Gateway 41

“Welcome, students. I am Captain Sosuke Aizen of the 5th Division. Today, as you know, we will be going on an expedition to the World of the Living for your first experience with Hollows. With me are Captain Saijin Komamura of the 7th Division and Lieutenant Alexander Lupi of the 11th Division…”

I tuned out Aizen’s lecture and yawned, more out of habit than any actual need. We had spent the entire previous night working on mixing our two systems of magic, but by the time we had a few prototypes to test, morning had come, and with it, Aizen’s duty to accompany the Academy students on their first hunt.

It was a little embarrassing to ask if I could come with him at the last minute, but he just waved at the girls passed out on the table and told me a spot had just opened.

Before we left, he got a few blankets out of a cupboard and covered the girls, then he told me to get ready and to meet him in front of the 5th in an hour.

Really, the guy was just the nicest.

The rest of my morning on the 11th was the usual: bribe Yachiru into bothering someone else, deal with Zaraki’s morning ambush, shower, breakfast, ask Ikkaku and Yumichika if there was anyone who needed a higher level punishment than what they could dish out, ignore the paperwork, and deal with Zaraki’s second morning ambush before leaving.

Honestly, the guy was a beast. Every time I thought I was finally able to match him, he got a little bit better, just enough to beat me. The level of control he had over his own power so he could always recalibrate like that was phenomenal. That said, the constant ambushes were getting annoying.

I Door’d to the library to check on the girls before making my way to the front of the 5th. It didn’t take long for Aizen to show up, and when I expressed concern over the fact that Isane and Nanao would be reprimanded for sleeping in, he told me not to worry about it and that he had already sent a message to their Captains to clear things up.

As I said, the nicest.

After that, we quickly arrived at the Academy, where Captain Komamura was waiting. He was a giant of a man, easily over 2.5 meters, and with his straw helmet, gloves, and bracers, he cast an imposing figure. However, he sounded very calm and measured when introducing himself.

“Any questions?” Aizen asked, prompting the six students in front of us to shake their heads. “Good. Then it’s time, follow me.”

___

The World of the Living was, normal.

You’d think with an afterlife like the Soul Society, things would be different, but no, just complete normality, barely different from my and Luna’s world. It was kinda disappointing.

But that made me wonder, did those differences affect my cooldown when traveling between the worlds?

Of the three worlds I had been to, the main difference between them was in the magical side of the world, while the normal sides seemed to reach the same point.

Would a world with magic out in the open have a higher cooldown due to how different it was from my starting point? What about a world with no magic at all?

Because I was almost certain that at least part of the reason for the bigger cooldown in this world compared to Luna’s was due to the difference in their magic worlds.

I shook my head. I needed more data before being able to draw any conclusions. Maybe my next world should be one more similar to mine? If my hypothesis were correct, that’d lead to a lower cooldown.

Decision made, I turned my attention to my charges for the day. Two girls wearing the white and red Academy uniform. They were each atop a light pole, checking the area for Hollows while I lounged at the ledge of a nearby building.

“Found one!” Miyako said, pointing to a large shadow moving between buildings. She had long, light brown hair tied in a ponytail, dark brown eyes, and stood around my shoulder in height.

“Let’s go then!” The other girl, Rui, said, already jumping in the direction Miyako pointed. She had short black hair, black eyes, and was half a head smaller than I.

“Come on, Miyako. Let’s make sure she doesn’t get in trouble,” I sighed, standing up and jumping after Rui.

“Y-Yes, sir!” She responded.

We reached the building beside the alleyway to find Rui in the middle of the alley warily looking around while holding her sword (Asauchi, not Zanpakuto, at least not yet) defensively.

“Go on,” I muttered to Miyako, giving her a slight push towards her friend.

With a serious nod, she jumped down, drawing her sword.

When she touched the ground, the Hollow hiding inside the shadows of the alley attacked, sending what looked like a giant crab’s leg from the shadowed ground behind her to pierce her back.

