720 a.d.

I had a lovely little tearoom in my complex. There was a fire pit at the center and it was surrounded by plush, soft, cushions. Each of them were hand woven. I had collected a couple dozen of sheep that I kept in the back and used for wool. It was a nice pastime to tend to the gentle animals, and I enjoyed the mindless task of carding and roving the wool. Genryūsai also enjoyed it. When it was time to prep the wool, he'd come by and sit outside with me and talk while we worked.

It wasn't some difficult training method, or time-consuming bureaucratic duty. It was simply two companions who sat outside in a zen garden, absentmindedly moving their hands while talking about unimportant things.

I did sell my excess wool on the side. I spoiled the shit out of my sheep with my own dietary plan for them, so they always produced excellent quality. A lot of the noble and wealthy spirits went out of their way to try and obtain some.

In my tearoom, I poured Genryūsai a small cup of strawberry white tea. He had stopped by in the afternoon with a twinkle in his eyes.

The moment I saw that sparkle in his gaze I had a sinking feeling he was about to give me bad news. Specifically, the kind of bad news I would hate, and he would love.

I was right.

"Why do I have to teach at the academy?" I whined after he dropped his bombshell.

Genryūsai finished his first cup of tea before he answered. "Because I have to come up with some kind of punishment for you after you ran off the last of your squad—again!"

"But they're so weak," I bemoaned to Genryūsai as I poured him a second cup of tea. "I'll just end up scaring them away."

"Oh no you don't," Genryūsai warned me, his dark ember eyes narrowing in a warning. The man was forever stuck in his twenties thanks to my training, and if I had to take a guess I'd bet a good amount of money he was already stronger than his canonical counterpart. Strong enough I had to actually use my Evil™ zanpakutō when fighting him.

On one hand, I was one proud momma for that.

On the other hand, damn it let me be lazy.

"If you don't succeed in graduating at least one student, I'll shut down all the bars in Soul Society for a month. No more Mystery Midnight Magic."

"Noooo. Not my magic shows!" I cried out. "It's a tradition."

"Then you better not fail."

"You're eviler than my zanpakutō," I mock-sniffled.

"Thank you," Genryūsai returned. "Have fun teaching cannon fodder."

"EVEN YOU ADMITTED WHAT THEY ARE! GIMME BACK THAT TEA YOU LITTLE SHIT."

Genryūsai gulped down his cup of tea, grabbed the teapot, and fled while laughing at my misery.

(◕▾◕✿)

With a heavy heart, I donned my captain clothes and headed off to the academy. Genryūsai was correct about needing to punish me somehow. Since I adamantly refused to lead the Soul Society, I had to adhere to my rank. It would be unfair if those of similar ranks did what I did and got punished for it while I got off without even a warning.

It certainly wasn't like I was trying to keep my squad around either. Not everyone ran off on bad terms. I had a good chunk of soldiers that did well enough under my tutelage but ultimately thought they would do better under someone saner. The rest were either killed by my hand out of irritation, or killed in a mission that I sent them out on.

Half of me was hoping at least one of them would come back changed like a Shōnen Protagonist™ but my boredom wasn't that easily fixed. Death was adamant against adding any new heroes to the story. It would have been fantastic if I could get my hands on a fresh soul with potential.

No such luck.

On the bright side, I had my weekend board games to look forward to. Starrk and Lilynette had become rather fanatic gamers. Enough so that I would sneak some stuff off the future market to entertain them while I was gone. Like solar-powered handheld consoles and turn base solar lights. As long as they kept them out of the Here before they were created it was perfectly fine.

Lilynette was becoming quite the Pokémon trainer. Starrk was transforming into a fantastic chess player. I ended up stealing a chess VI from the year 3000 to entertain him. He hadn't won yet, but I knew it would only be a matter of time.

The academy hadn't changed too much since Genryūsai opened it up. Some buildings were added, but they were all replicas of the main building.

According to Genryūsai I would be teaching one class from start to graduation—usually five years of training. Sometimes only one if they were talented enough.

