In the Soul Society's North Rukongai, District 61, stood Fūryū Mountain.
Once again, everything was happening here. Even though Yushima Ōko hadn't arrived yet, the assessment began on schedule under Higashino Shuuichi's instructions. According to the plan, Shuuichi had set three checkpoints at different elevations in the middle of Fūryū Mountain, and once the exam began, everyone was forced to split up and act alone.
Following the route they'd chosen beforehand, they had to reach each elevation and "check in" in order.
Whoever finished all three checkpoints first would be the winner.
Only, the observant Kotetsu Isane noticed something before they set out: the one giving orders wasn't Higashino Shuuichi, but Ise Nanao.
"Nanao… can I ask, where is Shuuichi-sama?"
"I don't know. But I'd guess he went to look for that Yushima Ōko."
Nanao pushed up her glasses as she replied.
She truly didn't know where Higashino Shuuichi had gone. He hadn't told her what he was going to do before leaving; that was just her own speculation.
But Ise Nanao had guessed right.
Shuuichi had, in fact, sent word back to Seireitei as fast as possible, notifying Kurotsuchi Mayuri that he'd be gone for a while. Then he chose a quiet, deserted place, set up a reiatsu-masking device, and in the next moment completed his Hollowfication.
He didn't know exactly what had happened to Yushima Ōko, but he knew for sure that something was very wrong.
Given the nature of the Dangai (Precipice World), Shuuichi also knew that returning to Seireitei to find Mayuri and entering by official procedures would waste far too much time.
A two-thousandfold difference in time flow was not something he could afford to play with.
So Higashino Shuuichi could only take the crooked path: trigger Hollowfication, borrow the innate spatial ability of Hollows, force open a Garganta (Black Cavity), and step directly into the Dangai.
And once inside the Dangai, the only thing he could truly rely on was his Hollow power.
Only in his Hollowfied state could he sheath himself in a thin layer of space, like the inverted-space membrane created by Yushima's Raikū, and use that as a protective shell.
What had originally been a technique Aizen Sōsuke devised—meant for Menos and Arrancar to shield other Arrancar or their subordinates—was now being used by Higashino Shuuichi as a personal charm against danger.
Shuuichi himself had no idea what kind of face Aizen would make if he ever found out.
Once he entered the Dangai, though, Shuuichi quickly realized that this membrane did have a weakness compared to Yushima's Raikū.
The spaces created by Raikū, once formed, didn't need Yushima to keep pumping reiatsu into them. But the membrane was different: in essence, it needed Shuuichi to keep "transfusing" his reiatsu nonstop just to maintain it.
Even so, it was still the best method he could think of to let him intervene in whatever potential threat lurked inside the Dangai.
And as Higashino Shuuichi broke into the Dangai wrapped in that membrane, he saw Yushima Ōko—only one eye visible, in a completely abnormal state—and a Shinigami he'd never imagined seeing there.
Sakahone Saizō.
Higashino Shuuichi remembered the man. In his memories from his previous life, this guy had been one of the very first members of the Gotei 13, Captain of the 13th Division at that time.
He'd also been among the first great criminals of Soul Society that Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni had "organized" into the original force.
Why was he here?
Shuuichi's pupils contracted. Then he saw the divine crest carved on Sakahone's exposed back, and he understood at once.
Strictly speaking, this wasn't the first time Shuuichi had encountered something like this.
Over a decade ago, when he'd still been in the World of the Living with Urahara Kisuke and the others, during the battle in Osaka Prefecture, he'd run into a dazed, young version of Yamamoto Genryūsai—a "young Yamamoto" that felt to Shuuichi like a puppet with no soul, mechanically adapting and fighting along a prebuilt program.
The Sakahone Saizō before him now almost certainly came from the same place as that "young Yamamoto."
And that divine crest…
If Shuuichi remembered correctly, that sigil had been exclusive to the Kabuma family's technique—meant for contacting Hell and building a bridge between Hell and Soul Society.
The crest on Sakahone's back was slightly different from the pattern he knew, but there was no doubt it was part of the same Kabuma jinmon system.
So why was that thing appearing on Sakahone's body?
