Nose in the Books [Mission: Travin/Savarin]

Mission:

Early in his life, Savarin had thought that afterlife would be significantly different from life.  A few years before he died he had learned about the spiritual world, but he still expected everything to be different.

With the Captain Commander's orders to go train, he found life after death shockingly similar.  Except for the clothes and the nonsensical babbling of his nearby blade, being paid to bury his nose in a book on magical theory in a poorly lit library was shockingly similar to his doctoral work.

Wait; it didn't need to be poorly lit, did it?  Every display of reiatsu was usually accompanied by flares of light.  Maybe if he allowed a precise and steady leak of his own spiritual pressure...he focused for a moment, and a sickly green light emanated from his palm.  He held his hand over the book, the illumination was a bit better than the poor ambient light of the library, and he supposed this was good training on practical reiatsu control as well.

Being a part of the kido squad had its advantages and its disadvantages. One advantage is that he gets to learn all kinds of kido that works really well with his abilities. The downside that he had been able to avoid so far was the library. He had been dead for 3 weeks now and had yet to step foot in the library. However, now he was under orders to go and study. At least it was what he was strongest at he had been told that his reiatsu had been growing at an astonishing rate considering the time he had been there.

Walking into the library Travin didn’t really know where to go or what to go. He knew how to read but in life, he never really had a use for the library since he lived on the streets and never went to school. Looking around he saw someone that definitely looked like they belonged in the library. After all, he had a kido going so he could read. That alone told Travin that he was who he was wanting to hang out with for this mission.

“How’s it going” Travin would ask trying to be quite he had heard they didn’t like loud talking in libraries.

1-6

The sickly green light flared and winked out as Travin spoke to him, disrupting his dual focus of reading and controlling the stream of reiatsu.  He turned to the newcomer, a smile on his face; being disturbed didn't seem to bother him; he looked vaguely familiar, but Savarin coul--'Travin' a word bubbled to the surface in the din of voices from his zanpakuto.  That's right...he had heard of this new shinigami; a powered human who had died, retaining his memories and a good portion of his power.  That alone was fascinating.

Savarin spoke in a normal volume, the library was vast, but mostly empty at this time of day. "Pretty good.  It's Travin, right?  Whole place has been buzzing about you.  I'm Savarin."

Savarin smiled as he motioned towards another chair at the table, "Please do."  He gestured vaguely at the library, "You would probably find me here anyway; but for whatever reason, the Captain is paying extra to really buckle down and learn about kido and reiatsu control.  Guessing that's why you're here if you're not much of the library type."

Savarin tapped his chin curiously, "I wonder if kido is going to be easier or harder for someone with your background to learn.  You spent your whole life shaping reiatsu to fuel your personal abilities.  In death you have to learn an entirely different way to do it in order to power kido."

Savarin frowned slightly, "I understand the principles and process for a handful of hado, bakudo, and even kaido."

He shook his head, "But for whatever reason, forcing my reiatsu into anything more than a surge..." he held up his hand, and the pale green light of his reiatsu began leaking slowly out again, "...has been problematic.  It feels like my reiatsu is fighting my efforts."

Savarin held up the book he was reading, Principles of Reiatsu.  "Nothing in here talks about anything like that."

Savarin listened patiently to Travin; he had heard this all before, but practice was practice.  He let the other shinigami cast the basic bakudo on him.  He knew all the principles behind it, but he couldn't get his reiatsu to do what he needed to actually cast it.  He sighed with his arms behind his back, "I can push my reiatsu out without an issue; when I say fighting my efforts, I literally mean it.  I don't think this is a go with the flow situation; whenever I try to do anything more than just release reiatsu, something is pushing back."

With his arms at his back, he focused for a moment, and a sickly green light formed on his forehead, "This isn't a problem.  But it's more like turning on hose or faucet.  It's not making the water go where I need."

After Travin released the binding, Savarin took the book from the table and placed it back into the shelved.  As they headed outside, Savarin waved slightly dismissively, "Despite the control issues, I'm quite good at sensing reiatsu levels.  Assuming you're not hiding your power in some way; I estimate that it'd knock the wind right out of me if you were to flare up, but I'd probably remain standing."

When they were a safe distance from everything, Savarin flared his reiatsu and erupted in a pale green glow. while it wouldn't cause Travin any actual issues given their reiatsu differences, something about Savarin's spiritual pressure would feel distinctly off.

Savarin smiled faintly, "Of course, therein is my biggest problem.  I've actually talked to the Captain about my issues, got told 'Go see what you can find in the archives, but don't mention this to any fivers.'" He made a frustrated noise and continued, "The fucking research group is apparently untrustworthy enough that I can't go to them for help researching my problem."

He shook his head, "So yeah; I am once again being paid to paw through the archives, reliving my days as a doctoral candidate."

Travin nodded he had heard this a lot from other members of squad 2. From what he could tell the captain didn’t like to do much and just told people to go figure it out most of the time. “I don’t know what to tell you then to be honest” Travin would rub his chin in thought as he spoke. Turning to pace the ground a bit “Their is a place that may have some answers but we can’t get in it, so that is probably out of the question it is guarded constantly. However, there may be someone that can help. From what I’ve been told he is the expert on the archives and has worked in here for over a thousand years. His name is Braxton and apparently is an old man who keeps stock of all the books. Other than that I’m not sure what you can do” Travin would have stopped pacing and crossed his arms facing Savarin.

Savarin shrugged as Travin mentioned Braxton, "Yeah; I've met Braxton, he's a nice enough guy. But he's very by the books, if you'll pardon the pun. Those archives might be helpful, maybe. But they're limited to seated shinigami or someone with a seated escort; Braxton didn't budge when I told him the Captain told me to do some research."

He shook his head, "Kind of a catch-22, I'm reasonably certain I could attain a seated rank if I could get figure out this problem. However, the solution to my problem might require me to be of a seated rank in the first place. I doubt a seated shinigami wants to hang out while I look through who knows how many tomes."

Savarin smiled and thanked Travin as he left. Then awkwardly followed Travin back into the library; he wasn't done with the time that he was supposed to put in for training yet. Thankfully, Travin had disappeared down some series of shelves as the rookie shinigami picked another tome off the shelf and began reading by reiatsu-light. Fox guy. Hrm. Well, he'd see about that after his training time.

(End)