After their last conversation, Jun and Aizen's relationship returned to normal, as though Aizen had never said those things and Jun had never heard them. Why? Because they both knew there was currently no way to change anything. Whether in terms of strength or anything else, they couldn't even stir up trouble, so why think about all that other nonsense?
Both were practical people, so naturally they wouldn't waste energy on something useless. They kept their bitterness and resentment bottled up, but life had to go on. They couldn't bring their emotions into their lives and work. That was an adult man's responsibility!
The days went by, until one day Yuzu said at the dinner table, "Me? I've signed up for this year's graduation exam."
The table suddenly went still. A few seconds later, everyone resumed eating and drinking as though nothing had happened, but no one spoke. The meal was soon over.
They looked at one another, but there was nothing to say. The thought of parting hurt, but Yuzuki Samidare had already been at the academy for thirty-six years. It was time for her to work toward her future, so her graduation was bound to come sooner or later. It wasn't unexpected, just a little sudden.
Nana Onibe was the first to act. The girl threw herself into Yuzuki's arms and stayed there. Then Jun and Isuzu exchanged a look and said:
"Congratulations, Yuzuki."
"Take care, Yuzuki."
"What's with you all?" Yuzuki forced a smile. "When you act like this, I don't even know what to do! Ahh..."
"So what should we do? Throw you a farewell party?"
"Jun! Do you have a death wish!?"
Still, Jun had made himself the target and gotten everyone laughing. The mood improved considerably afterward. Everyone had seen this coming, so once the atmosphere lightened, they were able to accept it.
Nana and Isuzu started clearing the table together. Yuzuki watched them with a smile in her heart, then got up to help. "This is the first time you two have ever volunteered to do this. Once I'm gone, I'm leaving Jun in your care. Take good care of him, okay?"
"Don't worry. With Jun the way he is, how could we possibly fail to take care of him? Who knows who'll end up looking after whom?" Nana looked thoroughly exasperated.
"Nana," Yuzuki said, pretending to be angry.
"Hee hee hee." Isuzu enjoyed the show as usual.
Jun watched the three girls as they went about their usual routine, committing the moment to memory. These were their last ordinary days together, and every glimpse meant one fewer remained.
In the days that followed, Jun went to see Aizen and told him he would be spending some time with Yuzuki. Naturally, Aizen didn't object. Jun asked whether Aizen had any plans to graduate, and Aizen held up both hands and indicated sixty. Jun chuckled, and the two parted ways.
Then all four dormmates gathered and went sightseeing around the academy. Jun noticed quite a few others doing the same, though not in groups as large as theirs. Many were in twos and threes, and some of the men and women might have been couples.
During their outings, Jun realized there were no cameras, which was a great pity. So how could they preserve these scenes? Jun saw the three girls take out paper and pens, and one journal entry after another appeared. Jun hadn't brought any paper or a pen, and the three girls laughed at him for it. After returning to the dorm, he wrote his own entries too.
Next, they helped Yuzuki sort through her belongings, only to discover, sadly, that there was nothing to sort apart from her journals. Yuzuki came from Rukongai. She had no parents and owned next to nothing, and almost everything she had acquired had been issued by the academy, so she really didn't have much.
"These journals contain my study notes." Yuzuki had wanted to give them to Jun, but after about a year together, she knew his abilities, so she handed everything over in one pile. "Have a look whenever you like. If there's anything useful, you might as well keep it."
Jun accepted them all. "Yeah, I will."
"Mm..." Yuzuki wasn't very confident. "Don't throw them all away, okay?"
"I won't. I'll put them in my room."
"Wow! Isn't that a little too...?"
"Yeah."
"Suit yourself."
After giving Jun all her journals, Yuzuki slept with her two younger sisters for another night. The next morning, after their final breakfast together, the four walked the last stretch of road and saw Yuzuki off at the examination hall. Anyone not taking the exam was barred from entering, so the other three stopped.
Jun watched Yuzuki walk into the examination hall until she disappeared from sight. Only then did he return with the other two girls. They barely spoke along the way.
What Jun didn't know, however, was that
this was the last time he would ever see Yuzuki.
After Yuzu graduated, Jun's life didn't change much. If anything, it grew more peaceful. After all, they had lived together for over a year, and everything had settled into a routine.
Jun had looked over the new students admitted that year and found, regrettably, that none of them were people he had seen in the story.
In his Kidō training, Jun finally ran into some difficulties after reaching number thirty. Beyond that point, the paths used to channel Reishi grew more complicated, requiring it to flow along intricate routes. They felt somewhat like meridians: invisible and intangible, yet undeniably real. If he took a wrong turn, he couldn't release the spell.