Thinking back on the fact that he had never once seen Kabuma Sayako, Kisaragi Shūsuke, Matsumoto Rangiku and the others anywhere within the East Administration's sphere of influence, Shuuichi couldn't help but wonder:
Had they thought he'd died and completely given up on Soul Society, fully defecting to the West Administration instead?
Shuuichi felt that was unlikely. Seven years ago, when he'd made his high-profile return to Soul Society, he had borrowed Kisaragi Shūsuke's power once. At that point, Kisaragi Shūsuke should have known he was alive and had come back.
Unless Shūsuke had already been dead then, and had lent him power from within Hell.
Shuuichi felt that was technically possible—but the odds were low.
Given how solid a foundation he'd laid for the Bakkōtō Raika (Thunder Flame), once Kisaragi Shūsuke fully mastered Raika, even if he didn't reach the absolute top tier of Captains, he'd be very close.
Among the Captains who'd headed to the World of the Living, Kisaragi Shūsuke would probably only lose to Shihōin Yoruichi and Urahara Kisuke. As for the West Administration, Shuuichi didn't believe that, with its overall combat power being weaker than the East Administration, there was any threat there that could realistically take Shūsuke's life.
There were a lot of mysteries—but the answers were right in front of him.
Shuuichi believed that as long as he could capture Sakahone Saizō, he'd be able to pry something out of him.
So, while Sakahone was still arrogantly rambling to Yushima Ōko about his "future dreams," Higashino Shuuichi raised a finger from within his membrane and pointed at him.
Cero (Hollow Flash).
At the moment the membrane opened, under Shuuichi's precise control, a Cero packed with his terrifying reiatsu blasted forth, leaving a brilliant trail across the Dangai.
The roar of blade and power rang out in front of Sakahone.
He hadn't expected that in this tiny Dangai space, one Yushima Ōko would already be surprising enough, and yet here was another fighter on that level.
And this one was a Hollow?
Since when had Hollows and Shinigami started getting cozy with one another?
Sakahone was struck head-on by the Cero and sent flying hundreds of meters away, losing his chance to finish Yushima off.
Yushima Ōko followed the path of the Cero's light with his eye. In the brief moment before the membrane closed again, he recognized its owner.
"Shuuichi-sama!"
Yushima had never imagined that even here in the Dangai, cut off from the outside, Shuuichi-sama could still arrive in time to save him.
That alone showed how much attention Shuuichi-sama paid to him in daily life.
Unfortunately, he had ended up embarrassing Shuuichi-sama again.
"Can you still fight?"
Because Yushima was still sustaining his own special spatial shell, Shuuichi couldn't see his full condition clearly. From the bit he could see, Yushima's state was obviously terrible, so he had to ask.
If Yushima could still move, then with his cooperation, they could shift both Sakahone and Shuuichi into Yushima's space, which would make the fight much simpler. Without needing to maintain the membrane, Shuuichi could switch back to his normal Shinigami form.
But unfortunately, Yushima Ōko had already had all four of his limbs severed by Sakahone's ability, and unlike Shuuichi, he didn't have unlimited regeneration. Nor did Shuuichi have the time, under the current circumstances, to slowly heal him with Kaidō.
"I'm sorry, Shuuichi-sama, I…"
Yushima didn't dare look directly in Shuuichi's direction. He was filled with guilt. He'd trained alone in the Dangai for hundreds of years—by his frame of reference—and should have pulled far ahead of his peers, his training time even surpassing Shuuichi-sama's own.
Yet he hadn't even been able to force Sakahone Saizō to reveal his Bankai (Final Release).
Before, Yushima hadn't thought much of it, but with Shuuichi-sama watching, he felt like he'd failed the trust and cultivation Shuuichi had given him all these years.
From Shuuichi's perspective, though, this wasn't much of a problem.
Yushima's talent points were invested in research; in terms of combat talent, compared to other Shinigami, he really was lacking. Expecting him to shine in front of a first-generation Captain just wasn't realistic.
What's more, if Shuuichi hadn't guessed wrong, this "first-generation Captain" surpassed the historical "first generation" in a sense.
Because both the young Yamamoto and the young version of himself that he'd fought before had shown a clearly absurd trait: their reiatsu never ran dry, no matter the situation—roughly equivalent to having his full Bankai's "self-sacrifice" state permanently active.
