"Renji…"
Fūjin Taichi hesitated for a moment, but still couldn't help speaking up.
"What?"
"Only you are a stray dog, okay? I'm a proper, legitimate Shinigami."
Taichi said this with solemn seriousness.
"Huh?! Taichi, I just offended a great noble for your sake! How can you say something so heartless, immoral, and shameless?!"
Abarai Renji exclaimed in disbelief.
"Renji, Taichi's right—you're the stray dog here!"
The petite Rukia suddenly popped out between the two of them, leapt up, and flicked Renji hard on the forehead.
"Hey, hey, Rukia! I'm lecturing my junior here! Keep this up and I'm gonna lose my temper!"
Renji shouted, covering his head with one hand while pointing at Rukia with the other.
"Huh? Junior?!"
While Taichi was still hesitating, Rukia walked up to him, extended a hand, and smiled.
"My name's Rukia. Let's get along from now on!"
"Ah, I'm—"
"Fūjin Taichi, right?"
Rukia snickered.
"The idiot who hides in the corner of the dojo every day and practices drawing his sword ten thousand times!"
"What?! How do you know that?"
Taichi was utterly baffled. He was sure his nightly secret training in the dojo was completely hidden.
"You're not the only one who knows,"
Kira Izuru said as he walked in as well, looking at the stunned Taichi.
"I also know about how you sneak into the library every morning at four to study."
"Why?"
Taichi still couldn't understand. He had been extremely careful with his training—so how had it still been exposed?
Had his beginner's luck finally run out?
"Hahaha, because one night I got hungry and went out looking for food,"
Renji scratched the back of his head and laughed.
"I happened to pass by the long-abandoned Dojo No. 38 and heard shouting inside, so I took a peek…"
"You call that 'looking' for food?"
Rukia rolled her eyes at Renji.
"You were clearly caught stealing from the cafeteria and ran into Dojo No. 38 in a panic!"
"Hahaha… that didn't happen!"
Renji flashed an awkward smile, but quickly recovered and laughed loudly toward the sky.
"Alright, enough fooling around!"
Rukia put her hands on her hips and shouted.
"Given the shameful grades of Abarai Renji and Fūjin Taichi, I specifically asked Kira Izuru to give you one-on-one tutoring!"
"Huh? Tutoring?!"
Renji protested.
"What right do you have to tutor a genius like me?!"
Before he could finish, Rukia kicked him squarely, making him yelp in pain.
"Then I'll tutor Renji!"
Rukia turned to Kira and said,
"Taichi will be your responsibility, Kira!"
"Ah… I'll give it a try,"
Kira replied. But seeing Taichi again reminded him of the afternoon's drill, and doubts crept into his mind.
If that really happened… then who's tutoring whom, exactly?
"Wait!"
Taichi suddenly said seriously.
"What?"
Rukia and the others stiffened and looked over.
"I'm allergic to men!"
Taichi's expression relaxed again as he said to Rukia,
"So Rukia, I'll have to trouble you to tutor me instead."
"Huh? What do you mean 'allergic to men'?"
Renji asked, completely confused.
"Spend a little more time with Kira and you'll understand,"
Taichi replied. Before Renji could react, Taichi grabbed Rukia and ran off.
"Hey—Taichi, you—this—"
Rukia felt awkward as her small hand was pulled along by him.
After all, today was basically the first time they'd officially met.
"Alright, we're here."
Taichi suddenly let go of her hand and spoke softly.
"Huh? Where… is this—?"
Only then did Rukia realize that, without noticing, she'd been brought to the Moon-Viewing Platform of the Shino Academy.
Pink cherry blossoms bloomed all around, drifting gently through the air like a white bridal veil.
"Rukia, I'm going to train now."
Taichi lay down on the platform, gazing for a moment at the dusky yellow twilight at the edge of the sky.
Then he slowly closed his eyes.
This was how he understood Zanpakutō meditation—entering a profound, almost mystical state of contemplation to converse with one's inner self.
"Hey, Taichi!"
Rukia suddenly snapped back to reality and scolded him.
"What kind of training is this? You're clearly just slacking off and sleeping!"
"Shh—"
Taichi said softly.
"Listen."
"Listen… listen to what?"
Rukia felt as if she'd suddenly turned into an idiot—otherwise, how could she possibly fail to understand what this Shinigami was talking about?
"The sound of the wind blowing down the cherry blossoms… doesn't it sound like the earth itself is playing a flute?"
"Uh…"
Rukia didn't know what to say. She listened carefully for a while but couldn't hear any so-called flute sound. In the end, she simply shut her mouth, turned her head away, and stopped speaking.
"Is the entire life of a falling flower merely to return to its roots?"
With his eyes tightly shut, Fūjin Taichi suddenly felt a flash of enlightenment and murmured to himself.
"Huh?"
"So that's how it is… Though I am but a wandering swordsman, I must still follow my heart—
go with the rushing wind, yet never neglect what lies behind me…"
Taichi slowly opened his eyes, only to discover that he was no longer on the Moon-Viewing Platform.
Instead, he stood in a vast, endless wasteland of withered yellow earth, where countless green whirlwinds danced wildly across the sky.
"So you've finally appeared…"
A faint, echoing sigh suddenly rang out across the empty plain.
"You're my Zanpakutō?!"
Hearing such an awe-inspiring voice in this situation, Taichi immediately realized that this was the moment he would obtain his Zanpakutō.
"Yes—and no. That depends entirely on your heart."
The voice sounded again, echoing through the deserted wilderness, making it impossible to tell where it was coming from.
"Heh, spare me the philosophical nonsense. Hurry up and tell me your name!"
Taichi shouted toward the sky.
"I come with the wind, and depart with the wind—"
"To hell with your poetic crap! Just spit it out already and stop wasting my time!"
"Then… call out my name, XXX."
"What?"
"Call out my name, XXX!!"
"What did you say? Could you speak up a bit?!"
Taichi was getting anxious.
Are all Zanpakutō in Bleach this annoying?
This isn't a blind date—why are you being so shy about your own name?!
"Call out my name—JXX!!!"
"J what? Jay Chou? Jerry? Jason Statham?!"
Taichi vaguely caught the sound of a "J" and immediately shouted back.
"Call out my name—JSX!!!"
"Can you speak proper Mandarin? Get your pronunciation straight! J then S what—Sword Saint? Sword Hero? Or 'spray blood all over your face'?!"
"Call out my name—JSJ!!"
The howling wind drowned out the Zanpakutō spirit's voice, but it vaguely sounded like three syllables: J-S-J.
"This is my territory! All of you, cut the damn wind already!!"
Taichi finally snapped and roared at the countless gales sweeping across the wasteland.
Whoosh!
In an instant, all the wind vanished.
The sky cleared, the withered grassland disappeared, and in its place, soft red-pink cherry blossoms drifted down over his head.
Taichi had exited his meditative state and returned to the Moon-Viewing Platform of the Shino Academy.
A gust of wind swept through, carrying countless cherry petals that rained down upon him.
"Taichi, let's go back."
Rukia said softly, gazing at the last trace of twilight on the western horizon.
"Alright."