| Enomoto-sensei's Wild Day Out | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 2 2010, 05:19 PM (38 Views) | |
| anon | Feb 2 2010, 05:19 PM Post #1 |
 
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This was originally intended as a kind of self-RP, just for fun, then became an introduction to how Bleach deals with death, passing on, and organising dead spirits, and now is kinda just a flop. I enjoyed writing it so far but my enthusiasm has waned dramatically since starting it. I doubt I'll continue it, so I'm closing it for now. "Enomoto sensei! Kan-kun is teasing me!" "Enomoto sensei!" "Ënomoto sensei, what's that?" "Ënomoto sensei! Can we stop? I need a pee!" "Ënomoto sensei!" "Ënomoto sensei!" "Enomoto sensei! Are we there yet?" Not for the first time, Enomoto Shinji wondered why he had ever thought teaching could be the profession for him. Okay, he liked kids. Loved them. They were beautiful, and, in his opinion, they were the key to the future of the nation. But, oh, didn't they annoy him?!? Shinji was a bachelor. One reason, he supposed, that he loved kids. At the age of twenty four he considered himself already an old man, and his heart ached that he hadn't found a nice girl to settle down and begin a family with. He wasn't bad looking - so he often thought, tilting his head this way and the other to view the curve of his throat and the bulge of his Adam's Apple - and he was intelligent. Although sports had never been his thing, he wasn't exactly weak, or gangly. Five feet and six inches tall. Average for a Japanese man. Quite broad, he supposed, in the shoulder, with a slight pot belly that didn't look too bad when he sucked it in. He always dressed smartly, and always made sure his hair was cut in a complimenting - short, spiky, with curtains - style, and that his glasses - designers - and shoes - black, sleek, square-toed - and shirts - silk as a rule - were always in fashion. Shinji never carried less than ten thousand yen on his person, and was generous, thoughtful, flattering, and overall a good man. So why was he single? He wasn't entirely sure, nor did he think he ever would be. But he was sure that because he was single he loved kids, and through that, and some hitherto undiscovered streak of masochism in himself, he had taken on this job as a punishment. "Quiet down!" he yelled. The bus-load of kids remained noisy. "Ënomoto sensei!" "Enomoto sensei, Kan-kun's pulling my hair!" "I said QUIET!" he screamed. The force of his voice cut through the teenage chatter and, suddenly, all at once, every single eye in the class was staring at him. He breathed out slowly, calming himself. Class trips always stressed him out. "I don't want to hear any more bad behaviour from you all. We're here to have fun, but we're also representatives of our school and our principal. In future, it'll be you guys that younger kids look up to when thinking of coming to Orange Star High. Do you understand me?" "Yes, Enomoto sensei," was the chorus. "I said," he shouted, "do you understand me?" "Yes, Enomoto sensei," was the second chorus, this time louder. "Good!" Shinji sat down. The class trip was from Tokyo, their home town, to Osaka, five hundred kilometres distant. He'd never had such a long trip with his students. It was exhausting him. Wearing him down. Killing him slowly, he was sure. He tried to put a positive spin on things. In Tokyo he had a one-bedroom flat costing him far too much to live in. He lived alone. He had little furniture, and what he had was cheap, flat-packed stuff. He had little food in the fridge, mostly microwave meals, cheap and nasty. There were some times he thought he'd prefer eating dogfood. In comparison to that, here, he was being fed regularly, nicely, had free transport, was experiencing a variety of accommodations over a series of nights, and had plenty of company. Not to mention he was warm, which was better than could be said for his little freezer-section in Tokyo. Yes, this trip should have felt great to him. But for some reason it didn't. Shinji raised his eyes from his lap, where he didn't realise he'd been staring, and cast them out of the window. Just in time to see another bus heading towards him. It was only a metre away when he saw it and, a split-second later, he saw it no more. Enomoto Shinji didn't even have time to panic before he died, smashed against the opposite wall of his transport, pulped into a red mass before his nerves could even register pain. |
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| anon | Feb 3 2010, 10:09 AM Post #2 |