Shuuichi didn't believe that Sakahone Saizō, as he was now, wouldn't have that same ability.
"You should go back out now. Tell Mayuri exactly what happened here. He'll know how to handle it."
So after learning that Yushima couldn't fight, Shuuichi simply and gently gave him that instruction.
He had heard Sakahone's earlier monologue, but Shuuichi wasn't foolish enough to believe an enemy's words wholesale.
Putting himself in his place, Shuuichi knew that in a real battle he usually said very little—and if he did talk, most of it was bait or misleading nonsense.
So he decided Sakahone's claims shouldn't be taken as gospel either.
If yet another "original Gotei 13 Captain" popped out later—or that young Yamamoto again—Shuuichi knew he might not be able to handle it. Soul Society, as it stood now, might not be able to handle it either.
While Shuuichi and Yushima were speaking briefly, Sakahone Saizō brushed off the mark left by the Cero.
The terrifying blast, which had hit him squarely, had only left a shallow wound.
"So you two know each other. That explains it. You're not a Hollow… you're a Shinigami, aren't you? A Hollowfied Shinigami—that new little trick."
Sakahone watched as Yushima's spatial shell flickered and, under his control, slowly shifted toward the edge of the Dangai. He wanted to stop it, but seeing the egg-like membrane that protected it, he could only give up.
This newcomer was nothing like that Shinigami boy from earlier.
Just from that instant when the Cero was fired and the murderous gaze slipped through the membrane, Sakahone knew this Shinigami had killed at least as many people as he had.
In the current state of Soul Society, that made him a bona fide monster.
"So you do know about Hollowfied Shinigami? Saw them over in the West Administration?"
Shuuichi liked talking with self-righteous bruisers like this. They always ended up blurting out exactly the intel he wanted.
For example: Hollowfied Shinigami.
He could say with certainty that Sakahone Saizō, even if he hadn't fought those Hollowfied Captains and Lieutenants who'd followed Urahara Kisuke to the West Administration, had at least seen them. Otherwise, the concept of a Hollowfied Shinigami would have been completely unknown to a Captain who'd died a thousand years before.
Even within Soul Society as a whole, West Administration included, only a handful of people knew about Hollowfied Shinigami.
"Oh? Sounds like you know quite a lot about us. Well, that figures. Those annoying guys did defect from your side, after all. It's not strange you'd know about them…"
Talking as he moved, Sakahone flashed to the edge of Shuuichi's membrane.
"Over there I ran into one of those Shinigami you lot call the 'Goddess of Flash.' I didn't expect your later generations to have fallen so far. That level of shunpō wouldn't even qualify to carry my shoes, yet she's being called a 'goddess of flash.' How laughable."
The reishi of the Dangai poured down around Shuuichi's membrane like a waterfall, and then silver light flashed.
Gokumei: Rakukotsu (Prison Howl: Joyous Bones)!
The membrane, which had been serving as the boundary between two spaces, was sliced open by brute force.
If Yushima had been here to see it, he would have shouted out in shock—this was exactly how Sakahone had cut him out of his extradimensional space earlier.
"I've heard of that move. Chōmei (Dimension-Rending Slash)—a cut that slices through the very fabric of space. Among the first-generation Captains, it was Sakahone Saizō's specialty. Looks like you really are Sakahone Saizō."
Standing inside his membrane, Shuuichi gazed through the freshly opened gap at the man outside, his expression flat.
As for how he knew this, that was naturally thanks to Unohana Retsu.
As one of the original Gotei 13 herself, Unohana knew the sword techniques of her comrades down to the last detail. Even sword forms she didn't use personally, she'd still memorized.
But wanting to slice open space itself with a Shinigami's body required a very particular kind of talent.
Back then, Shuuichi hadn't had that talent, so he'd only ever heard of the technique; he'd never managed to learn it.
Sakahone stepped into Shuuichi's membrane, and the two crossed blades at close range.
Within the few seconds it took for the membrane to seal itself again, they traded over a hundred blows inside that cramped space.
"I see a familiar shadow in you. There's a lot of her scent on you…"
Steel met steel. They broke apart for a heartbeat. Sakahone licked his lips and gave Shuuichi a strange smile.
Of course Shuuichi knew exactly who he meant.
