Chapter 66: Resolve, No Need for Words
Seireitei covered a vast stretch of land, but its population was not large. The twelve Division districts formed a ring around the First Division at the center, while nearly half of the remaining area lay almost untouched.
Abandoned old market streets.
Districts so forgotten there was no plan to repair them, let alone rebuild them.
Using their mastery of Shunpo, Takeru and Ichigo left the Division districts behind and arrived in one of those deserted ruins.
Everywhere they looked, there were only collapsed houses and withered trees.
Neither of them had any interest in commenting on the desolate scenery. Their eyes went instead to the old man sitting a short distance away.
The Captain Commander.
He sat with both hands resting on his cane, like an ordinary elder at rest.
For a moment Takeru thought back to what had just happened.
They had been the first to use Shunpo to escape.
Yet in the latter half, this old man had overtaken them in a straight line, arriving here ahead of them and blocking their path.
In other words.
This was not the battlefield they had chosen.
It was the battlefield the Captain Commander had chosen.
"Takeru, do you know what I am thinking right now?"
Ichigo spoke in a low voice beside him.
"You are not about to tell me you are scared, are you?"
Takeru did not take his eyes off the old man as he answered casually.
"You got it exactly right…"
Ichigo took a deep breath, his expression tense.
"I feel like I skipped school and got caught by the principal. Which logically should have nothing to do with me at all."
"That is because, to you, those teachers are only staff. They are not on the same level as the leader of all Shinigami, the one who spread education through the Soul Society."
Takeru sounded as if even that topic bored him.
At that moment, Yamamoto Genryusai slowly rose to his feet.
His voice, strong and deep, cut through the air like a drawn blade.
"I will commend you two for now."
"At your age, to move with Shunpo that even I could not match in the slightest."
"This earth shattering talent has not appeared in a million years."
"However, precisely because of that…"
"I cannot allow my most outstanding students since the founding of the Shinoreijutsuin, perhaps never to be seen again, to stray onto the wrong path."
"That is why I stand here."
"Before you commit greater sins, I will apprehend you both."
He did not raise his voice.
He did not flare his spiritual pressure.
He simply stood there.
Simply spoke.
And Takeru felt a pressure like nothing he had ever experienced crash down on him.
In his sight, the old man's form seemed to reach the heavens, a being who could trample the entire world beneath his two feet.
"Shimiya Takeru. Kurosaki Ichigo. Do you still remember my teachings?"
Yamamoto Genryusai suddenly asked.
The words went straight for the heart.
"Of course I remember."
Takeru's face did not change.
"My biggest flaw is that I cannot pretend I do not understand, so I will just say it plainly."
"The power of a Shinigami changed me, gave me a second life. I am grateful for that power. I have a good impression of Shinigami."
"Precisely because of that, I cannot stand those powerless people, those who are not Shinigami, sitting comfortably on high, holding the power of life and death over Shinigami."
"That makes me feel like the gratitude I received, the effort I gave, the respect I have for the Shinigami corps, my affection for the Gotei 13, are all cheap and worthless things."
"I want to drag them off their chairs and throw them onto the front lines. Whoever survives has the right to point fingers at Shinigami. But even then, they should give up on going back to that position, because that position should never have existed in the first place."
"…"
Yamamoto's eyes fully opened.
Those eyes, tempered by centuries and filled with wisdom, were still clear, not clouded by age.
In their depths, he saw the young man before him, whose heart burned with a great fire.
That fire could burn away any enemy that threatened his side.
It could turn him into a necessary evil, bearing all blame and criticism, standing tall while making others tremble like prey before a predator.
"I remember too. Very clearly."
After Takeru finished, Ichigo spoke up.
"Rukia is a Shinigami. Protecting Karakura Town is her duty. You could say it is not even a special achievement."
"But that is where I was born, where my family and friends live."
"Rukia saved Orihime. Then she brought Orihime with her to keep protecting Karakura Town, protecting my family for me in a roundabout way. I am really grateful to them."
"So even a hundred years in prison is something I can barely accept for her, let alone a death sentence for a reason like this."
"I want to save Rukia. I want to help Orihime repay that life saving debt."
"Besides feeling that I was cared for by them, there is something even more important. What they want to do is exactly what I want to do."
"If I just stood by and watched them suffer, I would regret it for the rest of my life. I would deny my own beliefs completely and become someone who is no longer myself."
"Old man, you said… that kind of growth would bring trouble to others, and even to Seireitei. That is why you did not want it to happen. That is why you told me to strive to become stronger."
"I did what you told me."
"This whole time, I have trained desperately to become stronger, to save Rukia, to overturn this verdict, and to avoid growing through regret and dragging everyone else into disaster."
"Old man, in your eyes…"
"Is what I am doing wrong?"
"…"
Yamamoto Genryusai fell silent once more.
Not because he had no words.
But because he had realized something.
He realized that the aura of these two extraordinary youths had changed completely from when they first arrived.
Fear.
Tension.
Those emotions evaporated the moment they voiced their true feelings.
What filled the space they left was calm.
A calm surface that hid a surging current beneath it.
A single word.
Resolve.
For men who have found their resolve, at this moment, there was nothing more to say.
The peerless old man also disdained wasting breath on needless words.
His knowledge was the history of the Gotei 13.
And history told him clearly what he should do now.
Whoosh.
He spread both arms.
The white haori with the character for "One" was caught by the wind, blown from his shoulders to flutter high on a nearby flagpole, as if declaring the authority it symbolized.
"—"
Yamamoto Genryusai stripped off his upper garment, revealing a frame that looked slender at first glance yet was corded with steel like muscle beneath. His body was covered in old scars, every one a proof of countless battles.
The cane thrust into the earth shed its disguise.
In front of Takeru and Ichigo stood an ancient, slightly worn looking Asauchi.
The moment the old man wrapped his fingers around the hilt, something exploded.
A towering pillar of flame roared up behind him.
Spiritual pressure.
Spiritual pressure so pure, so scorching, so terrifying that the word itself felt insufficient.
It surged straight into the sky, burning away the dark clouds and dyeing the heavens red, as if the world had been overturned into a sea of fire.
"Come, brats."
"Show me."
"Show me the courage that lets you bare your fangs at the ancient order of the Soul Society."
"But I hope it is not only your tongues that are sharp. Otherwise I will have to retract my former praise."
The two said nothing.
They simply took their stances.
Takeru slowly sank his body lower, hand resting on his sword hilt. His center of gravity was far lower than usual, his posture sharper, more aggressive. His restrained killing edge was so intense it was almost painful to look at him.
The instant Ichigo gripped his own hilt, the air around him roared, as if the atmosphere itself were exploding.
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