark dressed figures passed by the door way. Flinching with a swift motion, the three planted themselves against the wall and crept their gazes around the door frame to get another look at what was inside. The captain and that boy from the Rukongai were inside, the latter receiving treatment to his leg and a minor wound on his side. The three remembered what had happened to their comrade the other day and wondered what the boy was doing in the Seireitei now. The woman of the trio remarked quietly to the others, "Do you suppose the captain is going to be keeping in contact with the boy now?"

"That's got to be the case," said one of the others, "What else could have gotten him here? The captain's probably training him or something like that."

"Got to him first didn't he...not that we needed him, but this can open up other opportunities in the future."

"Don't think I like that idea. Remember what happened when the big guy angered the captain by threatening the kid?"

"Of course. Just an errant thought. We'll not bother them for now."

There was not a sound as the three took their leave. Kuro slid down the wall until he was in a seated position on the floor and let himself doze off while Shin's treatment was finished.

Shin curled himself in Kuro's arms trying not to move as they zipped through the gate and on through the streets. He was surprised at how easy it was and that noone seemed concerned at all at what was going on, however he did get a few odd looks here and there as they passed by shinigami in the streets. It didn't take long for Kuro to reach his destination, but in that short time Kuro had gone through so many turns so fast Shin honestly had no clue as to where he currently was, the only thing he knew for sure was that he was in the 4th Division's barracks. The only reason he knew even that much was because there had been a big sign over the door they had entered.

Kuro set him down on a bed and some people came over and started checking things about him, one testing his arms for something, he didn't know what and one was staring at his leg, He was keeping a close eye on the one staring at his leg. Suddenly he felt a large pain in his arm and he tried to pull it back as a reaction, as he turned his head to look. His arm didn't move, the lady was keeping it firmly in place and she had a needle in his arm injecting something into him. Once she was done she walked over to the man at the foot of the bed and talked quietly to him.

For some reason Shin's pain started to fade away, and then his vision started to blur heavily, and before he knew it, he was out cold.