I was ready to intervene if necessary, but thankfully, Rui was fast enough to cut the appendage before it reached her friend.

The Hollow roared, a disturbing sound that sounded like a dinosaur mixed with nightmares, and stepped out of the shadows it was hiding in.

The creature was big, easily 2 stories tall, and grotesque in a way I didn’t think was possible.

It had 8 7 orange crab legs attached to a dark purple feline body with the head of a person covered by a white mask.

Rui immediately went to attack its mask, looking for an easy kill, but was batted away by one of its front legs. While Miyako’s sneak attack at its back was foiled by the creature’s feline tail.

The girls quickly regrouped, and with a glance and a nod at each other, they started attacking the legs.

Their teamwork was almost perfect, each attacking and retreating to give the other openings. It didn’t always work out, but since one of them was always free to defend their friend when needed, they managed it fine. That way, they systematically cut each of the Hollow’s legs until only its torso, head, and tail remained.

As Miyako set out to cut the mask and purify the Hollow, its fur stood on end and started to shimmer, making her and Rui continuously blink in confusion while the Hollow slowly fell back inside the shadows of the alley.

I tsked at the scene, the creature had some kind of disorienting ability to help cover for its slow escape, and the girls were thoroughly caught in it. I sighed. At least it gave me an opportunity to use my Zanpakuto.

But as I negligently cut its mask after a quick Flash Step in front of it, I got the feeling I’d need to kill much more than one measly Hollow for it to be satisfied.

After checking the girls to make sure they were fine, we went back to our task.

___

We were the first to return to the meetup spot.

The girls scoured the entire area we were given, and after another 8 Hollows were killed, they declared the region clean.

Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t been able to kill any more Hollows, as the girls took the lesson that first one gave them to heart, but I wasn’t mad. I doubted the number of Hollows they killed would make as much of a difference for me as it did for them.

So we hung around the park we arrived in to wait for the others, which didn’t take long as, after a few minutes, Captain Komamura arrived with his charges.

“Captain Komamura,” the girls and I bowed.

“Lieutenant Alex,” he nodded back. “How did they fare?”

“Pretty good,” I smiled. “Apart from the first one’s surprise ability, they didn’t need any help. And they managed to get all of the Hollows in our area.”

“That’s good!” He said, and I could hear the smile in his voice, even if it was slightly muffled by his helmet. “These here,” he pointed to the two boys he was in charge of, “Were too cocky and needed my help half the time.”

Yes, after he mentioned it, I noticed the slight drop in the boys' shoulders and the contrite look in their faces.

“Eh,” I shrugged, “That’s why we do this, I bet they’ll take this experience as an important lesson in the future, right, boys?”

Both of them nodded vigorously.

I could practically feel the girls holding their laughter, and from the way his shoulders shook slightly, I was almost certain that was the same for Captain Komamura, but before I could make a comment, Aizen came running in carrying one of his charges while the other followed close behind.

“Saijin, Alex, incoming!” He exclaimed, Flash Stepping the rest of the way and appearing in the middle of our group.

The boy following after him quickly caught up, taking the unconscious girl from Aizen’s arms, while over two dozen Hollows ran after him.

I, Captain Komamura, and the rest of our charges were ready for battle when Captain Aizen stepped in front of us.

“Protect the students,” he said, slowly drawing his sword in a reverse grip, “I’ll deal with them.”

Aizen calmly held his sword in front of himself, still in a reverse grip, with the blade pointed down, waiting for the Hollows to approach.

“Students, behind me!” Captain Komamura ordered, his sword ready to attack any Hollow that got past Aizen.

I did the same, warily watching the Hollows approach.

Normally, I wouldn’t be concerned. The Hollows were decidedly weak, and apart from some surprise abilities that couldn’t really affect me, I didn’t see myself struggling against even the number of Hollows about to attack us.

But this wasn’t a normal situation. All Lieutenant and above Shinigami had their powers massively restricted when going to the World of the Living, and it didn’t discriminate like I hoped it would.

