Jun loved teaching assignments, and that was no secret in the Gotei 13. Even if he hadn't found an interesting target, he would take a teaching assignment every three to five years.
Whenever Jun took a teaching assignment, he returned to his position as head of the Journal Hall. After Jun graduated, practically every student who attended the Shin'ō Academy learned about the Journal Hall.
That was because the Journal Hall was the favorite place of Jun Shimizu, the hero of Soul Society and the most gifted student in the history of the Shin'ō Academy.
Jun had also organized the Journal Hall, and it had indeed attracted quite a few people, who found what they needed among the useful and interesting journals.
Over the years, the Journal Hall had acquired more categories. The useful section, for instance, had been divided into insights on Kidō, swordsmanship, and Hakuda. Of course, that was the main section that had been organized; nobody paid much attention to the other categories.
Every time Jun came here, his job was to sort the journals left behind by new graduates. Nobody else liked doing it; only Jun had the leisure.
It was always like this when Jun returned to the academy, but quite a few students came to him seeking advice. What was he to do? After thinking it over, Jun put a sign outside the Journal Hall.
"If you have a question, please write it on a slip of paper."
The sign and Jun's way of doing things gradually became a distinctive sight at the Shin'ō Academy. Jun sorted journals inside the Journal Hall while many students read below. From time to time, a few students would come in, respectfully line up before Jun, and present their slips of paper one by one.
Jun opened each slip and used the communication Bakudō Tenteikūra to advise the student on their question. If they still had questions, they could write another slip or take out additional slips to elaborate. But if there was a line, anyone writing a new slip had to go back to the end and start over.
This time was no different. Jun once again began his work at the Journal Hall.
At the Shin'ō Academy's Zanjutsu Training Ground, in a corner on the south side, Kōga Tatara was fighting one against three.
The kid's swordsmanship was excellent, and he didn't fall behind in the slightest against three opponents. In truth, fighting outnumbered was more a test of positioning and seizing opportunities. You couldn't let yourself get surrounded, unless your strength completely overwhelmed your opponents.
In Kōga Tatara's current fight, all four were at the same level of strength. The kid darted and dodged around the battlefield, constantly manipulating the other three's positions and taking advantage of their poor coordination to launch his attacks. After nearly fifteen minutes, Kōga had turned the fight into a one-on-one.
"I give up!" Kōga's opponent realized he had no chance of winning and simply sat down on the ground, refusing to continue.
"You guys really aren't improving at all~"
Kōga went over and pulled him up. All three were underlings he had taken on after enrolling. Kōga Tatara was a gifted child with a fairly cheerful personality, but he tended to get a little full of himself. People like that were often disliked at school, but they also had admirers, and these three were his.
Kōga quite liked being looked up to, and the boy had a sense of responsibility, so he became the three underlings' coach and devoted himself wholeheartedly to training them.
Unfortunately, during their training, Kōga kept finding that the three never made much progress, and were improving less and less. Whether it was Zanjutsu, Hakuda, or Kidō, it was always one against three. At first it had been somewhat difficult, but the more they trained, the easier Kōga found it. It was truly frustrating.
The three hurried to apologize, which only made Kōga more depressed. Of course, he wouldn't tell his underlings about his frustration and irritation, so what he showed them instead was a boy's characteristic temper.
"Get up! Again!"
"Yes!"
Fortunately, the pressures of survival unique to Soul Society made the children at the Shin'ō Academy especially resilient, particularly those from Rukongai. No matter how bad Kōga's temper got, his three underlings endured it without complaint and could handle it just fine.
And so the morning's training ended amid chasing, fighting, and cursing. Kōga had beaten the three of them up several times, yet he had also swallowed plenty of anger himself. What kind of fate was that?
At lunch, Kōga ate alone. His three underlings were very familiar with the sight of him being ready to explode with anger, so they could only huddle obediently a short distance away.
But it wasn't that the three didn't want to get stronger. Who wanted to be weak? No one would want that forever, so the three quietly put their heads together and whispered.
But they overlooked how closely Kōga was watching them.
"What are you three talking about!?"
"Uh, nothing."
"Huh!?"
"Well..."
"Spit it out! Men shouldn't dither like that!!"
"We want to go to the Journal Hall and ask Instructor Shimizu for advice. We think he might know how to make us stronger."
That completely set Kōga off. For some reason, Kōga had a particularly poor impression of Jun. Perhaps his keen senses had picked up on Jun's ill intentions toward him.
"Why go to him!? Haven't I trained you enough!? Damn it! You three, get lost! Go find that Shimizu!!"
After that tirade, Kōga ran off first, leaving the three looking at one another.
"What do we do? Kōga's angry again."
"What do you mean, what do we do? His temper's been getting worse lately."
"Why? We've worked so hard, so why does he still have to yell at us like that?"
As they talked, the youngest of them even started crying. It really hadn't been easy, and seeing this stirred the leader of the three underlings.
"Don't cry. Let's go find Instructor Shimizu. He's the best instructor! He can definitely make us stronger!"
"Yeah, that's right. Let's go find him!"
"Yeah~"
The three acted at once, jogging all the way to the Journal Hall. After rushing in, they found it was unusually quiet and immediately lost some of their nerve.