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Shinji was being shaken by the shoulder. That was what woke him from a deep and dreamless sleep. He sat up, opening his eyes, and was surprised to find he didn't yawn. Some mornings he yawned so much he felt the top of his head beginning to fall off. "Ënomoto sensei, thank goodness!" "What? Mariko?" He was quite surprised to see that the person shaking him was Tsuruga Mariko, one of his students. She was fifteen years old and wore her jet-black hair in ponytails at the back of her head. Currently her eyes, big, brown, soulful, were filled with fear and relief. "Come on, sensei," Mariko went on, pulling at his shirt. "It's almost our turn." "Our turn? Our turn for what?" She didn't answer him, and her tugging was becoming excessive, so he stood, fearing for the condition of his shirt if she should keep at it. Shinji was much taller than Mariko, who had filled his view when he was on the ground, but standing up he could see over her head. His other students were gathered around them. "What in the world are you wearing?" he asked. Every student's high school uniform was gone. In its place the boys wore light brown, sleeveless jackets over plain white kimono, tied at the waist with a black sash. The girls were more flamboyant - better colours, and their kimono actually had patterns, mostly flowers - but the material was no better than that of the boys'. And they all wore cheap, rough-looking sandals instead of their shiny black shoes. Even more oddly, in place of their mobile phones, iPods, headphones, Nintendo's, PSP's, and so on, they each now carried a single piece of black slate and, in the other hand, a box full of white sticks that Shinji guessed would be chalk. "Where are your uniforms?" he asked, exasperated. "Is this some kind of prank?" The largest boy, Enomoto Takeshi (no relation), raised a hand and pointed a finger at him. "If it's a prank, why have you joined in? We were dressed like this when we woke up, is all." Shinji looked down at himself and let out a gasp of surprise. Someone had stolen his clothing! His designer shirt, gone! His well-creased black trousers and leather belt, gone! His glasses - he reached up, took them off, examined them - gone! In his hands he held a pair of rectangular lenses fixed with wire frame, very cheaply, very shoddily done. They looked as if they'd fall apart on his nose. He wore the same kind of sandals as the others and the same kind of clothing, except his kimono was a dark blue and his jacket was black. "Enomoto sensei," said Mariko, tugging again on his sleeve. She wasn't looking at him, or at her classmates, but down the street. Shinji realised they were actually in a street, as opposed to... as opposed to... where had they been? He was stunned to find that his memory, usually flawless, failed him. He remembered they'd been on a class trip, travelling from place to place, but where? He couldn't remember. For how long? Not a clue. Even their point of origin was beyond his grasp. "Looks like it's our turn," said Takeshi. Shinji asked him; "Our turn to what?" "Äsk that guy," Takeshi replied. Shinji made a mental note to discuss the matter of manners with the boy later on. Walking towards them was a tall woman dressed in a black uniform. At her waist was a sword. Her clothes were not tat, like theirs. Her sash alone probably cost more than the entire wardrobe of the entire class, some thirty two pupils, and their teacher. Her hair was black and worn up in a bun, Chinese style, and her eyes were blue, very cold blue, and fixed on him. Shinji only had eyes for her sword. He couldn't appreciate her stark beauty because his heart was hammering in his chest, his stomach turning to bile, at the thought of why this dangerous looking woman was carrying a sword so intently towards them. Without quite realising what he was doing, Shinji stepped in front of the kids. What the hell was going on? |
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| anon | Feb 6 2010, 10:39 AM Post #3 |
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Trembling, Shinji nevertheless stood his ground and the woman in black walked up to him, her eyes fixed on his. She wasn't smiling, though he thought her face might be suited to a smile, but her hands were nowhere near the hilt of her sword. Stood in front of him he realised his first impression of her height was inaccurate. She was at least half a foot taller than he was, and broader in the shoulders. "Your name?" she barked. "Enomoto Shinji," he answered immediately. "This is class 2-F." Her pale blue eyes broke their stare for a second as she scanned the kids. Most of them were gaping at her, either because of her sheer size, or her dated clothes, or her sword. They were standing behind Takeshi, who had stepped forward to