"Is that former 12th Division captain, Miyazaki Sakai Masato, finally here?!"
Sitting on a big rock by the beach, bored out of his mind as he skipped stones across the sea, Yushima Ōko leapt down in excitement and shouted at Kisaragi Shūsuke, who stood not far away enjoying the salty, damp sea breeze.
Because Ōko knew Shūsuke had met Miyazaki Sakai Masato before.
What he didn't know was that Shūsuke had only seen him—back then, before he could even spar with Miyazaki Sakai Masato, Higashino Shuuichi had suddenly arrived and called him back to the East Administration.
"I don't know. But Shuuichi-sama definitely has an answer. Let's go see him!"
Kisaragi Shūsuke gave Ōko an honest reply, and the two of them quickly arrived outside Higashino Shuuichi's room.
And when they got there, Matsumoto Rangiku and Nagasawa Satomi were already waiting outside.
"Yo-ho~ Ōko and Shūsuke, why are you two coming together today?
Perfect timing—I was just about to go look for you. Saves me the trouble!"
Matsumoto Rangiku greeted them first.
"Why would you ask that? Rangiku, didn't you feel that reiatsu?"
Ōko stared at her in confusion.
At the same time, Shūsuke looked half a step behind Rangiku, toward Nagasawa Satomi.
"Satomi, you didn't feel it either?"
Nagasawa Satomi had originally been just a human. As a Fullbringer with no particularly outstanding aptitude, she naturally couldn't master any high-level reiatsu sensing techniques. But after going to Soul Society and undergoing that Reishi-based transformation of the body formed through the Dangai, strictly speaking, Satomi could now be considered half a Shinigami.
Yet both Matsumoto Rangiku and Nagasawa Satomi responded with the same confused shake of the head.
"What's going on?
Did something happen?"
Sensing something was off, Satomi asked Shūsuke.
Just as Shūsuke was about to answer, Higashino Shuuichi's door suddenly opened, and his voice came from inside.
"No need to explain. This might be a bit troublesome—just come in, all of you."
Hearing that, Yushima Ōko and Kisaragi Shūsuke exchanged a glance with rare synchronicity. Each saw the same confusion in the other's eyes.
Soon, Shūsuke and the others entered one after another. Shūsuke was about to ask Higashino Shuuichi what exactly was going on—
But the woman seated at Higashino Shuuichi's left instantly hijacked his attention.
Her styling was a little… perverse, her clothing a little too revealing, and her figure explosively eye-catching.
As someone who had followed Higashino Shuuichi since long ago, Shūsuke had seen what Higashino Shuuichi's Zanpakuto looked like when manifested—an unmistakably scholarly middle-aged man, absolutely not a woman. So if this woman could sit on Shuuichi-sama's left while Kabuma Sayako-sama sat on his right…
Then—
Shūsuke's gaze subconsciously flicked toward Matsumoto Rangiku behind him, and sure enough, Rangiku's expression had gone slightly stiff.
And when Shūsuke quickly pulled his eyes back, his line of sight happened to cross Ōko's—who had also just withdrawn his gaze from Rangiku.
Right. Looks like everyone's thoughts were shockingly aligned in that department.
"Ahem."
Then came Higashino Shuuichi's short, pointed cough.
Standing right in front of him and still passing such blatant looks around—did they think he was blind?
Obviously, they'd misunderstood something, so Higashino Shuuichi decided he had to clarify.
"This is Urozakuro—the manifested Zanpakuto of the former 11th Division captain, Azashiro Kenpachi. Back when I was still in Soul Society, she helped me quite a lot. This time, I brought her here to add another layer of insurance."
"So she's still a Zanpakuto…"
Matsumoto Rangiku finally exhaled in relief. A Zanpakuto—and someone else's, at that—meant there was nothing to worry about!
This was exactly the kind of moment she should be having a proper drink!
"So that terrifying reiatsu earlier—was that from her?"
To his credit, Kisaragi Shūsuke didn't stay distracted. He'd long since passed the age of being naive and easily swayed, and with one sentence, he dragged the conversation back on track.