They saw Jun and the long line in front of him, leaving them bewildered again. Fortunately, a student who was reading a journal helped them, pulling the three of them outside.
"Is this your first time here?"
"Yes~"
"Look at this." He pointed to the sign. "Quiet talking isn't forbidden inside the Journal Hall, but it's better not to speak when asking questions. There's paper and a pen by the entrance. Think about what you want to ask, write it on a slip, and hand it in. Go on."
"Thank you, senior~"
The student who had helped them went straight back to his journal. The three boys returned to the Journal Hall and found the paper and pen by the entrance. There were also tables and chairs where they could write their slips. They fussed over them for quite a while before finally finishing three little slips, then hurried to join the line.
The three watched the strange scene. Someone handed over a slip, Instructor Shimizu read it, and then he went back to reading journals. The person who had handed over the slip seemed to be listening to something. After some time, that person respectfully bowed and thanked him, and the next person stepped up.
The three were utterly baffled. It looked like a magic trick. They had no idea what was happening or how it was done. It was amazing.
Jun solved problems quite quickly. In fact, after teaching for a long time, he had developed standard answers for many questions. That wasn't really suited to teaching students according to their individual aptitudes, but he also had to consider whether the material was good enough to be carefully carved. If it wasn't good material, an assembly line was enough. And rotten wood—rotten wood couldn't be carved.
After more than a century, the students' questions hadn't changed much. After all, their abilities were what they were, and the level they could reach was only so high. If you had a mathematics PhD solve supposedly difficult middle-school problems, at first they might occasionally be confused for some inexplicable reason, but after doing enough of them, child's play was still child's play.
Thus, despite how long the line looked, it soon reached the three boys. Their leader gathered his courage and placed his slip in front of Jun. Jun opened it and froze for a moment.
"May I ask how I can get stronger?"
Jun glanced at the child. He was around thirteen or fourteen and looked a little timid. Jun also saw the two children behind him, who looked even more timid.
"Are you three together?"
"Huh?" The leader was astonished. He didn't know where the voice that had appeared directly in his head had come from.
"I'm the one speaking. Are you three together? Don't be startled. If you are, nod."
Only then did the leader look back at Jun and nod.
"Mm, good boy. Take your little brothers and wait to the side for a while. Have a look at the journals. Your question is too general for me to answer directly, so wait for me a bit."
What else could the three children say? The leader took the other two aside and, following Jun's instructions, nervously picked a few books at random from the journal shelves. Then they split their attention between the journals and Jun. How could they find anything useful like that? They were really just sneaking peeks at Jun.
Jun knew perfectly well that the three children were watching him. While dealing with the other students' questions, he occasionally found a moment to smile at them. This made the three lower their guard, and slowly, the youngest finally became absorbed in the joke journal he had found.
At around two in the afternoon, Jun finished answering that batch of questions and finally had time for the three children. In the past century or more, this wasn't the first time Jun had encountered children like them. It was perfectly normal.
"Come on, you three. Follow me outside."
The three immediately tensed up again. Who knew what they were afraid of? Their weakness and lack of confidence made them afraid of everything and all the unknown.
Jun took them to the place he knew best, the corner where he had practiced back then. He sat cross-legged on the ground, pointed to the space in front of him, and said,
"Come, sit."
"Ah! You can talk!" the leader exclaimed. Then he realized how rash his words were and hurriedly apologized. "I'm terribly sorry!!"
"Hahaha~ What an amusing child. It's all right, sit down. Don't tell me you think it's dirty?"
The three sat down at once. Jun took out the leader's slip and shook it. "You~ and you two as well, don't tell me you have the same question?"
The other two showed him their slips too. They were exactly the same. Jun didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You three, how long have you been enrolled?"
"Four years~"
"One year~" the other two said in unison.
"Is that so? Don't you have a senior looking after you?"
"Uh..."
"No."
"Yes~ but he's not a senior."
Jun wasn't very familiar with the boys' side of things, ahem. Back then, Jun had three older girls, and one of them had even become his lover. He really didn't know what went on in the boys' dormitory, but he imagined that no boy would look after little brats.
"Getting stronger? That's a very interesting question. How strong do you three want to get? Have you thought about it?"
"Uh..." all three said.
"Actually~ what you need to do now is train. Wasn't that all covered in the introductory lecture when you enrolled? Don't tell me you weren't listening?"
"No! We listened," the leader hurriedly explained. The other two nodded eagerly as well.
Jun was surprised. "Then why? When you train hard, don't you feel yourselves getting stronger?"
"Uh, well, I don't know either."
"Mm, I just feel like I'm getting weaker and weaker."
"Mm~~ even though~~ we worked so hard~, really, really~~ hard." The youngest started crying again, looking terribly aggrieved.
Jun finally realized something was wrong. No matter who they were, as long as they were at the Shin'ō Academy, in an environment where everyone trained, and with their obedient personalities, they should have been progressing well. Even with poor aptitude, they should have been able to feel themselves getting stronger bit by bit, rather than becoming so dejected.
Jun picked out the key information from their earlier conversation. "That classmate who's been looking after you, right? Where is he?"
Coincidentally, at that very moment, a boy's voice rang out.
"What are you three doing here!? Do you know how long I've been looking for you!? Damn it!!"
Jun looked at the boy, and the boy saw Jun too.
"Oh~~~"
"Uh..."