stand by his teacher at some point without Shinji noticing. "And who are you?" Takeshi asked the woman. She stared at him. Then she hit him, backhanded, across the cheek, sending him sprawling in the dust. Shinji froze, unable to process what had just happened, his voice locked in his throat. Takeshi pushed himself up and spat blood at her. "Screw you!" he cried, getting to his feet. The woman raised her hand again but this time Shinji reacted in time, catching her wrist in a karate move he'd practiced so many times as a teen that it was almost second nature. The grab didn't put any pressure on her bones - yet - but gave him a secure hold of her and a powerful control over her movements. At least, that was the theory. A second after their skin touched Shinji was lying on his back, the centre of his face a haze of pain, tasting metal in his mouth. The woman, tall and severe and quite evidently irritated, stood over him, her sword now drawn, holding the tip of the blade to his throat. He felt his eyes widen involuntarily and his bladder go weak. "Try that again," she told him, "please. I'm a member of eleventh division, you idiot. I can't be beaten by an unarmed bloody peasant and a bunch of kids." She removed her sword and sheathed it, passing a stony stare over everyone in range. "Now get up." Shinji did so, wiping blood from his broken nose. "Who are you?" "Arakaki," she answered. "Now get these kids back in line before I lose my temper. Do you understand?" "Yes, Arakaki-san," Shinji bowed to her, hoping to alleviate any further aggression by showing proper respect for someone who seemed to expect it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw everyone in the class copying him but for Takeshi. "Enomoto!" he hissed. "Bow! Now!" Takeshi spared a contemptuous glance at his sensei, but his eyes were fixed on the woman as he bowed and rose again. It was clear that the boy was holding in a great deal of anger. Blood was red and wet on his chin, dripping onto his robes. Shinji prayed to a god he'd never quite believed in that the little hothead wouldn't get them all killed by his insolence, and kept a close watch on Arakaki. She nodded, her face still serious. "Get going," she barked. Shinji paused, only realising now something that she'd said a few moments ago. 'Get back into line', she'd said. What line? The street was empty but for 2-F and Arakaki. Fearing another physical outburst Shinji glanced around, trying to decide in which direction to walk. Would picking the wrong one be construed as disrespect? "Well? Why aren't you moving?" "Ärakaki-san, gomen nasai gozaimasu, but I don't know where to go," Shinji told her. Flinching at the daggers in her eyes he bowed again. Droplets of blood hit the floor and soaked into the dirt, raising his heartbeat another notch. "We were never in any line. The last I remember we were travelling, and then I woke up here, in the street, with my students." "That's impossible," she said. "You must have been shown to a line." "I don't know what to say, except that we weren't." "Uhm," a small voice interrupted. "Sensei?" It was Mariko. To Shinji's disbelief she was holding up her hand as if this were no more than a normal day in class, or some kind of field trip. "Yes?" "We were in line," she said, and pointed towards a house at the side of the street. "Över there. But Kitao told us to move." "Who is Kitao?" the woman in black asked, her voice sharp. "Is he a Shinigami?" "He's one of my students," Shinji explained. "And he can speak for himself," Kitao said, stepping forward. Kitao Madoka, to give him his full name, was a boy on par with Takeshi for height, but where Takeshi was broad and powerful with blooming youth Madoka seemed frail and gaunt. His black hair was almost a metre long, very often tied into a plait, and his face was sharp and intelligent, with a small nose and grey-green eyes. He wore thick, round spectacles. They, like Shinji's, were made of wire frame. "You are responsible for this?" Arakaki asked him. "I am." "Why did you wander away from the line?" "Arakaki-san, I'd like you to put yourself in my position for a second," he said, speaking with remarkable self-assurance for someone so young. "You wake up in a heap with your classmates and teacher. You're surrounded by strange men and women. You're visited by a rude, dangerous looking man carrying a sword, who tells you to stay put and shut up until your 'turn to be processed' comes. Frankly, you're scared, and so are your friends. What would you have done?" "I'd have listened to the instructions to stay put and shut up. Didn't the Shinigami that sent you on explain to you that this is a rough place? These streets are