The hollow thunk of wood against wood echoed in the training room and I studied my fingernails, sighing. It's only been two days of this and I'm already reached my patience and boredom thresholds.

The new soul reapers trying out for Squad 11 were ridiculous. Half of them couldn't fight; the other half were good fighters but just plain idiots. One such boy was grinding on my nerves. He could fight well, I gave him credit for that, but he was a bully, always picking on the weaklings, trying to take charge of the group, threatening the others. In my mind, that made him just as weak.

"Oi, you fat buffoon," I called out to him as he continuously whacked another boy on the head with the wooden zanpakuto replicas they were given for this assessment. "I said stop!"

He stopped what he was doing and tilted his head to me. "Aw, why?" He grinned, before swiping a hand through his long, black hair, pushing it off his freckled face. He would have been classified as 'hot' had it not been for the sneer on his lips and the darkness in his eyes.

Gritting my teeth, I raised my chin and glared down at him, anger flaring dangerously. "Because I said so."

Kenpachi had left me alone with the soul reapers because of an important meeting. The rest of the squad were busy with regular trips to the living world, working together to take down the increasing amounts of high class hollows all over the countryside.

Which meant I was left to deal with these kids by myself, all day, because of my stupid punishment. I didn't mind doing this though; in fact, I had thought it was quite exciting at the start. But now, with the back- chatting and the pompous idiots who thought they ruled the world, I was starting to really hate Kenpachi and the Head Captain.

"But you're a girl," he sniggered, gesturing up and down my body with the wooden zanpakuto. Some of his lackeys laughed along with him and my spiritual pressure pulsed in the air around me.

The other soul reapers moved out of the way to form a circle as I stepped forward from the wall, so tempted to draw my real zanpakuto and slice him open from groin to head. My fingers even itched as I thought about it, but memories of being electrocuted for the last four days reminded me of the impossible. That's why Ikari was back in my room on my bed and I was void of weapons.

Instead, I asked for one of the other soul reapers to throw me their replica. "What's your name, soul reaper?" I asked, twirling the wood in my hand, testing the weight of it.

"It's Paulo. What's yours, pretty?" he smartly replied.

I merely flash- stepped behind him and swiped his legs out from underneath him with the replica sword. He hit the floor with a thud and some of the others laughed as I glared down at him.

"I'm Kera, the new 4th seat of Squad 11. I'm surprised you haven't heard of me."

Kenpachi had finally given me a squad position and I was quite happy with it, bragging about it to everyone I saw.

"Oh, you're that girl who got beaten by Kenpachi Zaraki."

An irk mark appeared on my forehead before I planted my foot into his face, twisting it. "I'm also that girl who's going to make you wish you were never born," I snarled, before lifting my foot and kicking him in the side.

He rolled along the floor and stopped, wheezing slightly. I stood above him with the tip of the sword against his throat. He laughed, spitting out a glob of blood and saliva. "I don't believe you. Women can't make me wish I have never been born."

I would have crushed the living daylights out of him, but I was under strict orders not to kill any of them by Kenpachi. But it made me wonder what type of filth was being allowed to crawl their way into Squad 11 recruitments.

"You don't believe me?" I mused, stepping back. "The fight me." I took up a defensive stance.

"Fight you?" he scoffed, getting to his feet. He obviously thought that by walking away, I was apparently the weaker one. "You mean make you beg for surrender?"

I was holding my cool by a single, minuscule thread as I held my hand up and dropped the wooden zanpakuto. It clattered to the ground in the silence, before I balled my fists.

"Fight me with the sword and if you win, I'll do whatever you want."

"Anything, hey?" he sneered, before leaping forward, sword drawn to the side.

Smirking, I dropped to a squat facing him, before driving upwards and punching him right in the stomach as he lunged over me. All the air wheezed from him and his eyes widened as I brought my other arm round and drove my elbow sharply into his side, forcing him away.

He hit the ground hard and I immediately walked over and picked him up by the front of his shirt, headbutting him before throwing him away from me. I rubbed my forehead, dispelling the sting, before walking over to him again.

I placed my foot into the centre of his chest and pushed down. He wheezed, eyes squeezed shut in pain.

"Anything you would like to try?" I asked innocently, pressing down harder.

