"Did your conversation end well?"
"What, were you waiting for me?"
"Someone has to be ready to clean up if things go south, don't they?"
He really has a roundabout way of saying he doesn't trust his master for shit.
As I stared at Tenjiro with a flat expression, he seemed to have no comeback. He clicked his tongue and scratched his head.
"It's not that I don't trust you, Master. But you showed up with such a grim look on your face, radiating an aura that would make anyone shudder. I had to be prepared for the worst."
"Well, when you put it that way, I guess I can't argue."
"So, what happened to make you leak such a foul Spiritual Pressure? Because of that, Nimaiya was throwing a fit, shouting about how the Soul King Palace was going to collapse. It was a mess."
"It was... just a small disagreement with the Damn Monk. A little argument over a difference in opinion. Nothing major."
"If 'nothing major' happens twice, the Soul King Palace really will come down."
Was it really that bad? I don't recall intentionally flaring my pressure...
I scratched my cheek, let out a long sigh, and shook my head.
"Don't worry. I'm not crazy enough to tear down the house where a friend resides. Even if the world were ending, that wouldn't happen, so relax."
"By friend... do you mean the Soul King?"
A friend indeed. One I can never see again.
I swallowed the words lingering on the tip of my tongue and shrugged.
"Anyway, it's really nothing, so don't sweat it. It's not like the Monk and I have been on good terms anyway."
"You'd have to count that in units of ten thousand years."
"Don't talk nonsense. Phew, fine. I'm going to clear my head for a bit."
"Take care on your way in! Next time you visit, at least give us a heads-up!"
"Yeah, yeah."
I waved my hand and simply stepped off the edge of the Greater Imperial Palace.
Falling from the heights of the heavens, I watched the Soul King Palace grow smaller in the distance.
"Ichibe Hyosube... You have obtained the foresight to read the future, yet because of it, you fail to see reality."
If the future were truly set in stone as 'Fate,' an existence like mine could never have appeared in this world.
After all, I am not a character from the original story.
If such a thing as Destiny truly existed, I would have been the first to die.
Or perhaps my very existence would have vanished, or I would have lived a fleeting life, gone in the blink of an eye.
Yet here I am, alive. Living and influencing things like this.
Of course, there's no way Ichibe Hyosube would know that, and no way for him to find out...
If one has lived a life as long as mine, they should naturally come to realize it regardless of whether I exist or not. I don't understand why he clings to such rigid thinking.
Humans possess free will. They have the volition to choose their own future and the strength to carve it out with their own hands.
Wasn't that how the Soul Society and the World of the Living were made in the first place?
They shattered the shell of the Primordial World through their own 'choices' and created the Three Worlds, didn't they?
Was that too the natural order? Was it something that was bound to happen?
No. If the Soul King had made a different choice—if those four ancestors had chosen differently—if Shiryu had volunteered to be the Wedge instead of him...
Then the world would have taken a completely different form than it has now.
The present is simply the result of countless choices made in the past.
To call that Fate is far too tragic.
Besides, if the Destiny you speak of exists, then why does Hell exist?
Why do rewards and punishments exist? Why do we cling to laws and regulations?
It's all Fate anyway.
A life that had to be lived that way regardless.
"With your ears, you can probably hear me even now."
There is no such thing as predetermined Fate in this world.
If there is a heart that wishes to change, a life can be altered.
If there is a will to overcome a cruel reality, the future can be shifted.
In this world, there is no single clear answer that has been set in stone.
That is why one must find the answer within themselves.
"So stop with that Fate nonsense. You know it's wrong, you little bastard, so why keep at it?"
He refuses to let go of his vested interests, so even though he knows he's choosing the wrong answer, he keeps picking it.
They say a person who commits a wrong knowingly is worse than one who does it out of ignorance, but...
Still, I couldn't just tell him 'I'm right and you're wrong' and force him to follow me with strength.
If I preached about free will and then suddenly pulled the 'might makes right' logic, I'd just be an idiot with a double standard.
"Sigh... Please, get it together."
If you don't snap out of it and keep fumbling, I might be the one stuck cleaning up your shit later.
I spat out my hidden sincerity with a sigh of dread for the future and landed lightly on the ground.
*Tadak. As soon as my feet touched the floor, Rumble...* the sound of thunder echoed through a clear sky.