Jun also discovered that the incantations really did offer some help when casting Kidō. Setting aside the inexplicable increase in power, the spoken words somehow fell into rhythm with the flow of Reishi, improving his feel for controlling it. It was rather remarkable.
It also became difficult to succeed on the first try without Incantation Abandonment, so Jun's training slowed down. Even so, what he called slow would have been incredibly fast for anyone else. Jun had taken only a year to reach number thirty, whereas it generally took around ten.
So Jun slowed his training in this area. There was no helping it. Bakudō above number thirty was manageable, but no matter how much he reduced a Hadō spell's power, he couldn't bring it down very far without being proficient. In other words, he couldn't hide its power. But Jun certainly wasn't going to the training grounds.
For one thing, people would gather to watch him there. For another, if he went and cast Hadō above number thirty, it wouldn't be as simple as people watching.
And so Jun's life as the Journal Hall's curator officially began. His first order of business was to read through all of Yuzu's journals. In the end, he regretted to say that there really was nothing useful in them, so he picked one at random as a keepsake and put the rest with the useless ones.
As curator, he couldn't be quite so careless, so he made use of the boxes and, during another graduation season, spoke to the academy and had some bookshelves made. The academy had no objections. Someone was looking after the place for free, and they were only a few shelves, so of course they agreed.
So yes, another graduation season had come around. Three years passed just like that, and then, in Jun's seventh year at the academy, Nana Onibe graduated. Her dream of joining the Second Division still hadn't come true; she failed its background check and ended up joining the Tenth Division. Her Hakuda and Zanjutsu really were excellent, so the Kidō requirements were lowered.
Incidentally, Nana Onibe had been Jun's Hakuda and Zanjutsu practice partner over those years. By the time she graduated, Jun was about as skilled as she was: high-level in the Hakuda curriculum, and the same in Zanjutsu. His Bakudō had reached number forty-seven, while his Hadō training had consisted entirely of thinking things through in his head. He still hadn't tested any of it, so it remained at thirty.
After Nana Onibe graduated, Jun and Isuzu Takasugi were the only ones left in the fourth women's dormitory. The fifth dormitory had opened because more girls were enrolling, but no new female students were assigned to the fourth. The reason was truly strange. Jun wondered whether the academy intended to let him go on living in the women's dormitory indefinitely.
That wasn't a problem for Jun, though. He wasn't the one losing out by living in the women's dormitory. Besides, Isuzu had no objections either. As long as everyone was happy, that was enough.
Time continued to pass. Jun still practiced Kidō behind the Journal Hall, while Aizen replaced Nana as his Hakuda and Zanjutsu partner. Speaking of which, a word about Zanpakuto.
At Shin'ō Academy, students were issued a sword after completing their Reishi Quality training, but this sword was not a Zanpakuto. Anyone who had read the original story's Thousand-Year War arc would have encountered Ōetsu Nimaiya, the creator of the Zanpakuto. He was the one who created the current Zanpakuto system in Soul Society: Asauchi, Shikai, and release.
The sword students received at the academy was at the stage before an Asauchi: a sword blank. Throughout their time at the academy, students had only this one sword. Everything in Soul Society was made of Reishi, and swords were no exception. A sword would sustain some damage in battle, and when that happened, the student had to repair it with their own Reishi.
They continued repairing their swords with their own Reishi until they graduated and successfully became Soul Reapers. Then they had to turn in their sword blanks, and after some time, a genuine Zanpakuto—an Asauchi—would be delivered to them. Once they had an Asauchi, they were true Soul Reapers.
Jun and Isuzu got along without any unpleasantness, but both had quiet personalities, so things were no longer as lively as when Yuzuki and Nana had been there. That didn't mean the two were on bad terms, though.
Even so, because they each went about their own activities, they did grow somewhat distant in their daily lives and spoke very little. On top of that, Jun no longer needed guidance in Kidō, so...
As Jun saw it, he was comfortable with this arrangement, and there was nothing wrong with it. They ate breakfast together every day and occasionally had dinner together too, chatting at the table about interesting things that had happened that day. It was quite nice.
What Jun didn't know, though, was that when a girl lived with a boy, she would unconsciously lean on him for a sense of security. Likewise, the boy would seek a sense of reassurance. It was really the same for both. But there was nothing to be done if no one of the opposite sex was around.
Still, there was nothing between them, so Jun paid it no mind. She was his senior and he was her junior, and the age gap between them was considerable. Nothing could happen, right? And so, that was how the problem arose.
"Jun!"
"Huh?" Jun was bewildered when he heard the voice. He still had the Bakudō he had just cast, number fifty-one: Eye's Prohibition, in his hand. He turned and saw Isuzu's astonished face, and his expression matched hers. "How did you get here?"
