Chapter 242: Meeting
…So this is the Chakra Guiding Technique. What a terrifyingly brilliant idea.
Shunsui stumbled out of the wreckage, one hand bracing his lower back as if his bones were still arguing with gravity. He glanced over his shoulder at the smoking, crackling contraption behind them, and the faintest tremor of aftershock crossed his eyes.
It looked like it might explode out of spite.
Mayuri's flying machine had carried three passengers. Captain Commander Yamamoto was the core of the trip, the one who truly needed to reach the Soul King Palace. Mayuri Kurotsuchi was indispensable, because only he could operate the thing. Shunsui had insisted on coming along because he refused to let the old man ride Mayuri's newest nightmare alone.
The result was simple.
The highly anticipated "flight" had nearly stalled and fallen out of the sky.
At this unknown altitude, even Shinigami felt a biting chill creep into their bones. And Mayuri's craft, if it could be called that, was less a vehicle and more a massive firecracker with three chair like fixtures strapped onto it, daring the heavens to complain.
It relied on Mayuri's newly developed Chakra Guiding Technique, constantly pulling, steering, and correcting its path with chakra, as if dragging a stubborn beast by the collar. The problem was that the beast had no stable landing measures.
So the landing became a crash.
They had barely found a sky island near the Soul King Palace before the machine slammed into it, shattered, and died in a blaze of smoke and sparks. Return travel was now an optimistic fantasy.
Of course, Mayuri insisted the flying machine was perfectly fine and that they could return whenever he pleased.
Shunsui stared at the smoking ruin and decided that trusting Mayuri's words was more dangerous than jumping off the island and letting the sky decide.
"Hmm?" Mayuri's voice lifted, thin with curiosity.
Standing near the torn frame, he held fragments in both hands like precious artifacts. His head tilted slightly as he looked toward the distance, and a strange smile crept across his painted mask.
"It seems we are not the only ones who arrived at the Soul King Palace."
Shunsui followed Mayuri's gaze.
Two figures approached across the pale expanse of the sky island.
Urahara Kisuke.
And that strange ryoka.
Mayuri's grin widened into something twisted, almost delighted, as if the scene had scratched an itch in his brain. He stepped forward, circling them with slow, predatory interest, studying them from head to toe.
"How curious. You two arrived without any of the proper spectacle. By what means did you reach the Soul King Palace, hmm? We flew here using my great, entirely self patented invention. What about you two, hmm?"
Urahara's eyes flicked to the surrounding ruins. His face tightened, the usual easy humor draining out of him.
"Unlike you, we found a descendant of the Shiba Clan and came directly."
He looked past Mayuri, toward the scattered signs of impact across the island.
"When we were watching from the other side, we saw several other flying machines crash in different places. People fell all around, within two hours of each other. And we cannot even confirm they were all from Seireitei."
Urahara's gaze narrowed.
"How many of you came up?"
Shunsui stroked his chin and answered with calm that did not quite hide his unease.
"The old man went inside to check the situation. If nothing goes wrong, it should only be the three of us."
He glanced around again, eyes half lidded, but sharp.
"Then the ones in the other directions are likely Aizen's people, or Quincy. But what are they doing at the Soul King Palace? They cannot seriously intend to do something to the Soul King, can they?"
"Compared to that," Mayuri said, voice sharpening, "is there not something more worth paying attention to, Captain Shunsui Kyōraku?"
He snapped his head toward Shunsui with theatrical irritation, then turned back to Urahara and Ichigo. The grotesque smile on his mask seemed to deepen, as if the painted mouth had learned to sneer on its own.
He circled them again, faster this time, eyes darting, taking in every detail.
"It is strange. Why would everyone arrive at the Soul King Palace at the same time? Why would everyone use various methods to reach here simultaneously?"
Mayuri's eyes gleamed as if this mystery pleased him more than any answer.
"And yet there is no immediate desire to fight, no intention to attack. That makes me uneasy."
The word uneasy did not match the smile.
Then Mayuri stopped in front of them and leaned in slightly, as if asking a friendly question at a dinner party.
"So I will take the liberty of asking. Where did Aizen Sōsuke go, hmm? Where is the most central person in this farce?"
Urahara's expression did not change, but his voice turned flatter.
"Aizen had something to handle. He did not come."
"Hmm. I see."
Mayuri's eyes widened. He pinched his chin, thinking, calculating, savoring the implications like a taste on his tongue.
"He left the main force. We arrive at the Soul King Palace and cannot see the Zero Division. There are signs of battle. So that means Aizen Sōsuke got here first and has already done something inside the Soul King Palace…"
"Hey," Shunsui cut in, voice mild but edged. "What are you muttering about over there, you clown?"
"…Oh my."
Mayuri's grin sharpened.
From the collapsed structure ahead, a figure rose shakily from the rubble, clutching his own body like it had forgotten how to stay together. He staggered forward, both hands briefly going to his pompadour as if making sure it still existed, then took a few unsteady steps down the broken path.
Tenjirō Kirinji.
The creator of the secret hot spring. A member of the Zero Division. A man renowned for speed and medical skill beyond imagination, known by titles like Hot Spring Demon, Eastern General, Swift Thunder Tenjirō.
Those who understood the Royal Guard's weight knew what that meant.
So seeing him with a blade of grass in his mouth, stumbling like a drunk, then collapsing flat onto his back, made the newcomers freeze with a sense of wrongness.
Because he did not shout enemy attack.
He did not declare judgment.
He did not demand they kneel.
He simply lay there like a salted fish who had finally given up on the universe. Then, with effort, he rolled onto his side, panting as he stared up at the bright sky. His face held a strange mix of satisfaction and loss, like someone who had finished a long awaited fight and found it empty.
"You came looking for advice," Tenjirō said, breath rough, voice still carrying that rough amusement. "Looking for answers."
His gaze drifted over them, Quincy, Shinigami, and the clueless kid in the middle.
"Does not matter who you are. Quincy, Shinigami, or that boy who knows nothing, the Soul King candidate."
Tenjirō's smile turned ugly, tired, and honest.
"Sorry. We started fighting first."
He exhaled.
"There are no answers."