A few hundred meters was nothing to Yoruichi. In the blink of an eye, she landed on the rooftop.
What she found there left her utterly speechless.
Kazuma and Rukia were sitting side by side, leisurely drinking while watching the stars.
The Bounts had been running wild across Karakura Town, yet Kazuma — a captain of the Gotei 13 — and his own student were apparently treating the whole thing like background entertainment.
Yoruichi knew perfectly well that if Kazuma actually decided to intervene, the Bounts would probably be wiped out before they even understood what had happened.
Yet here he was, completely relaxed, acting as though the chaos unfolding across the city had nothing to do with him.
"Captain Kazuma, do you really think this is appropriate?" Yoruichi asked irritably.
She genuinely couldn't understand how someone who was supposed to carry the responsibilities of a Gotei 13 captain could be this indifferent.
Was drinking on rooftops and staring at stars the only thing he planned to do?
The more she thought about it, the more Yoruichi began to suspect that Kyōraku Shunsui's current laid-back personality had probably been learned from Kazuma.
The two had spent far too many years around each other for there not to be some influence.
"Hm?"
Kazuma gave her an innocent look.
"What's inappropriate about it? I already sent Batsu'unsai back to Soul Society to act as captain in my place and handle the division's work."
He knew perfectly well what Yoruichi meant.
He was simply pretending not to.
"Oh, stop bullshitting me!"
Yoruichi finally lost patience.
"I'm talking about the Bounts!"
If Kazuma hadn't been so absurdly strong, she might already have walked over and punched him several times just to remind him what responsibility looked like.
"Oh, that."
Kazuma remained completely relaxed.
"Aren't you and Suì-Fēng handling them already? If the two of you somehow can't manage it, just get Kisuke involved. What does any of that have to do with me?"
He clearly had no intention of lifting a finger.
In fact, unless circumstances became truly unavoidable, Kazuma had no plans to involve himself in the upcoming events at all.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the right moment.
The Bounts themselves were hardly worth worrying about.
The real problem was the mysterious god still hiding somewhere behind the scenes.
Kazuma had already made several major moves, practically using every method he could think of to prepare.
Unless that hidden god was completely blind, there was no way it had failed to notice.
Eventually, it would respond.
And Kazuma fully expected that response to come in the form of something unpleasant aimed directly at him.
"Besides," he continued lazily, "aren't these third-rate nuisances perfect training partners for Ichigo?"
"It won't be long before Soul Society sends Tōshirō and the others here as reinforcements anyway."
Kazuma gave Yoruichi a knowing look.
"Don't tell me you and Kisuke weren't thinking the exact same thing."
Yoruichi fell silent.
No matter how much she tried to argue, Kazuma had clearly made up his mind.
Unless the sky literally started falling, he wasn't getting involved.
And the most annoying part was that he'd seen straight through her and Urahara's plan again.
She'd thought their arrangement was fairly clever.
Kazuma, somehow, always seemed to understand what they were doing before they even finished doing it.
It was ridiculous.
With a brain like that, it was almost a waste that he'd never become a scientist.
You thought he was thinking two moves ahead?
No.
The bastard was somewhere in the stratosphere.
"I'm not going to fight them myself," Kazuma continued, "but Rukia can go get some practice."
He glanced toward his student.
"She only learned Shikai recently. This is exactly the kind of situation she needs."
Yoruichi stared at him.
"What?"
For a moment, she genuinely thought she'd misheard.
"She only just learned Shikai?"
Rukia's reiatsu was already around the third tier.
And Kazuma was telling her that this was merely the result of someone who'd only recently learned Shikai?
What kind of Shikai was that supposed to be?
"Yeah."
Kazuma tilted his head.
"Shikai. What's the problem?"
What was the problem?
Everything.
Who the hell reached third-tier reiatsu immediately after learning Shikai?
And that was only her spiritual pressure.
Combined with Rukia's terrifying swordsmanship, an ordinary captain might not even be able to beat her.
Had Kazuma somehow turned every person he taught into a monster?
Yoruichi had never seen this kind of potential in Rukia before.
Had she and Kisuke completely misjudged the situation?
Was Rukia actually the chosen prodigy here instead of Kurosaki Ichigo?
"Rukia, listen—"
Kazuma had only just turned toward her to explain a few things when—
"Ah — what the fuck?!"
A gigantic Gate of Hell suddenly appeared in the night sky without warning.
Darkness poured from it, carrying an oppressive presence that made the air itself seem wrong, as though the doorway opened directly into an endless abyss.
Then a terrifying force of attraction erupted from within.
It seized Kazuma like an invisible hand.
Everything happened too quickly.
There was no warning, no time to prepare, and barely even enough time to react.
Before anyone could move, Kazuma was violently dragged off the rooftop and sucked straight through the Gate of Hell.
He disappeared instantly.
"SENSEI!"
"CAPTAIN KAZUMA!"
Rukia and Yoruichi shouted at the same time.
The entire incident had happened so suddenly that neither of them had even managed to reach out and grab him.
They could only watch helplessly as the Gate swallowed him.
Even stranger, Kazuma had been standing almost within arm's reach of both women, yet the overwhelming pull had completely ignored them.
It had targeted him and him alone.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Several figures appeared on the rooftop almost simultaneously.
The original captains had all sensed the disturbance.
Every one of them wore a grave expression as they stared up at the Gate of Hell slowly closing in the sky.
For once, nobody had an immediate idea what to do.
...
The moment Kazuma was dragged through the Gate, the world seemed to overturn around him.
His sense of direction vanished completely.
Up became down, left became right, and everything spun with such violence that even his thoughts became difficult to hold together.
Before he'd fully recovered from the dizziness, the surroundings changed again.
Without any transition he could perceive, Kazuma found himself somewhere entirely unfamiliar.
He managed to steady himself and slowly sat up, immediately scanning the area with caution.
There was nothing.
No light.
No color.
No sky or ground.
No sense of up, down, left, or right.
Only endless emptiness.
It felt less like a place and more like the primordial chaos that might have existed before a universe was born.
"What the fuck is this place…"
Kazuma muttered.
This was not any of the five layers of Hell he'd previously encountered.
In fact, it didn't resemble his understanding of Hell at all.
The situation was far too strange.
Kazuma released his spiritual perception and attempted to sense the surrounding space.
Nothing.
His consciousness expanded outward through what appeared to be endless chaos, yet there was absolutely nothing to detect.
Only silence.
Only emptiness.
And then he noticed something even more disturbing.
Reishi was gone.
The fundamental spiritual particles that formed the basis of power throughout the Three Worlds simply didn't exist here.
No matter how far Kazuma extended his senses, he couldn't detect even the faintest trace.
A chill crept through him.
Was this place actually outside the Three Worlds?
Was it another world entirely?
Had he somehow—
once again—
been thrown into a completely different universe?