'Ugh, what a waste of time,' I bemoaned as I entered the classroom. The classrooms weren't even pretty to be in, just an old-school Japanese-style dōjō with desks and chairs. Completely unimaginative. I had offered Genryūsai my excellent carpentry skills but the he had been determined to build the school with his own hands. His own completely boring, unimaginative, and plain hands. Inside the classroom there were thirty students present, all male. 'UGHHH. I don't even get to see some decent eye-candy.'

Actually—

There were two students who stood out in comparison to the plain faces of their peers. One was a boy with long white hair in a side ponytail. He sat upright at his desk, his posture immaculate and showed that he had been reborn to wealth in the Soul Society. He was oddly familiar, so I made it a point to try and match a name to his face.

The other boy was more of a rugged handsome type in comparison. His dark hair was curled, messy, and short. His clothes were in a disarray, as if he had only rolled out of bed and pulled them on without a care to how they looked. He, too, struck me as familiar.

My teal-blue eyes narrowed in thought. I ran my fingers through my long bubblegum pink. "Good morning, fodder."

"Good morning, Teacher," they respectfully greeted. Several of them looked at me with reproach. Given the track record of sexism, I could only guess they resented having a female teacher. Or maybe they hated that I called them fodder.

"Let's start off with a roll call. I say your name, you respond. If you're too late in your response, I'll throw you out of the classroom."

Ahh, yeah, that definitely got some sour looks. With a malicious smile I began to rapidly call out their names.

"Tokokani."

Surprised that I had not chosen to go by alphabetical order, there was a moment of silence before a student in the back said, "H—"

He took too long, so I used a low-powered hadō technique to blow him out of the classroom. He went flying through the walls, crashed into the ground, and fell unconscious.

'Oh wow. Guess I'll have no choice but to rebuild this classroom. Golly gosh what a shame. TOTAL accident.'

"Too slow," I said with a sweet smile as I already mentally planned the sculpted unicorns. "Hojakatado."

"H-Here!"

I blew him out of the classroom too. I made sure to toss him out another wall, so I could rebuild it as an epic mural in honor of my adorable sheep. "I don't like it when people stammer. Speak properly. Somsō."

"HERE!"

I tossed him up through the ceiling so I could add in some stained glass windows. "Don't yell, I'm right here. Ryōshō."

"Here," came the quick and quiet response of one of the random fodder.

"Gezo."

"Here."

"Kyōraku."

"Here," said the messy-haired boy.

'Ahhh. He's Shunsui Kyōraku. Okay then the other must be—'

"Ukitake."

"Here," answered the white-haired boy.

'Wow. Guess this class won't be such a waste of time after all.'

(◕▾◕✿)

After roll call, I did a basic assessment.

I promptly failed literally every other student besides Shunsui Kyōraku and Jūshirō Ukitake. It wasn't pure character bias, the rest were laughably weaker in comparison. There was really only so much I could do with fodder. I had tried for centuries to cultivate an extra, but none had risen to the necessary level to stay relevant. They rarely even had enough reiatsu to slow down their aging to stay alive long enough to make it to the start of the play in 2015. I didn't want to waste my time and energy on useless fodder.

It wasn't too hard to persuade (threaten) another teacher to accept the fodder while I stole Shunsui and Jūshirō for some one-on-one training. Neither of them seemed terribly happy that I had kicked out the rest of the students, but neither dared to talk back to me.

By lunch, it was only us three.

"Well done to both of you for not being incompetent and having potential," I praised them both. "These next few years will be hellish for you, but if you stick with it you'll become captains in no time."

Shunsui's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Captains? I don't know if I'd want such a troublesome position."

"I don't blame you," I told him sympathetically. "But it'd be a waste for you to linger as a fodder soldier."

"F-Fodder?" Jūshirō stammered in surprise.

"Don't stammer. You're too pretty to stammer," I teased, the compliments coming easy. "Don't worry. You'll be calling them fodder too in a hundred years or so."

"Never. That's too disrespectful," Jūshirō politely, but firmly, stated. "Any soldier who gives his life to protect our society should be treated with respect and honor."

"Uh-huh," I dismissed. "Well, it's lunchtime so you both better eat up while you can."