"I..." Isuzu was frightened. According to what Jun had told her about his Kidō training, he had only reached number thirty-one. That was already beyond Isuzu's expectations, but now it seemed Jun had hidden far too much. Isuzu didn't know how she should face him, and instinctively felt afraid.
Jun finally noticed Isuzu's fear and dismissed the Bakudō in his hand. He smiled. "Sorry I scared you. I only kept the whole truth from you because that would have scared you too. Uh, right?"
"Is that so?"
"As you can see, you're already afraid."
"I..." Isuzu took another look at herself, but didn't know what to do. "Sorry, Jun. I don't know. I'm still afraid."
"You don't have to apologize. If anyone should apologize, it's me. I'm Jun, remember? I'm your little brother, and that won't change! Come on, let's go home. We can talk there."
They soon returned to the dormitory, maintaining a distance of about ten meters the whole way. Jun noticed that whenever he showed any intention of drawing closer, Isuzu sped up, so he stopped trying to catch up.
Once they reached the dormitory, there was nowhere left to retreat. After Isuzu collected herself, the two finally sat down for a face-to-face talk.
"Why did you hide it? You've been deceiving us about your strength from the start—Yuzuki, Nana, and me. Haven't you? You hid how much of a genius you were from the very beginning. Why?"
Jun shrugged. "Sorry, but I didn't want a reputation as a genius. Even though I've already got that reputation now, I know I'm even more of a genius than people out there think. What they believe now is enough. I need to have a few trump cards."
"But we—"
Jun cut Isuzu off. "Well, wasn't it Yuzuki who spread word of my current reputation?"
"Uh..." Isuzu had nothing to say.
Jun shrugged. "That's why I had no choice. I can't fault Yuzuki for how she looked after me, but she cares too much about honor. She wanted to give me the best reputation possible, but that kind of concern wasn't what I needed, so this was all I could do."
"All right, I understand."
"Thanks for understanding."
"Then I promise I won't tell anyone. Can you tell me about your training now?"
"As you saw, my Bakudō has reached fifty-one. My Hadō is still at thirty."
"Why is there such a big gap?"
"Hadō training makes too much of a commotion. I can't hide it, so I'm only practicing Bakudō for now."
"I see." Isuzu let down her guard a little.
Jun then asked, "How did you get past the warning measures I set up and get so close to me?"
"Well..." Isuzu explained what she had done.
As mentioned before, Isuzu was very talented in Kidō. Though nowhere near Aizen or Jun, she could have joined the Kidō Corps with ease, and with some effort, even the Research and Development Institute was within reach. That was an exceptionally high level.
She had discovered the warning measures Jun had set up, then used Bakudō number twenty-nine, Shadow Projection, which projected an image at a chosen location.
Then she used Bakudō number twenty-six, Kyokkō, to turn invisible.
The third step was Bakudō number sixty-seven, Body Replacement, which swapped the caster's position with a target's. If the target's Reiatsu was extremely high, however, the spell was virtually impossible to pull off. But Isuzu had swapped places with her own projected image, so success was guaranteed.
That was how she got inside the perimeter. Jun's warning measures were also very simple: just a few concealed Reishi threads that would alert him if touched. Isuzu had perfectly bypassed every one of them, and she had approached while invisible.
"Wow! Sis, weren't you being a little too careful!?"
"Hee hee. If I hadn't been careful, I wouldn't have seen the real you."
Jun scratched his head. "The real me? Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration?"
"No!" Isuzu's eyes widened, and she was perfectly serious. "Jun, it was wrong of you to hide things from your sisters!"
"Yes, yes. I'm terribly sorry."
"So no more hiding things from me! Understand?"
"Yes!"
"Then if you have any questions about your training, you can ask me too, though I might not be able to give you much guidance."
"How could that be? It would be an honor to receive your guidance." As Jun said this, it suddenly occurred to him that Isuzu had already trained past number sixty, and might even know spells in the seventies. So he asked, "Do you know how to hide spiritual power fluctuations?"
"There is a way, but..."
"Is there a problem?"
"Um, Bakudō number seventy-three, Tōzanshō, can do it."
"Seventy-three?"
Isuzu nodded, looking rather embarrassed. Jun was already speechless, but after glancing at her, an idea suddenly occurred to him. "Um! Do you know number seventy-three?"
"Huh? Yes, I do."
Jun stepped forward and took both her hands, his eyes shining. "Please! Help me with my Kidō training! I'm begging you!"
"Huh? Huuuh!?"
"Pleeease!!"
Jun was just short of dropping to his knees before her. After a brief hesitation, Isuzu finally made her choice.
"Th-then, all right."
"Ha ha! You're the best!"