"The weather wasn't supposed to be rainy."
Is that bastard really throwing a tantrum because I insulted him?
They say many a true word is spoken in jest. Just in case, I narrowed my eyes and looked toward the direction of the Soul King Palace, but...
There was no such sign.
In fact, it looked even quieter than usual.
"A bolt from the blue... Ah. Is it that incident?"
It's finally the day Eijisai (丿) turns into Jujisai (十).
Misfortunes never come alone; how can so many incidents happen in a single day?
I let out a heavy sigh and headed toward the World of the Living, which had been my original destination.
The method for going from the Soul Society to the World of the Living is simple.
In the original story, they talk about Senkaimon or the Dangai or whatever.
But really, you just follow the Spirit Particles flowing through the Three Worlds, find a place where the current is strong, and tear through the boundary. That's it.
Of course, to do this, you need to be able to see the flow of Spirit Particles, but well, that's not my problem.
"So this is the World of the Living..."
The World of the Living, which I hadn't visited in hundreds of thousands of years... didn't exactly look nostalgic.
It looked exactly like the Middle Ages. Yep. Exactly.
Well, that made sense.
The original story takes place in the early second millennium, around 2000 or 2001. If there's roughly 1,600 years left until the original plot begins, when would this be?
The 4th century. 400 AD.
Since I track time in hundred-year units, I don't know exactly what year in the 400s it is, but it's around there.
It's the height of the Three Kingdoms period in the East, and the era when Rome was split into East and West.
Nostalgia? My ass.
It's not an era where you can expect much in the first place.
It'll take at least another 1,500 years of progress before I can look around and think, 'Yeah, those were the days.'
"Let's see... Should I head that way?"
After confirming the direction of the Spirit Particle flow, I strolled along, taking in the sights.
Of course, 'strolling' by my standards would look to others like I was folding the very earth to run.
After crossing mountains and running across the sea as if I were on a walk, the buildings around me began to shift from Eastern to Western styles.
It felt like being in a history museum. As I looked around with curious eyes, men draped in white cloth approached me.
"Quis es? (Who are you?)"
"Ah, shit. I don't know this squiggly talk."
As I muttered and scratched my head, the men gave me puzzled looks and whispered among themselves.
"Quid venisti? (What is your business here?)"
"Ubi es? Hoc primum est meum tempus cum vestes quas geras. (Where are you from? This is the first time I have seen the clothes you wear.)"
Ugh... Maybe it's because the words are so alien, but just listening to them is making my head spin.
And it's not even just one person speaking; they're tossing questions at me like a relay race, which makes it even worse.
I hated English in my past life. Wait, is this Latin?
No wonder my head hurts more.
From the nuances, it sounded like they were asking who I am and where I came from...
After a moment's thought, I raised my index finger and pointed to the sky.
"I came from the other world."
I don't know if you'll understand, but that's how it is.
"Insanus est! Noli implicari! (He is a madman! Do not get involved!)"
"Si te intromittas, coelum te puniet!! (If you interfere, heaven will punish you!!)"
"Blasphemia! (Blasphemy!)"
When I said that, the men who had been whispering stared blankly before recoiling in terror and rushing away.
How anticlimactic.
Well, it works out for me.
Leaving the men behind, I trudged along the flow of Spirit Particles until I reached a place where they were swirling into a vortex.
It was a terrain shaped like a valley centered around a cavern, reminiscent of an antlion's pit.
Down there, inside that cave, was Yhwach.
Or rather, the thing that would eventually become Yhwach was currently gestating.
"As expected, it's not in a state that can be called an entity yet."
What I was looking at right now was closer to a phenomenon than an individual named Yhwach.
A phenomenon that sucked in the surrounding Spirit Particles and simply breathed them back out in equal measure.
"Hmm... Should I watch for a bit?"
To monitor the situation, I sat down at a reasonable distance and watched the flow of Spirit Particles in silence.
And so, five hundred years passed.
Ah, of course, I went back home occasionally.
If I said I was just going out for a bit and then didn't come home for five hundred years, Unohana would cry.
No matter how important this work is, it can't be more important than family.
Anyway, after waiting those five hundred years.
Twitch—
That which had been nothing more than a phenomenon stirred for the first time, beginning to draw in 'people' instead of Spirit Particles.