Chapter 256: Beyond Grudges and Debts (Part 5)
In truth, Ganju's understanding of Rukongai had never been as complete as he believed.
Ever since childhood, he had wandered at his sister's side. Kukaku, the Shiba Clan's pyrotechnician, was the kind of woman who roamed everywhere, took whatever work she could find, and treated her younger brother's upbringing like a personal mission. She taught by example, drilled him relentlessly, and handed him a full Shinigami style education system the moment he was old enough to learn.
That came at a cost.
On the surface, Ganju looked like a man of Rukongai.
At his core, he never truly was.
To him, Rukongai was "home," but that home was an entire region, not a single district, not a single neighborhood, not a single set of faces that had shaped him through hunger and helplessness. Wherever he went as Kukaku's companion, people welcomed him. They smiled, joked, offered food when they had it, treated him like family. With his loud, passionate personality, he blended into any crowd so easily that even he began to believe he belonged everywhere.
But belonging everywhere is also a kind of illusion.
Kukaku had given him methods to manifest spiritual power. Their retainers and servants had surrounded him since he was young. Compared to the Wandering Souls who truly struggled in Rukongai, those who starved, those who crawled through mud just to survive one more day, Ganju's life was elevated. In some ways, it was not even inferior to the lives of ordinary Shinigami.
No one in Rukongai openly condemned him for it. These people were simple, and good hearted in their own way. They did not shove him out of the circle, did not spit at his feet.
But the rift still existed.
A faint crack, invisible, yet real.
And now it had widened enough for Ganju to feel it.
He had been thinking like himself, like the boy Kukaku raised. Wait for a better chance. Gather strength. Build a retreat. Then strike with a plan.
He did not carry that bone deep hatred that made a person stop caring whether they lived to see tomorrow. He did not feel that urgent need to throw his body into a fire just to prove he had existed.
So after giving the power system to the people outside, he had still been calmly imagining the future with Ichigo, as if the world could be fixed with enough time and enough effort.
They were good people. They had the heart to help Rukongai. Everyone recognized that.
But the moment the truly desperate began calculating the path of destruction, the moment revenge became more than a fantasy, their calculations did not include Ganju.
Because Ganju was a good person.
And good people could not be allowed to stand at the center of a massacre.
The Wandering Souls who lived here were not fools. They were not beasts. They had once been ordinary people. They had lived through a world of etiquette and shame and basic human decency. Even after death, those concepts did not disappear. They were passed down, taught, repeated, stubbornly preserved.
They simply could not become Shinigami. It was not that they lacked intelligence or conviction, it was that the world's rules refused them.
So what did they do when they realized the truth?
They broke.
They endured.
Then they broke again.
Those who had once believed the Shinigami "guided" souls to Rukongai often collapsed completely when they realized what Rukongai actually was. A lawless hell, where life after death was worse than life before it. In the human world, you did not fear that a massacre would fall from the sky simply because someone in power decided a district's quota was inconvenient.
Even if the Shinigami claimed it was necessary, whether because of Hollows or Quincy or balance, murder was still murder.
How many families did an entire district have outside their own boundaries?
How many friends did they have in other streets, other numbers, other zones?
How much grief piled up in the hearts of those who survived each "adjustment?"
That was why the ones truly throwing themselves into Chakra were not the comfortable, the idle, the lucky.
It was the ones who had long since lost hope.
The ones who had watched their families slaughtered by Shinigami and Hollows.
The ones who had seen parents die in front of their eyes.
The ones who had seen the person they loved murdered like a joke.
The ones who had watched their best friend used as a target to test a blade.
Those memories did not fade. They hardened. They sat in the heart like a buried knife, and because they lacked power, they could never pull it out.
Until now.
Now they could all feel it.
A pressure in the air.
A signal in their bones.
A sensation telling them the time was ripe.
Their Chakra was still crude. Unstable. Many could only create simple flames or crude stones, nothing that would frighten a captain.
But they were countless.
And their hatred toward Seireitei was not a spark, it was an ocean.
The group speaking to Ganju was only a tiny fraction of the whole.
The old man at the front, a familiar figure in Rukongai, someone who usually mediated disputes and kept tempers from boiling over, laughed as he spoke.
His laughter was warm.
His eyes were not.
They were hollow, as if something had been scooped out and never replaced.
Not only his eyes. Everyone gathered around had the same emptiness, not because Chakra had harmed them, and not because some supernatural call had stolen their souls.
It was something simpler, and more terrifying.