It was a comprehensive seal that affected not only spiritual power but power in general. I didn’t believe it also applied to my activated Authorities, but everything else had a hard cap until the seal was removed.

“Shatter, Kyoka Suigetsu,” Aizen said, and I instantly felt a soft, subtle knock at the Door in my mind.

I ignored it. Odin was much more forceful, and he still couldn’t make it budge, so the current knock wasn’t a concern.

What was more important to me was how Aizen stood motionless after activating his Shikai, only to suddenly appear in front of the closest Hollow and easily cut it, and then do the same to the next, and the next after it.

His movements held a fluidity I hadn’t seen yet, it was a level of mastery over Shunpo I didn’t even think was possible. Was it his Shikai ability? I didn’t know, but I was going to find out.

“Now you know all, was it worth, an eyeball?” I whispered the incantation, activating my Authority to understand Aizen’s technique.

What I didn’t expect was to have a faint, almost completely translucent, view of the things happening superimposed on reality.

But it was different. Instead of Aizen attacking the Hollows, a wave of water was doing it while Aizen guided it from his initial position.

‘An illusion?’ I thought, seeing that that was his Shikai, while his skill in Shunpo was just him being that good at it.

I started to wonder why he’d use his Shikai if he was just going to kill the Hollows normally when I saw it: the students, all of them peeking from behind Komamura’s back, looking in awe at Aizen’s ability to kill Hollows without taking a single step.

‘I guess even a nice guy like Aizen wants to look cool for the next generation,’ I concluded. But thinking it over, it probably also helped with recruitment, the students would surely want to join the 5th after seeing the Captain in action. It was pretty shrewd of him to capitalize on such an opportunity, but that’s probably just part of being a Captain.

Because it seemed Komamura knew it too, from the way he stood tall in front of the students, using his body as a barrier to defend them in case any Hollow got through, these students would remember this.

This made me pay attention to my own position, off to the side, and very obviously acting the same as the students. At least my hand was on the pommel of my Zanpakuto, but that was cold comfort when compared to the Captains’ actions.

I had barely started looking for something to do, even a cool pose to be in would be better than nothing, when I realized it was already over. Aizen quickly returned to his initial position and dispelled the illusion, looking back at us with his calm smile, as if killing that many Hollows was an afterthought.

“Well, then, let’s get back, shall we?” He said, moving through the students to open the Senkaimon.

___

After we left the students at the Academy and separated from Komamura, I went with Aizen to the 5th so I could get some books on Kido to study on my off time.

We went most of the way in silence, until I decided to speak my mind about the situation in the World of the Living.

“You could have warned me, you know?” I said casually. “Or did you and Komamura want me to reach the right conclusion myself?”

He stopped, looking at me in confusion for a moment before smiling.

“Oh? And what did you find out?” He asked, but it sounded like a test.

“Please, as if you couldn’t have made it more obvious,” I huffed. “The entire final part of the expedition was an over-the-top act. You using your illusions to look cool while Captain Komamura used his size, and I looked like an idiot who didn’t know where to stand. I bet none of those students will even think about joining the 11th when they graduate, but all of them will want to be in the 5th.”

Aizen stopped eerily still for a moment, staring a me impassively, before snorting and falling into a deep laugh, like I had just told him the best joke in the world.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, recomposing himself. “It’s just that I’ve never seen someone describing it like that. But you caught me, how about we meet up later so I can teach you how these things work?”

“Sure,” I nodded. I didn’t really see the point, but if he wanted to give me the knowledge, who was I to refuse?

“Just,” he paused, looking conflicted for a second. “Just don’t tell anyone about it, we Captains like to keep our tricks to attract new members secret.”

“Fine,” I rolled my eyes. Who did he think he was kidding? It was fine to admit he just didn’t want to look silly to his peers.

“Thank you, Alex,” he said with a smile. “Now, about those books you wanted?”

“Ah, yeah. I’ll need some recommendations for…”

___

A/N: Well, would you look at that, Alex found out about Aizen’s secret love for Aura Farming.

As always, thank you all for your support, see ya next week!