As Gin looked at the boy, a hint of fear showed on his face, but he quickly took it back returning to his usual smirk. Rangiku saw this and immediately knew that Gin had seen Itsuki"s eyes. She gave Gin a rundown on the boy"s situation as she saw his fear subside. At first Gin wanted to let the boy go on his own way but after much pleading from Rangiku he finally relented in allowing Itsuki to stay with them.As he approached the boy, he looked at his blindfold and started speaking.
"Minamoto-san..." he barely started to speak when Itsuki interrupted him.
"Please call me by my first name"
"Then, Itsuki-san, would you like to stay with us?"
A noticeable smile appeared on Itsuki"s face as he heard the question. He knew that Ichimaru Gin was doing this all for the sake of Rangiku. But he wasn"t upset, he quite liked Gin"s character, as whatever he did in the anime was all for Rangiku.
Seeing him smile bought a hint of surprise to Gin as he remembered the indifferent look Itsuki gave when they first met, but this went unnoticed by the rest as one was too busy eating while the other was blindfolded.
- 1 Week Later -
A week has gone by since Itsuki arrived and has continuously trained his eyes to not focus on the lines of death, finding a way to turn them off similar to how Shiki Ryougi turns them off. With the help of memory part.i.tion and thoughts acceleration he got results exceedingly fast and was able to shift his focal point to not see these lines.
He became more proficient in using memory part.i.tion and thought acceleration but showed no active progress in them. He couldn"t train in Hiten mitsurugi-ryu due to being blindfolded and not having access to any kind of sword.
As Itsuki was blindfolded he was also able to train his other senses as they got more sensitive than his eyes. This then led to him being able to sense the surrounding reiatsu and the reiatsu of a person. It was like how Ichigo was able to once again sense reiatsu due to being blinded by Ginjo after he lost his Shinigami powers. As he was able to turn his mystic eyes off, he was able to remove his blindfold and see the world in all its glory. He found a lake to use as a mirror and was finally able to see his appearance. He couldn"t see before as he always kept his blindfold on and only took it off when training.
After looking into the lake, what entered his vision was a remarkably handsome yet immature young man. He had put his hair into a high ponytail with a blue ribbon, courtesy of Rangiku, and had deep azure, gem like eyes. It seemed that his eyes only lost the inner red/pinkish ring and its glow. His face looked quite cold and apathetic with his gaze being extremely cold. This didn"t go unnoticed by him as he concluded that his mystic eyes had, in one way or another, dampened his emotions to some extent. Although he was able to smile and show emotions when he was with Rangiku and Gin, he was told that any other time his face showed no emotions.
His clothes were pretty much the same as before as they never had enough capital to buy another piece of clothing.
Also, his relationship with Gin and Rangiku had improved as the former talks more with Itsuki and treats him like a genuine friend while the latter doesn"t blush anymore whenever she sees him. Gin also told him about reiatsu and that all three of them possessed it.
After turning his mystic eyes on and off and making sure he could control them proper, he began to contemplate about what he should do from now on. He knows that there will be ma.s.sive wars in the future and to survive in this world he has no choice but to become stronger. As he doesn"t know how to train his reiatsu currently he would try to meditate and see if that brings any results. He can see both Gin and Rangiku have reiatsu but due to the lower proficiency in sensing reiatsu, he currently can"t gauge the amount they have.
While training he made a discovery that due to the strengthening off his soul and the effects of memory part.i.tion allowed him to be ambidextrous. Although it seems like a no-brainer being ambidextrous with memory part.i.tion, it is actually not that simple. Memory part.i.tion is the ability to part.i.tion a user"s thoughts to form multiple independent thought processes. While normal people can only have a single "room" in their brain and focus on one thought, part.i.tioning adds part.i.tions to the one room to create multiple rooms.
It is different than having multiple independent machines because, while there are multiple processes, they only work towards one goal. They manage different problem sets but work together to generate one overall solution.
Pulling his thoughts back he decided to do some physical training first, the Hiten mitsurugi-ryu manual didn"t come with just the sword techniques, it also came with a proper training routine to help build up the user"s body to handle the strain the sword style possessed. Although his body now was just a soul, it didn"t stop him from training as his intuition told him that it will help him in the long run. He would probably start to train the basics movements of the sword when he got his hands on a stick of some sort before he could get an actual practice sword.
First, he done some stretches and started to jog to increase his stamina. He never thought of the distance and just continued jogging until he ran out of breath and couldn"t continue. He barely ran for 10 minutes before he was on the floor panting as his kimono was drenched with sweat.
After a few minutes of rest, he was back on his feet when he noticed Rangiku and Gin returning from the market. They were talking about something before he called out and grabbed their attention.
"Gin! Rangiku!"
They both noticed Itsuki standing there drenched in sweat, Rangiku was about to scold him for dirtying his clothes when she noticed that he had taken his blindfold off. Gin also noticed this astonishing the two of them as they could see his eyes perfectly without any repercussions.
"Itsuki, your eyes" exclaimed Rangiku as she started running towards Itsuki clearly happy for her friend,
"I know, I was finally able to turn them off" answered Itsuki with a small smile.
They perceived that it was a genuine smile from the bottom of his heart. Although, they worried about Itsuki"s face showing no emotions, they liked the fact that with them he was capable of expressing more emotions.
That night, the hut was filled with a merry atmosphere.