With timing that only existed in an anime world, their stomachs growled in unison. I nodded, unsurprised by that timing. Everyone knew if you brought up food in a non-action fight scene, someone's stomach would growl. That was one of the Rules of Anime™ right after: if the female lead has big boobs, she's gonna end up in a lot of indecent situations with the male lead and the male lead will squeeze those boobs at least once throughout the story.

That was simply how the world worked.

I grinned at how both of the boys blushed and sheepishly looked away from me. "Tell you what, to celebrate getting such an amazing teacher like myself, I'll treat you both to some of my home cooking."

"That's not necessary, Teacher—"

Jūshirō was cut off by Shunsui's enthusiastic response, "Sure, thanks!"

"Good boys," I praised them.

(◕▾◕✿)

723 a.d.

Now when in a story where one had to plan for thousands of years ahead the small every day nuances became harder to remember. Days and years would blur by unless something out of the ordinary presented itself.

My routine was pretty well set. Nothing was meant to happen until it was meant to happen, which meant the random little oddities that would happen frequently in a short story (such as Narutoverse, Pokéverse, Potterverse, DCverse, Marvelverse, etc) did not occur. Every day was similar to one another. A repetitive, monotonous routine.

If I had to play a role in the Bleachverse story in one of my earlier lives, I would have lost my sanity.

Thankfully, I didn't have any left to spare, so I was able to bear with it.

Kind of.

Jūshirō Ukitake was well-mannered and articulate. Nothing was ever out of place on him, and he took great care in appearance every day when attending school. He did not complain, and whenever I made him flustered he blushed and stammered. It was honestly super duper cute and I had a lot of fun poking him in different ways to get his reactions.

He was surprisingly ticklish on his sides!

At twenty years of age—although he did not look older than seventeen—he was tall and lean. His height had reached Genryūsai and I had to wonder if perhaps Ukitake would surpass my first student in that regard.

He was very kind. No matter what kind of taunting I did, or how brutal my training sessions were, he gave me a respectful and gentle smile. Each student he ran into he would only ever treat courteously.

The ones that I had kicked out previously mocked me.

He defended me.

Not needed—I would outlive them by a long shot—but it was sweet of him to be so loyal to his teacher. After the first year under my tutelage he started wearing his hair down in a manner very similar to how I wore mine. My sweet little duckling.

Shunsui Kyōraku was similar in a lot of ways, but different on the surface. They both had a kind and loyal heart, but where Jūshirō was neat, Shunsui was messy. His jacket always had some kind of stain on it—mud, blood, or food—and his curly dark hair was haphazardly brushed through which gave him a bed-head look. He didn't seem to know how to shave properly yet, so he had patches of uneven stubble on his face.

But damn was he a hard worker when he wanted to be.

Oh, sure, outside of class no one could get him to do anything he didn't want to, but the moment I pulled out a wooden sword for training he was raring to go.

He also loved to play games.

I had modified my normal training regime into a variety of different games for the two of them to play. My personal favorite was knife monopoly, but Kyōraku expressed pure delight when it was time to play blind spiked dodgeball.

Ukitake wasn't a fan of blind spiked dodgeball.

I had anticipated teaching would have been a pain, but I was pleasantly surprised by the two of them. They were good boys. Sweet boys. They both reminded me of past children and grandchildren I had.

It was hard not to dote on them.

Actually—

There was that one day, a few years into their training, where I had taken them out on a lunch picnic. The forest that resided at the back of the academy was ideal for most blindfolded games, but sadly Jūshirō and Shunsui had memorized that forest so well that it no longer mattered to them if they could not see it.

I would have to start sneaking them into Hueco Mundo to give them proper hunting experience. Something that I planned to begin that very afternoon.

On that warm spring day I laid out a lovely picnic for the three of us to enjoy before training picked up. Both boys were eager for my food, sporting huge, silly, and childish grins as soon as they caught a whiff of it. Not that I could blame them. I had spent two lives in the Foodwarverse, and I have ongoing access to the Foodsoulverse where I rested in between lives if I could.

'Oh, my dear Erina...'

What an adorable wife she was. Golly gosh I missed her.

Although in my second life I was reborn as her little sister.

That was awkward as heck for the first couple years.