They had decided.
If the world refused to give them a solution, then they would create one with destruction.
Ganju's breathing turned ragged. Sweat ran down his back.
He did not understand why they had changed so quickly. Not long ago, they had trained earnestly, had reassured him they would wait until they were ready, had promised they would not rush into suicide.
Yet now they were moving like the hour had been chosen, like the decision had already been made somewhere above their heads, and they could only obey.
The old man patted Ganju's shoulder, almost gently.
"I know you're worried," he said softly. "But there's no need."
He smiled, and Ganju's heart sank because the smile looked practiced, like a mask.
"We do feel influenced," the old man admitted. "But it's like someone talking nearby. Annoying, but nothing more."
He leaned in a little, voice dry and rasping.
"What truly made us decide is our own heart."
Ganju's eyes widened. "Influenced? But"
"I said it's nothing," the old man cut in, raising a palm.
Then his tone changed.
It became sharper, heavier, as if every word had been chewed and swallowed for years before finally being spat out.
"We can't endure this life anymore. Being treated with contempt. Being penned in by monsters. Being slaughtered like pigs and dogs."
His eyes did not blink.
"We don't want to live like that for even one more second."
"But you said we only needed one more month," Ganju blurted, hands spread, frantic. "Just one more month. After that, the God Trees across Rukongai can link, we can build space for Chakra practitioners. We'll have a retreat. We don't have to attack right now."
He spoke fast, faster than he ever thought he could, trying to organize logic and cause and effect, trying to persuade them with the future he had imagined.
But the old man raised his hand again.
"Ganju," he said quietly. "Do you know what I heard recently?"
Ganju swallowed. "What?"
"The Quincy have appeared in Seireitei again."
"…I heard that," Ganju said, voice unsteady. "Someone sent word."
"Yes." The old man's gaze did not move. "And the Quincy have begun eliminating Hollows in the Living World again."
He spoke as if he were describing weather.
"You know what that means. You all learned later what happened a thousand years ago. The Quincy erased Hollows completely, dissolving them into the void. They protected humans from invisible threats, and for that they were exterminated."
His lips twitched, not quite a smile.
"Now they've returned. Their hatred for the Shinigami never died. They are still killing Hollows, still moving against the world's balance."
Ganju's throat felt tight.
The old man continued, each sentence falling like a hammer.
"And yesterday, the nobles made a temporary decision. They are forming a Shinigami squad to kill everyone in districts thirty one and above."
Ganju froze. "…What?"
"Hundreds of millions," the old man said, like he was reciting a number from a ledger. "Why kill so many? Because they judged war might be unacceptable in the short term, and with the Captain Commander and others missing, the decision was finalized by the only Great Noble head still active."
His voice scraped.
"Tokinada Tsunayashiro. Head of the Tsunayashiro Family."
Ganju's mind went blank.
"He decided to kill everyone from district thirty one onward," the old man repeated. "So tell me, little Ganju, can we still wait?"
His gaze sharpened, and for the first time Ganju heard the buried scream in his tone.
"They've already prepared the squad. They're coming."
The old man's hands trembled, just slightly.
"We've waited too long. Now that I have power, every night I dream of my daughter dying, and that Shinigami smiling at me, telling me the quota was met so I didn't have to die."
He laughed again, but the sound was empty.
"Maybe to him, it was mercy. Politeness."
His eyes were dead.
"To us, it is something that must be avenged."
"We're human," he said, voice rising at last. "We're not lambs waiting for slaughter. Now that we have some power, we refuse to be treated like animals."
He stepped back, gesturing to the crowd behind him.
"We will live. And we will take revenge on the Shinigami."
Then, as if something beyond reason pushed him, he added one final line, almost like a prophecy.
"An intuition tells us to move forward. Those Shinigami won't be able to stop us."
Ganju stared at him, unable to breathe.
The old man turned away.
The young men followed, their steps steady, their shoulders straight.
They were heading for the South Gate of Seireitei, intent on killing the Shinigami guarding it. The so called heroes of Rukongai had long since become Shinigami lackeys in the old man's eyes, and now the settlement had come due.
If not for Tokinada's planned massacre, Rukongai might never have exploded like this. But once the news arrived, passed down by certain nobles who could no longer stomach it, the decision became inevitable.
A month later might have been beautiful.
But less than a month from now, there might not be anyone left in Rukongai to enjoy it.
Shinigami slaughter was efficient. Absolute. Hundreds of thousands could die with minimal effort.