dangerous." Of all the things he didn't understand, one word caused Shinji to speak out, blurting the word in surprise. "Shinigami?" Arakaki turned to look at him, her eyes narrowing. "Yes. Shinigami. I'm one. The rude man was one. And the guy that brought you here was one too. Doesn't the uniform give it away?" "What do you mean," Kitao asked, "when you said 'sent us on', Arakaki-san?" "Ï mean what I say. The person who came to you on Earth and sent you here was a Shinigami." Again his head was far too full of questions. Shinji blinked and asked the one looming foremost in his brain. "Where are we, exactly?" Arakaki sighed. "That fool didn't explain things, did he?" It seemed to be a rhetorical question, but Kitao said, "No. We didn't even see the person you're talking about." "You're in the Soul Society," she told them all. "You're dead." |
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| anon | Feb 8 2010, 09:55 PM Post #4 |
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Shinji blinked. He opened his mouth to say something, forgot what it was he had meant to say, and closed it again. Again he blinked. Words rose in his throat and he parted his lips to let them loose, but all that emerged was a single, pointless question. "Dead?" "Dead," Arakaki confirmed. "Dee eee ayy dee." "But... but we can't be! We're standing talking to you!" "Doesn't matter, you're still dead," she said in a decidedly offhanded manner. She crossed her arms as if bored. "You were living mortals on Earth and you died. Now you're here, in Soul Society." So this is the afterlife? Shinji stopped himself from asking the question, suddenly realising that it was an insane one to ask. And this woman, this tall, dangerous woman, was probably just as mad. Whatever was going on here had to have a rational explanation. It had to. All that he needed to do was find someone sane to talk to, and everything would be explained, and they would go back about their business. "All right," he told her, eager not to upset her. "We're dead. Did you hear that, class? Dead. So let's thank Arakaki-san for explaining things. Come on now, thank her properly!" he urged them, indicating they should bow. "Show proper respect!" The class did so, though many were confused or bewildered by the turn of events. Shinji joined them in a final bow before beginning to back off slowly. "We'll be on our way now. Kitao, where was this line you mentioned?" he asked. If things were organised where they'd turned up that meant there had to be someone in charge, and he'd decided a person in authority would be a good person to talk to. "Next street, you say? All right, let's go then. No stragglers, now! Stick with your partners. Does everybody have everything?" There were some negative replies, but considering that none of them even had the right clothing any more he wasn't greatly surprised. Instead of stopping he ushered them on, removing them from under the still-staring eyes of the madwoman Arakaki. They entered a crowded street. Hundreds of men, women and children were standing in four lines, the beginning of which was out of sight in the distance, the end of which was obscured by the sheer number of people standing around. Almost everyone was wearing white kimono and black sashes of poor quality. The noise was immense, disorienting. Even shouting, Shinji found he could hardly hear himself speak. "All right everyone, let's stay together and not get lost! I'm going to look for someone in charge. Everything will be sorted out very soon! Remember, don't move from this spot!" That said, Shinji set off towards the front of the line. As he walked he noticed that, at a certain point, everyone in file was holding a small rectangular piece of paper. Some were looking at it bleakly, some with obvious confusion. Others looked as if they were afraid of whatever the paper contained. Ten minutes after starting off, after having walked two long streets and turned two corners, he stopped, squinting down the line to see if he could see the start yet. He couldn't. How long could a line be? How could those at the end bear to stand in an orderly fashion for all the time it must take to get to the front? Shinji decided that he'd better return to the class. On his way back he saw a black-robed man sitting at the side of the road, tucked into a small alleyway with a straw, bowl-hat pulled down over his eyes. Arakaki had called people like him 'death god'. He also carried a sword. Had he been wrong to dismiss the woman as insane and ignore her words? Should he have questioned her further on the strange situation he and his students found themselves in? He approached the man, knelt, and reached out to shake him