His face, despite the pain, split into a grin, and his wrist flicked, moving the sword. But I stopped it instantly with a foot, stomping down on his wrist hard enough that it snapped. He screamed now and I found pleasure in that, hearing him scream like a girl.

"Listen up!' I shouted over the screaming, stepping off of Paulo. "You're in my class now and I expect you to listen to me and respect me. Understood? If you treat me like crap, you'll end up looking like crap," I said, pointing a thumb over my shoulder at Paulo. "So, Paulo, what have you learnt from this?"

"Don't underestimate your opponent!' he screamed, leaping at me with his sword in his god hand.

Turning swiftly, I grabbed his sword in my left hand, sighing. "You just don't learn, do you?" I said, before socking him in the face. He flew through the air and crashed into the wall. "Someone take him to Squad 4 please?" I asked, waving at his unconscious body.

After the excitement of the morning, I sent the rest of the students through basic combat manoeuvres, before having them battle each other, with and without swords. By the time Yachiru came back from only god's know where, I was marking down some potential individuals who might have a slight chance in Squad 11.

It was a very small list.

"Kera!" Yachiru giggled as she jumped on my back.

"Hey Yachiru!" I answered happily. "I'm glad to see you!"

"Having fun with the recruits?"

"Don't get me started with them or Paulo," I grumbled, putting my clipboard on the table inside the training room. "How can Kenpachi manage to do this?"

"Kenny doesn't really. He scares most of them as they walk in the door and they run away. The others just fight each other and Kenpachi watches."

"That sounds a lot easier than the day I had."

"Don't worry, you only have three more days of this."

"Oh, wow, Yachiru. Thanks for the motivation!" I said sarcastically. 

"Does your wound hurt?" she asked suddenly.

"It's fine; it doesn't hurt anymore," I replied, keeping my answer short.

It hadn't hurt since the Hollow bone had formed, but I wasn't going to let Yachiru know that.

We didn't talk anymore as I piggy-backed Yachiru on the Squad grounds, around and around, before Yachiru started to get bored. That's when I decided that I was also extremely bored and fed up with being cooped up all day.

I jumped up onto the roof on our bedroom, glancing around for look- outs, before sneaking across the roof to drop on the other side casually.

"Yay!" Yachiru cried and I shushed her.

"We have to be quiet. If anyone from the Squad sees us, just lie and say we're visiting Paulo."

"Secret mission!" she whispered, before giggling into her hands.

We walked around all the squads for a while, talking about random things before we both noticed a man walking towards us. I didn't know who he was but Yachiru had become still on my back.

"Who's that?" I asked Yachiru softly.

"That's Aizen, Captain of Squad 5."

As we walked past him, he eyed Yachiru on my back before giving me a small smile that made the hair stand on the back of my neck. Our arms brushed against each other and goosebumps broke out over my skin, revulsion settling into my stomach.

I didn't realise I was panting until we rounded the corner and I slumped against the wall, Yachiru jumping from my back.

"What's wrong, Kera?"

But I couldn't answer that question, for even I didn't know why I was feeling like this. I had never met that man before in my life and here I was, breaking out into a cold sweat and about to throw up from disgust and fear.

"Nothing," I replied, after getting my breath back. I pushed off from the wall and pointed a thumb to my back. "Here, jump back on and we'll head for more lollies." 

But I just couldn't shake the feeling that Aizen had left me with. It plagued me all night, transforming my dreams into nightmares. The next morning, I was a wreck and everyone, including Yachiru, did not come near me.

Yumichika almost lost an arm for commenting on my appearance. I was unstable and all over the place when the soul reapers trained, where Kenpachi had to pull me off another kid when he got the drilling sequence wrong for the fifth time.

"What's wrong?" Kenpachi asked me gruffly afterwards, both of us watching the setting sun from the window of the training room.

"I don't know; if you let me be, I should be over this by tomorrow morning," I snapped back, rubbing my temples.

Screaming.

I turned suddenly, looking around. I swore I could have heard screaming, but it must have been my imagination.

"Kera! Kera!"

"I'm going to head to bed. I'm not feeling too well."

Sleeping offered little comfort because there were voices in my head, voices that no one else could hear. I tried to consult Ikari on it, but he had blocked me from our shared world and every time I tried to reach for him, he shocked me.

When I did manage to fall asleep, my dreams were horrible.