Almost all of his swordsmanship came down through Unohana Retsu. As her old rival, there was no way Sakahone wouldn't recognize that.
"Then watch closely. The 'shadows' on me don't end with just her~"
Shuuichi set his right hand on his sword's hilt, reiatsu gathering rapidly along the blade.
Since Sakahone had chosen to open up the distance, he wasn't about to waste the opportunity.
Ri Nadegiri (Inner Nadegiri).
The fragile membrane couldn't bear this kind of load. The moment Shuuichi swung, it shattered, and wherever the slash passed, reiatsu collapsed inward, coalescing into one black vortex after another that devoured all surrounding reishi.
Sakahone avoided the direct path of the strike, but not its aftermath.
Or rather, he simply didn't care about the devouring pull of those collapsing reiatsu black holes on his own reishi.
Just as Shuuichi had guessed, Sakahone's body structure was identical to that of the young Yamamoto from before.
"Die in despair—Gokumei: Aikotsu (Prison Howl: Lamenting Bones)!"
Laughing wildly, Sakahone looked at the thin white lines he'd left on Shuuichi's body during their brief exchange and plunged his zanpakutō into the void beneath his feet. Ripples spread out, like plucked strings, tugging on each of the white lines marked on Shuuichi.
When the strings break, so too should the life.
And indeed, from Sakahone's perspective, Shuuichi's body came apart, limb from limb.
But in the very next instant, Shuuichi's body reassembled itself. If not for the fragments of flesh still whirling in the air, Sakahone might have thought he'd been hallucinating.
"Impossible! Even a Vasto Lorde-class Hollow's high-speed regeneration couldn't be this extreme!"
For the first time, Sakahone's ever-confident expression shifted.
To keep this Hollowfied Shinigami from relying on a Hollow's high-speed regeneration, he had deliberately planted more than a hundred white lines on Shuuichi's body at once, intending to completely pulverize him.
If it had been someone like Yushima earlier, Sakahone would only have needed a handful of lines to dismember him and ensure his death.
Yet Higashino Shuuichi hadn't died the way he'd envisioned.
"High-speed regeneration can't do it, no—but infinite rebirth is a different story. Your ability has no effect on me."
In Sakahone's view, a fresh membrane once again sealed Shuuichi from head to toe.
Shuuichi still couldn't safely remain exposed to the Dangai as long as Sakahone could.
"So that's how it is…"
Sakahone grinned.
He thought Shuuichi was an idiot—handing him such a crucial piece of information.
Because this was only his Shikai ability.
Next, he'd simply take Shuuichi's life with Bankai (Final Release).
That was what Sakahone thought.
And he realized he was already a step too late.
Within his own membrane, Shuuichi's lips curled up and he pointed at Sakahone. A second membrane sprang into being, wrapping Sakahone's entire body.
"…?"
Sakahone could only stare blankly at this move.
There was no way this was Shuuichi deciding he couldn't win and suddenly trying to make nice.
Not based on the blade exchange they'd just had. Sakahone didn't believe Higashino Shuuichi was that kind of Shinigami.
So what was he trying to do?
It didn't matter. Once he used Bankai, he could—
Wait. His Bankai…
Inside the membrane, Sakahone tried to release his Bankai, only to discover he couldn't. At that moment, it was as if the connection between his zanpakutō and his soul had been severed.
Is it because of this membrane?
His face hardened. Even if he couldn't reach his zanpakutō, Sakahone's swordsmanship was still nothing to scoff at.
Chōmei (Dimension-Rending Slash)!
He tried to repeat the trick and cleave open this closed space.
But this time, the slash that had sliced so cleanly before… failed.
His blade struck the inner surface of the membrane and sank into it as if into cotton.
No—that wasn't right.
Sakahone realized that it wasn't the membrane that had turned to cotton.
It was his sword.
What the hell was happening?
For the first time, Sakahone Saizō truly panicked.
If it was just a contest of brute force, he had infinite reiatsu to back him up and feared no Shinigami. That was why he'd dared to burst into Soul Society on his own in the first place.
Yet here he was, still stuck in the space between Soul Society and the World of the Living, and the Shinigami of this era had already smacked him in the face.
Then Higashino Shuuichi's voice whispered in his ear.