Unfortunately, Higashino Shuuichi's answer was no.
"No. In fact, Urozakuro only arrived not long ago. She's a Zanpakuto—she can't move like ordinary Shinigami, slipping through that special 'tunnel' the Tsunayashiro clan built to sneak through the Dangai. She can only wait for an opportunity, follow Shinigami who were already coming to the Human World, and pass through the same Senkaimon.
Much less do something as idiotic as what just happened.
In the Human World, there's nowhere she needs to 'declare territory.'"
"Then, Shuuichi-sama, that powerful reiatsu Ōko and I felt—what was it?"
Now Shūsuke was even more confused.
"Powerful reiatsu? What powerful reiatsu?"
Hearing Shūsuke's explanation, Matsumoto Rangiku's eyes widened in disbelief.
"No way. Just because I've basically stopped training since coming to the Human World… my spiritual sense got weaker too?!"
Rangiku closed her eyes and tried to find that "powerful reiatsu" Shūsuke was talking about.
Naturally, she failed.
She couldn't sense anything special at all.
If she weren't absolutely certain Shūsuke wouldn't be arrogant enough to lie in front of the person she respected most—Shuuichi-sama—she would've thought Shūsuke was messing with her!
So what was happening here? Was the alcohol in the Human World even more destructive than the stuff in Soul Society?!
Thankfully, just as Rangiku was about to shut down and start questioning her entire existence, Higashino Shuuichi explained it to everyone.
"It's filtering. The one who released that reiatsu used a very special method—only Shinigami whose reiatsu exceeds a certain threshold can sense his presence. It's a naked provocation."
…Okay. Rangiku felt like she would've been better off not hearing that explanation.
Because after hearing it, it somehow felt even worse.
So her reiatsu was low, huh?
"So the visitor isn't that Miyazaki Sakai Masato?"
Ōko didn't notice Rangiku's stiff expression at all. He simply rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Because with Miyazaki Sakai Masato's identity and stance, unless he was prepared to take on all of Soul Society by himself, he wouldn't do something this reckless.
It contradicted everything about Miyazaki Sakai Masato's past behavior.
Not to mention right now—Tsunayashiro Kamihara's order hadn't even been delivered yet from Higashino Shuuichi's side. From Miyazaki Sakai Masato's perspective, he wouldn't know the Tsunayashiro clan suddenly needed him to come and cause a major upheaval.
"Yes. Just like you, I want it to be Miyazaki Sakai Masato. But objectively speaking, this uninvited guest isn't the opponent we were expecting.
And the timing is awful. If he'd come earlier, things wouldn't have become as troublesome as they are now."
Higashino Shuuichi nodded at Ōko.
"It's because that large-scale reiatsu-concealment barrier we set up earlier worked, isn't it?
His provocation method got affected by our concealment barrier, so it couldn't take effect outside the barrier. Which means an incident that should've been handled by Soul Society's Shinigami… became our job?"
Kisaragi Shūsuke immediately pieced it together and quickly offered his suggestion to Higashino Shuuichi.
"But Shuuichi-sama, what if we just shut the barrier down?
If it's not Miyazaki Sakai Masato, there's no need for us to waste our energy on him…"
Shūsuke's proposal instantly earned support from most of the people present, including Matsumoto Rangiku and Yushima Ōko.
But it did not include Higashino Shuuichi.
"That sounds right, Shūsuke—but have you thought about the consequences?
You remove one nuisance and invite a bigger nuisance. With the personality traits he's shown so far, how can you guarantee he won't choose this place as the main battlefield for his war against Soul Society?
And if it develops that way, doesn't it mean all the effort we put in—setting traps here—goes straight to waste?
And let's take a step back. What if, during that window, Miyazaki Sakai Masato arrives at exactly this timing? Do we restart the barrier—or not?
Either choice exposes us completely to Soul Society's view."
In other words, in Higashino Shuuichi's eyes, they had already run out of better options.
They could only solve this damned problem themselves.