And now they were putting real resources behind it, Great Noble Shinigami leading private forces.
If Rukongai did not resist now, they would simply be erased.
Ganju understood that truth too.
And that understanding crushed him.
As he sat at the entrance in a daze, Wandering Souls came one after another to bid him farewell.
In a single afternoon, the crowd dispersed dozens of times. Hundreds. Thousands.
Not one intended to keep waiting.
Even those from the numbered districts.
They were all prepared to die, carrying the resolve to fight to the end.
Some had lost teachers. Some had watched a former rival become a Shinigami, then slaughter their family while leaving them alive as a joke. Some had died only to test a blade. Some were used for Kido experiments. Some were kidnapped for drug trials. Even the so called servants of Great Noble Houses, slaves in all but name, began moving too, preparing their own desperate fireworks.
They knew very well what they were.
Moths rushing into flame.
And yet they went anyway.
Because Rukongai was saturated with Chakra now. Chakra practitioners were everywhere. Killing a Chakra wielder did not just end a life, it carved hatred into the world's Chakra, hatred that would circulate eternally in that energy.
If every Chakra practitioner were killed in a single massacre, then that one moment of howling might twist the operational logic of the world itself.
That was the sensation they carried.
That was the rage they clung to.
To destroy the Shinigami. To force a future into existence for Wandering Souls. For dead wives and children. For dead husbands and sons.
The tide rose.
And the tide moved.
Countless souls surged forward toward Seireitei, a march that could only be described as walking into death.
Ganju stared at it and found no words.
This was not something speech could stop.
When it came to hatred and finality, no one felt it more intensely than the people of Rukongai. They could feel the reckoning approaching, and they refused to deny what their hearts demanded.
Then, like a drowning man grabbing the first rope he sees, Ganju suddenly remembered the one person who had always dragged him back from the edge.
His sister.
He scrambled to his feet and ran, sprinting back toward the dojo as fast as his legs would carry him.
He needed Kukaku.
From childhood to adulthood, she had led him through everything.
His mind was a mess, logic shattered, thoughts tangled. The only person he could think of was her. She would have a way. She had to. She would help him.
This kind of mass death, this wave of people walking to their end, was something he had never imagined.
The Chakra world he pictured was not like this.
In his mind, revenge was supposed to be cool. Simple. Colorful energy. Heroes charging into Seireitei. Crimes shouted to the heavens. Shinigami falling to their knees, wailing that it was all someone else's fault.
He would laugh. He would be celebrated.
That was the childish image he had carried.
But now, staring at that dim tide of Chakra, Ganju panicked.
"Sis," he yelled as he burst into the dojo. "Old sis. What do we do now? Everyone's going to Seireitei."
His voice cracked, fear spilling out.
"The Chakra practitioners already headed out. They said they're going to demand an explanation from the Shinigami. Sister, what are we supposed to do?"
"What are we supposed to do?" Kukaku's voice answered calmly.
She sat cross legged in the center of the dojo, a pipe in hand. She lit it, then exhaled a slow cloud of smoke, eyes half lidded as if she were watching something far away.
"What else can we do?"
"I'm asking you," Ganju blurted, desperate. "Sis"
"If you want to follow them, then follow them," Kukaku said. "If you don't want to think about anything, then stay here."
She looked at him, her gaze steady.
"I'll stay with you."
"…Sis?"
"You won't die."
Ganju's mind went blank.
Only then did he notice it.
The dojo was scarred.
Crisscrossing fissures, wounds carved into the floor and walls, traces of violent battle everywhere. Residual reiatsu hung in the air like smoke, dense Reishi churning so thick it almost stung his lungs.
This place had been a battlefield.
And while the movement outside began, decisions had been made inside the Shiba dojo as well.
Yoruichi had moved.
She was Shihōin. Even now, with everything shattered, she still had clan channels, secret communications, information that ordinary people could not touch. She had sensed that something catastrophic was happening inside Seireitei, then confirmed it through the Shihōin network.
After Yamamoto, Shunsui, and Mayuri vanished, Wandenreich had, for reasons unknown, collided into the shadows within Seireitei itself. Every dark corner became a potential breach. No shadow could be trusted.
With the Sternritter's entry, Seireitei had been thrown into a fierce struggle.
In that chaos, the nobles forming an alliance was natural.
And to preserve the balance of the Three Realms, to keep everything from shattering outright, Tokinada had issued orders for a real massacre.
All of it was real.
Which meant Yoruichi's actions would be real too.