"Looks like you didn't spend much time talking with the folks over in the West Administration. You don't know nearly enough about me.
Ordinarily, I don't like talking nonsense during a fight. But once I do start running my mouth, that means you should be very careful.
Anyway, if I haven't misjudged, the Hollowfication you've seen in the West Administration only reached the level of ordinary Menos, right? You've probably never seen the next level of Hollow power.
Congratulations. Today you get to. This is my Resurrección ability—Hanzai Hōsoku (Crime Law)."
With that, Shuuichi fell silent again.
All Sakahone could see was the membrane encasing him shrinking tighter and smaller until it became a humanoid shell that fused perfectly to his body.
At first, he still didn't understand Shuuichi's goal.
Then he did.
Do Shinigami need to breathe?
That question had never once occurred to Sakahone Saizō in all the time since he'd been born—not even during the thousand years he'd spent in Hell.
Because to him, the question was a joke. Shinigami obviously didn't need to breathe. They were souls, after all. Breathing was something only humans in the World of the Living needed. Why would that factor into a Shinigami's thinking?
A Shinigami's "breath" was just habit, an imitation of human form; what they inhaled and exhaled were reishi, and even without that, reishi could still flow freely through their bodies.
But if you asked him that question now, Sakahone's answer would be very different.
Because after that membrane fused to his body, Sakahone realized that his breathing had started to falter.
A suffocating sensation—one he'd never known—began to ferment and expand in his mind.
Soon his complexion darkened, and his body started to convulse.
He tried to struggle, but with the membrane pinning him in a rigid shell, he simply couldn't move. In the end, Sakahone Saizō could only drown in that dreadful suffocation, sink deeper and deeper until his consciousness finally went out.
From within his own membrane just a short distance away, Higashino Shuuichi watched it all calmly.
Good. Everything had gone exactly as he'd planned.
Shinigami didn't need to breathe—normally.
But this was the death he'd assigned to Sakahone Saizō, and so this was the only way Sakahone was allowed to die.
Having learned his lesson the hard way, Shuuichi had never planned to toy around with an unknown enemy like Sakahone. Even a lion used its full strength to bring down a rabbit—never mind a tiger like Sakahone Saizō.
From the moment he'd entered the Dangai, Shuuichi had already released his Resurrección.
Yes—over the past seven years, while he'd been yearning day and night for a trip to the Soul King Palace to perfect his Bankai's complete form, he hadn't just sat quietly in Soul Society doing nothing.
With his status as Grand Blade-Hunting Chief, he was free to move as he pleased within Soul Society. It had been easy for him to find Aizen Sōsuke; once the two of them put their heads together, a light bit of scheming had been enough to push Ichimaru Gin into a burst of "increased workload," forcing him to work nonstop for half a month.
While Gin was suffering, Shuuichi spent that same half-month, with Aizen's aid and the boost of the Hōgyoku, completing his final, deepest communion with his Hollow form.
That was a step he'd always been too wary to take.
His Hollow form was like his zanpakutō spirit: it wielded all of his power, plus a Resurrección on top of that.
In that inner world built from the Hollow's own essence, techniques that even a fully Hollowfied Captain couldn't master—free, simultaneous use of Hollow and Shinigami powers—came easily to that version of himself.
For ordinary Arrancar, mastering Resurrección might only mean defeating a slightly stronger version of themselves.
For Higashino Shuuichi, however, it meant defeating a cheat-coded version of himself.
It was harder than climbing to the sky.
Unless Aizen gained the complete Hōgyoku in the future and used it as an external force to force the outcome, Shuuichi had never seen a way to beat his own Hollowfied self.
That, he guessed, was precisely why—aside from Tōsen Kaname and the cheat protagonist Kurosaki Ichigo—none of the other Hollowfied Captains and Lieutenants had ever mastered Resurrección in the original story.
It was simply too difficult.
But after dying once and unexpectedly recovering most of his past memories, Shuuichi had found a way to "bug" the system:
His full-form Bankai.
As the original, Higashino Shuuichi could choose to temporarily "forget" one incomplete aspect of his Bankai's power in exchange for a single use of the fully unlocked ability.
His Hollow form, on the other hand, had no such privilege.
And it just so happened that this full Bankai ability was perfect for countering that broken, cheat-code version of himself.
