"My lord! Whatever you need done, just say the word. This humble servant will do everything in his power to see it accomplished!"
Shuren hurried back toward Kazuma with a broad, ingratiating smile plastered across his face.
At this point, he had only one goal in mind.
Get this walking disaster out of Hell as quickly as humanly possible so he could finally go back to sleep in peace.
"Open the Gate of Hell immediately. I'm returning to the Human World."
Kazuma had no interest in wasting time on small talk.
He wanted out of Hell as soon as possible. The place was saturated with that corrosive miasma, and even spending another minute here felt unpleasant.
"Back to the Human World again?"
Shuren muttered under his breath.
"Have Shinigami gotten this bored lately? It's only been a few days, and people keep running back and forth between Hell and the Human World…"
Only a few days earlier, he'd opened a Gate of Hell to send Rukia and the others home.
Now Kazuma had shown up asking for exactly the same thing.
"Hm?"
Unfortunately for Shuren, Kazuma's hearing was far too sharp for that muttering to escape him.
"From the sound of that, other Shinigami came to Hell besides me?"
Shuren's heart immediately sank.
'Oh, shit.'
So that little brat Rukia had lied straight to his face.
Kazuma clearly had no idea she and the others had been here.
Now that the secret was already slipping out, Shuren had no choice but to grit his teeth and explain everything that had happened when Rukia and the other Shinigami came searching through Hell.
"Soul Society reacted that quickly?"
Kazuma frowned.
He'd expected his disappearance to cause some kind of response, but he hadn't anticipated them mobilizing so many people to search for him.
Still, there was no point dwelling on it here.
"I'm off. We'll talk next time."
Kazuma gave Shuren a casual farewell.
Now he needed to return to Soul Society and clean up whatever mess his disappearance had caused.
...
The moment Kazuma entered the Human World, he immediately sensed several familiar reiatsu signatures.
"Hitsugaya's still in Karakura?"
There were several lieutenants nearby as well.
...
"Ugh…"
Rangiku stretched lazily and let out an enormous yawn.
"Where in the world did Captain Kazuma disappear to? We've been stuck waiting around in the Human World forever. I'm starting to die of boredom."
There was hardly anything important for them to do here anymore.
Admittedly, an easy assignment like this was comfortable, but Rangiku still preferred being back in Soul Society.
Hitsugaya turned toward her with an irritated expression.
"What exactly are you complaining about?"
Ever since arriving in the Human World, his lieutenant had accomplished very little that could reasonably be described as work.
She'd contributed a bit during the operation to eliminate the Bounts a few days earlier.
Other than that?
She was either drunk or asleep.
Sometimes both in impressively close succession.
And now she somehow had the nerve to complain about the assignment.
Hitsugaya shook his head.
Why did everyone who spent too much time around Kazuma eventually turn out like this?
Rangiku went without saying.
Captain Kyōraku Shunsui was another obvious example.
And then there was Kuchiki Rukia…
Hitsugaya's thoughts abruptly stalled.
Rukia.
The memory of the recent battle against the Bounts surfaced again.
The strength she'd displayed during that operation had been frankly ridiculous.
It was difficult to believe that someone who'd only learned Shikai relatively recently — and who was still technically just a seated officer — could possess that level of combat power.
Whenever Hitsugaya remembered how Soul Society had once praised him as a prodigy who appeared only once every hundred years, his feelings became increasingly complicated.
Especially whenever he compared himself with the current Rukia.
At this point, the title almost felt sarcastic.
If Hitsugaya was a once-in-a-century genius, then Rukia was apparently a once-in-a-thousand-years monster.
How many seated officers could unleash captain-class combat power with nothing more than Shikai?
The very idea sounded absurd.
Yet Rukia had done exactly that.
Of course, her freakishly abnormal teacher didn't count.
Captain Kazuma had long since moved beyond any reasonable definition of talent and entered a category where normal common sense simply stopped applying.
During the operation to wipe out the Bounts, Rukia had completely stolen the show.
With almost casual ease, she'd unleashed—Hadō #78: Zangerin.
One devastating strike had cut down four Bounts at once, including Jin Kariya.
Everyone present had been stunned.
More than one person had seen Kazuma's shadow in the way she fought.
After all, combining Zangerin with swordsmanship was practically one of Kazuma's signature tricks, and Rukia had reproduced it with frightening power.
The most embarrassed person there had undoubtedly been Kurosaki Ichigo.
The poor bastard had only just managed to use Bankai again and was still privately congratulating himself on finally getting his groove back.
Then Rukia unleashed that monstrous slash.
Ichigo had gone completely blank.
It was practically a slap across the face.
Even the resident cheat-code protagonist couldn't stop himself from wondering when the hell Rukia had become this strong.
How had he never noticed?
Was this really the same Rukia who used to struggle against ordinary Hollows?
Or had someone swapped her out while he wasn't looking?
The scene from that day was still difficult to forget.
When Rukia revealed her true strength, it felt as though an invisible shockwave had rolled through everyone present.
Kira Izuru, who had never exactly been overflowing with confidence to begin with, took the psychological damage particularly badly.
His eyes went dull, his spirit seemed to leave his body, and somehow he became even more withdrawn than before.
Hinamori Momo — the woman whose health bar apparently refused to reach zero no matter what happened to her — had stood there with her mouth hanging open for so long that she looked frozen in place.
As for Ichigo, Uryū, and the others?
Once the Bount incident had been settled, they marched straight to Urahara Kisuke and demanded intensive training.
Nobody wanted to be left behind after seeing what Rukia had become.
Everyone was suddenly motivated.
Everyone wanted to get stronger.
Everyone was working hard.
Well—
almost everyone.
Then there was Matsumoto Rangiku.
She continued wandering around as leisurely as ever, completely unconcerned with everyone else's sudden drive for self-improvement.
If anything, she appeared almost determined to slack off even harder in response.
Hitsugaya looked at his hopeless lieutenant and felt an indescribable mixture of emotions.
He wanted to yell at her.
But would it accomplish anything?
Probably not.
He wanted to patiently convince her to take training more seriously.
But where would he even begin?
In the end, Hitsugaya could only shake his head and give a helpless, bitter smile.
Perhaps there really came a point when someone became so utterly speechless that laughing was the only response left.