To repair the damage, she needed to return to her position and use her influence to minimize the impact of Tokinada's plan.
But that also meant strengthening Shinigami forces.
And in her cold, efficient words, she offered no real recognition of Rukongai.
When Kukaku confirmed that the Shiba dojo itself was inside the kill zone, their conflict ignited immediately.
Yoruichi spoke about Tokinada. She believed he would use this moment to expand his influence, and she needed to counterbalance him, to make the coming operation "more moderate."
But she never said she would stop the massacre.
Only that it should be done "better."
That single implication lit Kukaku's rage like oil.
Better or worse, people would still die.
Wandering Souls would still be slaughtered.
Kukaku looked at the people who had once trusted the Shiba Clan, the ones she had protected for years as Rukongai's pyrotechnician, and she could no longer pretend.
They fought.
Briefly.
Strangely.
And because Kukaku had lost an arm, because her body's spiritual conduction was already damaged, she was subdued quickly.
That was why she sat here now, wounded, smoke curling from her pipe, watching her brother stand frozen in front of the scarred dojo.
And as she looked at him, Kukaku suddenly felt an urge to laugh.
Hatred for the Shinigami.
Hatred for this world.
Wandering Souls charging for their lives.
Everything fit together so naturally that it was almost beautiful in its ugliness.
Strictly speaking, Kukaku was no different from them anymore.
Once a noble, raised with Shinigami education, surrounded by knowledge and secrets.
So what?
She lived in Rukongai now.
Would the world worry about her?
Even if she knew a thousand truths, the best she could hope for was mercy, to be spared during the slaughter so she could crawl away like a dog.
Then the Shinigami would return to their lives, their system, their hypocrisy.
She had always hated it.
So why should she accept peace offered with a butcher's hand?
"Sister," Ganju shouted, finally seeing the state she was in. "Are you okay? Who did this to you? Damn it, if I'd been here"
"Hey," Kukaku cut in.
Her voice sharpened.
"Ganju Shiba."
"…Si sister?"
When she used his full name, it meant something serious.
Without even understanding why, Ganju's body reacted on instinct. He straightened, then dropped to his knees with a heavy thud, posture rigid as if he were being judged.
Kukaku stared for a second, thrown off by how smoothly he moved, then clicked her tongue. Whatever speech she had prepared vanished.
She waved a hand, impatient, and asked in the sternest, simplest tone she could manage.
"Do you still remember what the Shinigami did to us?"
"…I remember."
"Do you remember why our big brother died? Do you remember the truth Aizen secretly came to tell us?"
"I remember."
"Do you remember how we've been surviving all these years, just waiting for the day those Shinigami would see our fury?"
"I remember," Ganju shouted, voice trembling. "I remember!"
"Good."
Kukaku clapped her hands once, satisfied.
Then she stood.
In Ganju's startled cry, this beautiful woman rose abruptly, ignoring her injuries, and walked toward the Flower Crane Cannon.
Passing through Seireitei's defenses was nearly impossible for ordinary people. Kukaku knew that better than anyone. The barriers alone would grind them down, and a frontal assault meant walking into traps and formations designed to slaughter masses.
Blinded by hatred, the Wandering Souls had only one option.
Charge the gate.
Even knowing what waited behind it, they had no choice. If they dispersed, they would be hunted and killed by disciplined Shinigami units, destroyed systematically, everything they cherished erased.
Their intuition was not wrong.
It was describing the shape of their death.
But Kukaku could offer them a second path.
A path that did not require crashing headfirst into the Shinigami's layered defenses at the main gate.
The Flower Crane Cannon.
She placed a hand on its frame, spiritual power surging through her body despite the pain.
Her eyes lifted toward the sky, toward Seireitei, toward every Shinigami who had ever looked down on Rukongai like it was a landfill.
"Yoruichi," she said quietly, voice carrying a strange steadiness. "And all you Shinigami."
Then her tone sharpened into steel.
"Witness it. This is the moment the Shiba Clan shows itself."
Her spiritual power flared.
"Rotten Seireitei, built on the Soul King's sacrifice and the pain of countless capable people, you will see all of it."
Crimson fire spiraled, igniting the towering cannon barrel in an instant.
A massive fireball roared upward, tearing through the sky.
A brilliant white line pierced the barrier above Seireitei.
Then, like a wound blooming into light, a giant firework exploded above the city.
Kukaku's voice rose, loud enough to be heard over the thunder of her own weapon.
"If you want to charge into Seireitei, come this way!"