Practical Training

'Sorry, Rukia. Looks like I got you in trouble again…'

The guards left after confirming what happened. Orihime sighed and decided to stop experimenting at home. She wanted to talk to her professor about the discovery. Perhaps there was a precedent already that could help her refine the theory.

However, on her way back to her room, she saw Byakuya sitting inside drinking tea. She cursed to herself. He was looking through the papers she had all over the ground.

'This is embarrassing, it's so messy and he waltzed right in…'

"Captain Kuchiki, did I disturb you? I'm sorry for the trouble."

Byakuya didn't say anything. He finished his tea and got up. As he walked past Orihime, he said something which made her surprised.

"It's too unstable, needs captain-level strength."

After leaving that warning, Orihime's mind was in a mess from him showing up randomly. Byakuya hadn't 'accidently' encountered Orihime for the last week. She calmed herself down and realized it was probably just her overthinking it. On the topic of her technique, Byakuya had instantly understood the research she spent a week on.

'Truly a genius. But captain-level strength? At least I can save this as a trump card in case I'm in danger.'

Orihime cleaned up the mess in her room in case he came back. She swore to keep everything tidy from now on.

Tomorrow they would begin the practical training and rumors already spread. The new student with near perfect marks on her entrance exam had teamed up with the first and second ranked students.

The next morning, Orihime was dressed in her academy uniform and was on her way out when Rukia blocked her. Orihime thought she could see steam rising up from her.

"Orihime… This is the third time you've gotten me in trouble! How can you look so innocent but be such a trouble maker!"

"T-technically, the first two times were Yachiru's fault…"

"Ahhhhhh!"

Rukia slammed me to the ground and then swung down a sword. Orihime was confused for a second and blocked it with her Zanpakuto. Rukia was about to keep swinging when Orihime started stammering.

"Wait, wait, Rukia, your Zanpakuto…"

"Huh?"

Rukia then looked down at the sword in her hand and it was her Zanpakuto. It had reappeared in that moment and she swung out of instinct. Before she could get angry again, Orihime was already leaving the courtyard.

"Rukia, that's wonderful! You focus on that; I have practical training today!"

When Orihime arrived at the world gate, most of the students were there already. After exchanging some greetings, she was finally able to meet up with her team. The mission today was led by a seat holder from division twelve and the students were grouped in threes.

"The target will be a mansion where a massacre occurred. We have calculated that hollows will attempt to devour the large number of souls that have been bound to the massacre site."

After finishing explaining a few more details, the world gate sprung open and the groups ran through. This was the first time Orihime used the real gate and came to the conclusion that it is much better than Urahara's homemade gate.

They arrived in a countryside at night time. Hitsuraku, Oshino and she had already agreed on a formation. They would be the vanguard and she would support from the back. Although she was stronger than them in many fields, they were here seniors so she wouldn't refute.

"Orihime, you were in the world of the living for a long time, do you know where this is?"

"Honestly not sure, a lot of things look similar without landmarks."

A howl coming from the large mansion interrupted them. The Soul Reaper leading them instructed the students to begin clearing it out. Orihime's group went in through the front and began slaying weaker Hollows and even using Soul Burial on a few bound souls before they were devoured.

"Isn't it strange, why are there so many Hollows coming after us?"

"Bakudo #61, Rikujokoro! Focus on killing and less talking please, just because its easy for you… Bakudo #4, Hainawa! Doesn't mean it's easy for me!"

Hollows were pouring in at all sides and Orihime focused on binding them so that her partners could finish them off. They had asked her to do this so that they can compete with each other in how many they kill. Since these were all lesser Hollows, she didn't think that was inappropriate.

"By my observation they're after you, Orihime. All the Hollows we've faced so far have either been distracted or go right for you."

"Of course, they would ignore you, Oshiro, with your ugly face, ha-ha."

"Focus! Another wave is coming."

Orihime had not been outside of Soul Society ever since she became a hybrid. If she had, many Hollows would have become attracted to her. She was unaware of the fact that her spiritual power had inadvertently become like a drug to Hollows. Their instincts would scream to capture her.

After the fourth wave of Hollows, even more began appearing in the area and charging at her group. At this point, they had cleansed more than three times as many Hollows as any other group. Hitsuraku and Oshino were exhausted so Orihime had to take the rest on her own, while they offered assistance from the side when possible.

During her battle with Gin Ichimaru, she exhausted her Reiatsu by using the incomplete version of Shunko. Due to this, one of the focuses she had was improving her total spiritual power by releasing it all and accumulating it again.

Normally, this kind of training method wasn't viable for Soul Reapers since they could not absorb spirit particles like Quincies. This was the reason Rukia's powers were so slow to return. However, since she got the power up after the fight with Gin, her soul gained the quality of spiritual power expansion through consumption as well as enhanced absorption.

The increase was small, but seemingly infinite. If she kept growing like this, she could eventually surpass true bankai, hollowfied, blut vene Ichigo. The only other person in the world that could match her would be Aizen. Even though he won't have a shortcut to completing hogyoku like the main timeline; He would surely figure out a way to awaken and complete it.

This ability she gained was almost as powerful as Aizen's true form ability of becoming stronger the more his Reiatsu is suppressed. Being sealed for two years was enough for his Reiatsu to grow by many times his level compared to when he fought final getsuga Ichigo. His ability relied on powerful opponents, whereas Orihime's ability relied on time.

Ironically these two powers were very compatible with each other. However, he's way too tricky to trust, so Orihime decided not to interact with him outside of battle.

After two more waves, the Hollow swarm seemed to stop. This also coincided with Orihime's drop in Reiatsu from overuse.

All the groups gathered in front of the mansion again and the group leader opened the sky gate to return to Seireitei. It was clear that Orihime's group did overwhelmingly better than the others.

"Geeze, Orihime, I knew that you were strong, but I didn't expect you to be such a monster. Is your Reiatsu already at lieutenant level? You're turning out to be a second Shuhei Hisagi."

"Ah… ha-ha, no way, I can't match up to Shuhei Hisagi-senpai. I'm just a little lucky is all."

Orihime couldn't bare to tell them that she had lieutenant-level strength a week ago. This, however, was only in relation to her Reiatsu. One factor that made Soul Reapers so strong was that the Zanpakuto amplified their strength multiplicatively.

A shikai could increase one's effective strength by two to three times, whereas a bankai would increase it five to ten times on top of that. This was the main reason Soul Reaper who achieved bankai were so important.

It was said in the series that it took a decade to learn bankai for those that have reached manifestation stage of their shikai. This meant being at the peak of the second release. If it took more than ten years, it was unlikely for that person to ever reach bankai.

It's no surprise that one of the easiest ways to become captain was by having a bankai. Bankai represented peak power for a Soul Reaper and captains were the leaders of the Gotei 13! That being said, there were many who achieved bankai and refused to reveal it due to attachment to their squads.

One of Orihime's contingency plans was to rush bankai using hogyoku's powers and snatch one of the currently empty seats. The Visored wouldn't be allowed back into Soul Society until after the battle of Fake Karakura Town, so those seats would stay vacant for a while.

Unfortunately, Orihime wouldn't be able to release her Shikai for at least another two months. She hoped that after hogyoku finished evolving her abilities, she would not have to wait even more time to imprint.

"Now that the first practical training is over, I shall post the results. As was mentioned before, the team ranking first will be in charge of leading the juniors on their mock practical training."

As expected, at the very top of the rankings their names were written, being 50 marks over the next highest team.

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