Bleach: Derailed

[X] You need to focus on graduating as soon as you can, not whether or not you're blending in.

The clothes look like something a samurai would wear. The shirt's front and back are slightly stiff, giving them a look almost like armor without actually resisting when you try to bend it, and it's sleeves are just as loose as the grey-blue pants. The changing area is much like a gym, except that there's another soul reaper handing out plain white bags to put belongings in. Some students have theirs almost packed to the brim, while most come with little, or nothing -like you.

You follow along with the flow of the crowd as more people come in and go out into the wide hallways. The air outside... can you even call it outside? Soul Society isn't like Earth, where you can launch a rocket into space and it'll keep going forever, until it hits another planet. You've heard people call it vast, but finite. Somewhere above, below, and in all cardinal directions the world just... stops.

It's difficult to wrap your mind around the idea that this new world is flat.

A vast auditorium opens out ahead of you, descending down in great wedges filled with row after row of seats. Another pair of students are standing at the door, and the woman of the two hands you a booklet. You're pushed along by the press of bodies before you can say more than a quick word of thanks, herded into a row halfway down the aisle where you sit in a seat that clearly isn't made for someone of your height. It probably wouldn't have been comfortable for a more average person either, you think with a twist of your mouth in a slight smile. You guess some things don't change when you die. Public institutions always buy the cheap seats.

"Hey, carrot top."

A sharp pain on the back of your head makes you close your eyes and count to ten. You're a fast counter, so you take some extra time to think about how other things haven't changed too.

You turn around. "Yeah?"

The person who slapped you looks around, and quickly finds out that the seats on either side of him are mysteriously empty, their occupants vanished to more remote seating arrangements. "Uh. Nothing." He says, and you turn back around.

He even looks like some of the guys who used to give you grief over your looks back in... back when you were alive.

That's still a big lump of a thought.

Someone comes out on stage and starts talking. It's a "Welcome to Soul Society, where you will have employment-slash-education-slash-live your life speech, so you only pay a little bit of attention, just enough so that when he gets to something you actually need to learn, you'll know to listen closely, which is timely because you just noticed the list of laws written on the underside of the pamphlet in your hand.

The High Laws, the laws of Central 46, who are apparently the judges and legislature of the afterlife combined in one body, don't seem to have many laws, but the ones they do... No learning things officially labeled forbidden is simple enough, no losing anything really important and powerful, no killing of living people or souls, no manufacture of weapons without proper authorization, no mixing the spiritual realms, no messing with the records about the dangai (whatever that is), but there are a few laws that make you clench the papers in your suddenly balled fist.

It is illegal to meddle in the affairs of nobility, unless the guilt of the noble is beyond doubt. "What is this, the feudal period?" You question under your breath, and then remember the state of the districts outside. They were like a historical preserve, with only a few things that looked to be more modern than the Meji era. From the look of the monitors hanging from the ceiling, displaying the broad-shouldered bald man talking about how no class takes place at the same time as any other, and only the exams matter?

You go over that again in your head to make sure you heard it right. Yeah. So you could theoretically skip all of the classes and just take the exams, if you were some kind of savant, or too stupid to breathe and walk at the same time.

But what draws your attention back to the list of laws is a short one slid right in the middle of the pack. No soul reaper shall stay longer than authorized in the human world.

So you'll need to be authorized. You can work with that. The beginnings of a plan take form. Step one is to get out of the Shin'o Academy and into a position in one of the... you double check the diagram on the second page... thirteen squads, preferably an officer's position. They call those 'seated' positions, and they run from second to twentieth, with lower numbers being better; second seat means second in command. Step two is to get assigned to patrol Karakura Town for soul-eating monsters. Step three is where you get to see your family again, get to check in, get to make sure that your dad hasn't gone crazy like he did when mom died, and that your little sisters are coping.

Three steps.

It's not a complex plan.

The man on the stage below bows formally to you all. "-conclusion, your entrance examination will begin shortly. Those of you who fail to meet the criteria we are looking for will be free to try again in our next recruiting period, in six months. Any questions?" Immediately, it seems like everyone starts talking to their neighbors. The woman next to you even twists to talk to a short man in the next row up.

"Yeah! I've got one. What's the shortest time it ever took for someone to graduate?" You ask, and then when you're not heard over the whispers of hundreds you repeat yourself, louder. "Hey!"

An instinct from years of public school has you raising you hand to be singled out, but when you realize that it isn't working you quickly turn it into a wave for attention. The bald teacher looks up at you from the dais at the bottom of the room. "Yes?" He says, quieting the room with a word and a feeling of strange pressure, as though the air was slightly heavier than normal.

"Er. Thanks. What's the fastest time it's ever taken for someone to graduate?"

"Now-Captain Gin Ichimaru completed the six year course in a single year." He says. His wide, rimless glasses catch the light momentarily as he tilts his head and smiles. "I take it you aim to match that time?"

"I'm going to. No, scratch that. I have to." You announce, your words are a promise made to every single person in the auditorium.

Something passes over the older man's face. It appears and vanishes so quickly that you can't even see it on the big television screens, but it might have been recognition. "I see." He says, and though his next words are for everyone, he doesn't take his eyes off of you. "I wish you all the best of luck, the best fortune... and the best reasons, and I thank you for choosing to attempt to walk this path."

---

It turns out that the first test is to actually get a zanpakuto to react to you. Apparently the swords soul reapers wear aren't just swords, but swords with souls, or swords made out of souls? The guy wearing a cloth mask long enough to reach his shins, apparently a member of the kido corps, didn't go into specifics.

"Pick an asauchi off the wall." He says. Nobody moves. There are twenty of you here, nineteen other prospective students in the sub-group you were separated into once you left the auditorium, and all of you can recognize a trick this obvious when you see it.

"Just... any sword?" The short man who the woman who sat next to you knows takes a step forward, the brunette following quickly behind.

"Any sword that you can pick." All you can see of the kido corps member is his eyes, but that's all you need to know that he's smiling.

In response the other student walks forward, puts out his hand... and stops. There are hundreds of plain blades on wooden stands present. The one he reached for looks like any other, and yet he pauses. He takes his hand back and shakes his head. "Not this one. It's not for me. Is this the test?"

"It is." The masked man admits with a nod. He turns to face all of you. "Each asauchi, though a blank template for your soul to express itself through, is in itself unique in how it is blank. A soul reaper is required to have a zanpakuto for duty. If we do not have an asauchi that you can use to purify souls, then you cannot be accepted into the academy this year. I'm sorry, and it's no fault of your own if it turns out that there simply isn't a blade that accepts your spiritual power, but sometimes things are not always what we want."

That makes you grit your teeth in frustration as others gasp, or swear under their breaths. It's random. It's nothing but random chance! If there's not a blade that accepts you-

You shut down that line of thought, clamping your mind across it and smothering it before you can start to panic. You will pass this test. Any other options is unacceptable.

You could just watch and see what the others do, then copy what seems to work the best. Another option is to walk up to one end of the room and work your way through.

Or... you could try walking up to the closest sword and taking it. This whole test could be like one of those martial arts / philosophy things Tatsuki always understood better than you did. 'Punch through the board', 'do not think, act', 'there is no spoon'. These are magic swords, right? You could try to push your spiritual energy into the swords, but you've never actually tried to manipulate that before. It can't be hard though, right?

But how? You can't have unlimited time to do this.
[] Watch the others to see what works for them.
[] Start at one end and work your way through.
[] Don't think about getting a sword. Find your sword.
[] Try to push your spiritual energy out into the room.