In fact, with enough intel, Shuuichi's full Bankai ability theoretically countered everything. It belonged to the gensō-kei (reality-warping) category—its power extended as far as his imagination.
And nobody in existence understood that ability better than Higashino Shuuichi himself.
Especially after he'd partially mastered Hollowfication for the first time and collected all the key data on his Hollow form's Resurrección.
When he faced that Hollowfied self, he'd been able to punch straight through with overwhelming simplicity.
The Hollow had been stunned.
By the time he was done, those Hollow eyes were hazy with confusion.
It had expected the most exhilarating fight of its life. Instead, it had been utterly crushed, unable to do anything but lie there and take it.
When Shuuichi finally merged it back into himself, he could practically feel the Hollow's frustration:
You're cheating. Big cheating. This is not okay…
Once that fusion was complete, Shuuichi at last grasped the full shape of his Resurrección.
Hanzai Hōsoku (Crime Law): as long as three conditions were met, the target would die in whatever manner Shuuichi had decided beforehand—no matter how irrational.
First: before the "crime" was carried out, the victim had to be aware of the cause that would lead to their death, including the "weapon" and the "agent" of the crime.
Second: before executing the crime, there had to be a period of premeditation. During that time, the victim could not suffer any harm from Shuuichi himself.
Third: from the beginning of the planning phase to the moment the "crime" was completed, the user—Higashino Shuuichi—had to remain present, and he could not die before the crime concluded.
As long as those three conditions were satisfied, the enemy for whom Shuuichi had prepared a tailored "crime plan" would inevitably die in exactly the way he'd chosen—even if the method itself made no sense.
Once he understood his Resurrección in full, Shuuichi realized just how shallow his Hollow form's usage of it had been.
Building an illusionary world and creating all kinds of scenarios based on Shuuichi's memories?
That was pure overcomplication.
All he really needed to do was this: in the course of a normal battle, treat his own weapon—or any convenient object—as the "murder weapon" and "agent."
If he was fighting someone, of course they knew that weapon could kill them.
Then he just needed to fight defensively for a while, playing weak. That period naturally became his "premeditation time," and the victim would be none the wiser.
Finally, since he would be present throughout the battle and wouldn't be going anywhere, the third condition was automatically satisfied.
In other words, the only tricky part was the second condition—the span of premeditated "planning."
As long as the enemy didn't end the fight quickly, the only outcome they could look forward to was dying exactly the way Shuuichi had decided in advance.
The one real drawback of this Resurrección was that it only worked on one target at a time. Once there were multiple enemies, it became much harder to use effectively.
But against Sakahone Saizō alone, it was more than enough.
Still, just as Shuuichi had anticipated, the method that would work perfectly on the vast majority of Shinigami wasn't fully effective on Sakahone.
Sakahone Saizō was defeated, and his soul should have returned to Hell—Shuuichi even saw the divine crest on his back fade away at the moment his soul vanished.
But the body remained.
"Shinigami… die."
A familiar, mechanical voice rang out.
Wearing Sakahone Saizō's face, the body lifted the zanpakutō again.
Unlike Sakahone himself, with his breathtaking shunpō, this newborn puppet body moved exactly like the young Yamamoto from before—attacking along fixed patterns, following a rigid program.
Gokumei: Hikotsu (Prison Howl: Sorrowful Bones).
Reishi poured down like a waterfall. Shuuichi flicked his wrist and used a chantless spell at the highest level of binding.
"Bakudō 99: Kin (Seal)."
He was no longer the man who'd fought that young Yamamoto in Osaka. In its current state, this Sakahone body simply couldn't threaten him.
After sealing it with Kin, Shuuichi stepped forward, grabbed the limp body, and started toward Soul Society.
There was no doubt: a storm lay behind Sakahone Saizō.
Between this fight and the things Sakahone had said, Shuuichi already understood his origins well enough. The remaining question was how Soul Society would respond.
Especially since this incident would almost certainly drag the Tsunayashiro family into it as well.
How would Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni react this time?
And that divine crest on Sakahone's back—what did it have to do with Sayako?
Right now, Higashino Shuuichi was truly curious what exactly Urahara Kisuke and that group of Hollowfied Shinigami had been doing all these years in the West Administration.