Bleach: Derailed

[76] Keep Zangetsu unreleased
[79] Admit you have it if asked

"You did what?"

"I got shikai." You tell Takako testily. "That's what I did this weekend."

She slams her hands on your table and shouts, "What do you mean you got shikai!?"

...You're not going to be able to finish your book, are you? You mark your page, midway through the chapter on seireitei's simplified legal code, and set it aside. Then you look up at the noble and lean back in your chair. "I got shikai. I figured out what my zanpakuto wanted me to do and did it, so now Zangetsu and I understand each other, and I can release my sword. I've been explaining this to different people all day."

"But..." She growls as her hands grasp at the air. "It only took you a month? What's next, bankai before Christmas?"

Less than two weeks, you don't say, because you aren't totally hopeless. You also don't reassure her, though, because you've had a long day full of repeating yourself to one person after the other. "I was actually wondering how you reduce the size of your zanpakuto. I'm trying to be a bit more comfortable walking around."

The thin girl turns and walks away, pulling her hair with both hands. After she leaves, she pokes her head back around the door. "Just- pull your spiritual pressure into you and keep it there!"

"That's just what Kukako told me." You grumble, and remember what else she told you.

---

"That's it." The Shiba clan head says. "That's what Isshin's shikai did. You don't hold back well, kid."

"You told me to show you what I had."

The underground training room is scarred, a massive trench cut down its middle. The wisps of spiritual power left over from the attack that caused it still linger on your sword's blade. It's an overlarge knife now in truth, the blade angled like something used to gut or fillet meat, black all over except for a bright angled edge. The handle lacks a real hilt, instead just being steel wrapped in cloth.

Kukaku's voice is soft, speculative. She looks at you with an expression that's much the same. "So... you're his kid. He really did run off to the human world and have a kid."

"Three kids." You remind her.

"Yeah. You said you have sisters?"

You nod. "Yuzu and Karin. I passed your test, right? You know I'm not lying. How soon can I send a message to them?"

The older woman keeps staring down into the chasm you caused, but then she glances at you. "It'll be another month."

"You can't talk to this friend of yours sooner?" You ask. "Send her a hell butterfly, call her on your phone?"

"If she even has a number, it's so unlisted that not even I was told." Kukaku says. "No, I have to call I guy I know in the Gotei Thirteen who can send a certain signal that'll let her know that I need to talk, but the drops don't get checked every day, and then she'll have to come into soul society with a returning patrol. I've got connections, not miracles."

Slip in with a patrol? You reconsider insisting on a faster time. Patrols into the living world enter and exit through regulated portals, you remember. Just who does Kukaku expect to carry your message, a ninja? Actually, that seems fairly likely.

But still -a month. That seems like it might as well be the year or more you'll have to wait to see them in person!

"I guess I can work with that." You say as you will Zangetsu to leave its shikai, and return to its normal form. The sword is reluctant, like a man coming back inside after finally getting to take a walk following a storm. He follows your lead, but you frown at how long it takes.

"Feeling the urge to walk around with shikai active all the time?" Kukaku smiles as bit, as though remembering something amusing.

"My zanpakuto doesn't like being sealed like this. Zangetsu doesn't enjoy holding back." The blade in your hands vibrates until you tighten your grip to keep it still.

"Oh, keeping things close to your chest?"

"I'm not going to hide what I'm doing, but I'm not a bragging guy either. I'll answer, if someone asks."

Kukaku's mood shifts at that. She rolls her shoulders and draws her own zanpakuto, the plain blade held easily in her one hand. "Well then, I guess I can afford to give you some special training. If you're going loud, then you need to go loud."

"I'm not going loud. My dad's loud, not me!" You protest, but your cousin brushes aside your words.

"Ichigo... false modesty looks stupid on you. Once a single person finds out that some fresh academy student figured out shikai in less than a month everyone will know before the week is out. Now get that shield you mentioned up, and I'll get warmed up. We've got a lot to cover today."

You center yourself and chant the incantation. It takes ten, maybe even fifteen seconds, but the blue circle of light takes its place on your arm.

"One last thing." Kukaku says. "I'm going to have some fun the next time you come over here for training, so today's your last day on easy mode."

"Sure." You grin cockily. "I can take whatever you've got, auntie."

"I'm your cousin, brat!"

---

The two of you outlined a few ideas, possibilities for how to handle suddenly being the center of far more attention than a normally talented soul reaper in training. Previously you were pretty much immune to pressure by virtue of being Takako's friend. As a noble she has certain expectations of 'not being meddled with', and as a minor noble nobody really cared about what she was doing.

Now, though... nobody's gotten shikai so fast. Even though you know that you still have a long way to go before Zangetsu is going to stop giving you grief whenever you sit down and meditate, that's still an impressive accomplishment. People are going to want to meet you, to talk and feel you out.

It feels like drama to you. Your dad has a friend who works at the big hospital, and every now and then he brings up some secondhand story of office politics, somebody who's on somebody else's bad side getting sidelined, or ignored in favor of a friend. He usually ends the story with "And that's the second reason why I work from home, after-" and ends it with something embarrassing.

The first option to insulate yourself from having people 'request' to eat with you, or take up your time with 'quick words' or 'tea' would be to use your existing link with Takako's family, the Omaedas. One of them is a vice captain, after all, and after a while people would just dismiss you as a known, if unusual, quantity under the section of people grouped up with that family.

Kukaku mentioned that you'd probably meet with the captain of the second division, Soi Fon, at least once. She might offer you a seated position, guaranteed, in exchange for committing yourself to her division, but she wouldn't make it contingent on her assistance. Soul reapers take the long view, usually. You'd... probably need to get a better offer from another division to decline hers without upset feelings.

Alternately, and this was your suggestion, you could just ignore things as best you can and forge through the requests that aren't actually requests to the best of your ability. It would be unsteady, but you think you can handle it. It'd definitely be a bother at first, but once people got to know what you cared about and what you don't most of the trouble should go away.

Unless, that is, you do something to re-ignite the interest in you, but what are the odds of that?

The last option, the one Kukaku mentioned just as you were walking out the door, is that you could change your family name to Shiba. It would feel wrong at first, but... if your dad was a Shiba, then aren't you one anyway?

"We aren't banished." She said, touching her sheathed zanpakuto. "We're just... not around, and kind of disgraced. Coming in as the next big Shiba would be unusual, but we're an unusual family. People are kind of used to it!"

It's just a name, but it could be a useful name, a name with weight behind it. It's almost funny, how much of what you've done recently depends on names.

Choose one.
[] Go up the ladder with the Omaeda connection
[] Deal with things on your own as best you can
[] Accept Kukaku's offer and take the Shiba name