"Then let's treat it like a small warm-up before the real war!
Shuuichi-sama, I'm totally fine with it. This time, leave him to me!"
After hearing Higashino Shuuichi's explanation, Ōko still didn't fully understand the logic, but for him, if Shuuichi-sama said no, then Ōko had no second thoughts.
Besides, his hands had been itching for a long time. Before biting into a main course like Miyazaki Sakai Masato, taking one bite of a substitute wasn't bad at all.
But what made Ōko feel unusually crushed was that Shuuichi-sama flatly rejected his eager volunteering.
"Ōko, you won't do. This time, Shūsuke goes. You stay on the side as support and insurance."
This wasn't Higashino Shuuichi picking on Ōko. It was because he was certain the opponent this time was a Shinigami. At Higashino Shuuichi's current level—straddling Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy—he could sense that within that peculiar reiatsu, Shinigami power made up the overwhelming majority.
And if the opponent was a Shinigami, then Kisaragi Shūsuke was the perfect choice.
Because Kisaragi Shūsuke's Bakkōtō Bankai could directly seal a Shinigami's Zanpakuto release. As long as the reiatsu gap between two Shinigami wasn't too large, the one who could still release their Zanpakuto would hold an absolute advantage.
Shūsuke understood immediately.
Shuuichi-sama wanted him to end this quickly.
At the very least, it couldn't interfere with Miyazaki Sakai Masato's eventual arrival.
So, just as that strange man dropped down from above, puzzled about why Soul Society's Shinigami were responding so slowly—an unsheathed blade suddenly barred his path.
"Bungetsu: Ichimonji-giri (One-Character Slash)!"
A black shadow flashed. The man used a baffling Shunpō (Flash Step) feint to twist away, landing on the beam of a wooden house by the street. He looked back at where he'd been standing—at the steel-reinforced bridge behind it that had been cut clean in half—and whistled in impressed amazement.
"Knew it. There's no way you'd have no reaction—so you were trying to sneak over in secret, huh!
Not bad. After a few hundred years, at least your thinking hasn't grown too rigid. I used to always assume you'd be led astray under that Yamamoto Shigekuni bastard, but it seems I worried for nothing!"
"Yamamoto Shigekuni…"
Kisaragi Shūsuke repeated the name softly.
Generally speaking, very few people addressed the Commander-General like that. For Shinigami of the new era like Shūsuke and the others, the Commander-General's name was only one thing: Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni. People who skipped the middle and called him "Yamamoto Shigekuni" were, almost without exception, Shinigami from the same era as the Commander-General.
So the identity of the man before him had become rather clear.
"You're also a first-generation captain?"
Shūsuke tightened his grip on Bakkōtō and asked solemnly.
"Hahahaha—judging from your tone, I'm guessing that idiot Sakahone Saizō probably failed, huh?
So tell me—did you capture him alive, or kill him?
Don't tell me you let that idiot get away. That would be such a shame~"
After laughing a few times, the man asked.
At first, Shūsuke was genuinely thrown off.
Was this guy on Sakahone Saizō's side?
Why did it sound like he was hoping Saizō would get wrecked?
"Then you'll probably like my answer. Sakahone Saizō is dead—only a Reigai shell is left."
As he spoke, Shūsuke had already struck more than a dozen times. Each time, the man evaded with exquisite precision—Shūsuke's blade couldn't even graze the corner of his clothes.
So this was the strength of a first-generation captain?
Shūsuke couldn't help feeling shocked.
Then how on earth had Ōko managed to hold out so long against Sakahone Saizō in a place like the Dangai, waiting for Shuuichi-sama's support?
(Yushima Ōko: "Who are you subtly trash-talking here?!")
"Is that so? What a refreshing, satisfying answer. That stupid pig deserved an ending like that.
Then I should give you a reward for being such an obedient little listener~"
The man performed another relaxed leap, easily dodging Shūsuke's slash again, and landed atop an even taller house.
"To die by my blade, Entetsu Kumoi's blade… is your honor!"
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