Anyway—food was in my blood. I lived and breathed excellent cooking. I earned the Chef title on Azeroth my first day there. I could end wars with my cooking if I really wanted to.

Jūshirō carefully began setting up the tea for the picnic, his movements methodical. It was easy to spot the subtle twitching in his lips which gave away how excited he was. Shunsui on the other hand had no issues showing his eagerness. He took a seat beside me, bouncing up and down in place as he restlessly waited for me to divide the food out onto plates for them.

"Settle down, Shu," I advised him. "You don't want to get another tummy ache from eating too fast, do you?"

He paused in his movements, then shook his head. "It'll be fine, Teacher! I've got an iron gut now."

"Oh? You developed such a thing in only a few weeks? I'm so impressed," I deadpanned.

He bashfully grinned, scratching the back of his head. "Uhum... well... it'll be fine! Trust me."

"Mm-hmm."

"The tea is ready, Teacher," Jūshirō said, holding out a small cup for me to take. I accepted it with a smile and murmur of thanks.

"Then I suppose the food is ready," I said, giving each a heaping plate of lunch.

To say they inhaled the food would be an understatement. It seemed like only a few seconds had passed before they had both finish devouring the food and started to help themselves to a second, then third, then fourth, then fifth plate.

By the time I had finished my first plate the duo had devoured the entire spread of food I had brought.

Shunsui let out a sigh of contentment as he laid back on the picnic blanket. "Ah... this is the life."

Jūshirō murmured an agreement, stretching back on the blanket as well.

Somehow both managed to fall asleep within a few minutes of relaxing.

'Food comas are powerful things,' I thought in amusement.

I could have woken them up right away and sent them off to train, but—

When I looked at their sleeping faces, a stir of warmth grew inside me. A soft smile appeared on my face and I gently positioned both boys closer to me, so I could run my fingers through their hair as they slept.

'Little children,' I thought with fondness. 'Little souls, so young and untouched by the cycle.'

I let them dream of sweet things as I watched over them.

'Enjoy your peace while you can, sweet little ones. May Death wash away your memories in the cycle so you may enjoy each life given.'

(◕▾◕✿)

725 a.d.

The three of us—myself, Jūshirō, and Shunsui—stood in the remodeled classroom. I had taken it upon myself to rebuild it after destroying it on the first day. I had done a beautiful job. I handcrafted fields of flowers, prancing unicorns, and flying sheep before painting it over with a gentle touch.

Genryūsai destroyed it as soon as he saw what I did.

I rebuilt it again.

He destroyed it again.

Eventually we agreed that I could keep the flying sheep sculptures and artwork, but everything else had to be plain.

"Welp," I said, looking over at Jūshirō and Shunsui from my desk. "Congratulations. You've both passed the final exam and have graduated."

The two boys gave me a splitting grin. Shunsui reached forward and pulled me into a bear hug. "Thanks, Teacher!"

"You're welcome, dear," I told him, patting his back. I noticed Genryūsai approaching us and wave him over. "Gen-Gen! I've passed my class. Here are my two students: Jūshirō Ukitake, and Shunsui Kyōraku. Both are very good boys."

"I've heard. Well done to both of you. My lieutenant will show you to the back room for your shinigami clothes," Genryūsai told the two of them. His tone suggested that the two of them scurry away quickly.

Ukitake and Kyōraku bowed respectfully toward Genryūsai before they left. When they were out of earshot, Genryūsai chuckled.

"Congratulations, Teacher. You're the first person to have successfully trained the first two graduates of the academy," Genryūsai praised me.

"Wait, what?"

"Everyone else kept failing the final exam. This is fantastic. You should keep teaching."

"What? What do you mean—where the hell have we been getting all the soldiers?"

"From the academy. They just failed," Genryūsai said cheerfully. "But we can still use them, yeah? Gotta find canon fodder somehow."

"Oh. My."

Genryūsai clapped me on the back as he said with a big fat smug grin. "To think I was thinking about training people myself... gosh, what would I do without you? Hope you enjoy your new teaching post."

I whimpered.

(◕▾◕✿)

Blastin' through the paaast~ 'cause I wanna get to canon~~

Answer: Orihime.

Question: Who would you hate to meet in a bad mood, alone, in a back alley?

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