gently by the shoulder. For the second time today he didn't see the movement that caused him pain, and he mewled in pain as the bones of his wrist ground together under the man's grip. "Don't ever touch me," the man hissed. His eyes were brown and his face was as thin and narrow as a knife-blade, handsome but for a scar that curled under his right eye. Young, with black hair and tanned skin, he somehow gave Shinji the impression that he was older than he seemed. Shinji gasped out, "I'm sorry!" and his wrist was released. "What do you want?" "I'm trying to find someone in authority," Shinji explained, standing up to put some distance between them. "I don't know what's going on and there's a madwoman with a sword wandering around hitting children and threatening people." "With a sword, you say?" "Yes. Like yours." "It would be. Was she wearing black shihakusho?" Not knowing what one of those was, Shinji pointed at the man's black robes and said, "Yes, if that's a shihakusho." After a second's thought he added, "Does that make her a Shinigami?" "It does." "And are Shinigami in authority here?" Shinji asked. "They are," the man confirmed. "I should say 'we' are." He felt his shoulders sag as his mind ran circles around a single fact. He was dead! The students were dead! They were in a place called Soul Society, and they were surrounded by people with swords, and they were all dead! The Shinigami was watching him with a raised eyebrow. "You okay?" "Not really," Shinji replied, covering his eyes. "I take it this is a shock to you." "You can say that again." "It's no big deal," the Shinigami said, standing up. "You were alive, now you're dead. You were on Earth, now you're in Heaven. At least you didn't go to Hell. Must've done something right in life. Do you have a ticket yet? Are you alone?" "I'm with my class, and no, I don't have a ticket." "Your class? You're a teacher?" "Yes. High school." "And they don't have tickets either?" "No. Not that I know of." The man stuck out his hand, which Shinji shook. "I'm Shinkuro of second division. Take me to your students and we'll get you sorted out for processing. That's where you get assigned a place to live," he added. "Not half as scary as it sounds, is it? But I guess the 'madwoman' won't have told you that." "No, she didn't," Shinji admitted, leading the way. "What division was she from?" "Eleventh." "Ah, there you go, then," Shinkuro said, chuckling. "They're a right bunch of bullies in eleventh division. Always thinking with their muscles. Is she the one that did that to your face?" Shinji's hand reflexively went to his nose, which hurt like hell at the touch, making him quickly withdraw. At least the bleeding had stopped, though, he thought, he wouldn't like to imagine what he must look like. He couldn't tell, but the entire lower half of his face was caked in drying blood, and his nose was now crooked. "She is. And she also hit one of my students, a fifteen year old boy." Shikuro shook his head sadly. "Nothing can be done about it, I'm afraid. In the grand scheme of things you guys are worth nothing, but every Shinigami is an invaluable asset. There're like... a million or more of you for every death god." "How many of you are there? And what is it you do, except manage these lines?" "About two and a half thousand of us altogether, not counting the academy students. We're a small army. Our job is to balance the number of souls travelling between Soul Society and Earth, keeping order between the spiritual and material planes. By the way, these lines are nothing. There're only four here. There're sixteen more in various locations around Rukongai." "Rukongai?" Shinji asked. "The peasant quarters. Most konpaku end up there, because only nobles - those're spirits born in Soul Society, by the way - are allowed in Seireitei unless you get special permission to go inside. Which, let me tell you, is a very, very difficult thing to get." Shinji spotted his class and subconsciously quickened his pace. "And this is what 'processing' is? Sorting dead spirits into their places in this 'Rukongai' place?" "Yep." "Here we are," Shinji stopped in front of his students. "Everyone, this is Shinkuro-san. He's going to help us find our proper places. We're going to be staying here for a while." "How long, Enomoto-sensei?" asked Mariko. Shinkuro thankfully remained silent. Thinking over the information he'd learned in the past twenty minutes, Shinji took a deep breath and answered as honestly as he felt he could, right at that moment, without giving away anything that might cause a panic. "A while. Now come on, let's get moving." |
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11:08 AM Mar 10
