The newspaper felt heavy in Akio's hands, the crisp print detailing the Ōshiro family's tragedy feeling less like news and more like a carefully staged play. He sat alone in the Squad 10 common room long after the others had left for their duties, the half-finished cup of tea before him gone cold.
His mind, sharpened by survival and now honed by the analytical perception gifted by Byakuya's training, was working, connecting threads into a web that grew more ominous with each passing second.
'I knew it,' he thought, the words a silent, cold certainty in his mind. 'A middle-level noble clan like the Ōshiro… they're proud, but they're not stupid. They're political animals. Attacking a Shinigami, one who's directly under the Captain-Commander's gaze? They wouldn't have the spine for it. Not on their own. They'd never risk the disgrace, the utter annihilation of their house.'
The conclusion was inescapable. The Ōshiro were the hand that held the knife, but someone else had guided that hand. Someone with the power to promise protection, the influence to obscure the truth, and the ruthlessness to sever that hand the moment it became a liability.
And that someone had to be from the very top. The Four Great Noble Clans.
He ran through the list, his mental process precise and brutal.
The Shiba Clan. Ruled out immediately. Captain Isshin Shiba was his direct superior, a man of boisterous, open-hearted character who valued loyalty above all. The Shiba had fallen from grace once and clawed their way back; they wouldn't risk it all on a shadow war against one of their own squad members. It made no tactical or personal sense.
The Kuchiki Clan. His stomach tightened slightly. Byakuya Kuchiki was his mentor. The man was stern, unyielding, and bound by a code of honor so rigid it was practically a cage. Sending an assassin? Using a underhanded artifact? It was anathema to everything the Head of the Kuchiki Clan stood for. His methods were direct, cold, and devastatingly public if necessary. This reeked of cowardice and shadows—the opposite of Kuchiki pride. He couldn't imagine Byakuya sanctioning this. The risk to the clan's sterling reputation would be too great.
That left two.
The Shihoin Clan. The masters of the Onmitsukidō, the Goddess of Flash. Currently, they were in a state of flux. Yoruichi's departure had left a scar and a power vacuum that was still being filled. Soi Fon, fiercely loyal to Yoruichi's memory but now Captain of the Second Division, was consolidating her own power. Would she, or the current Shihoin leadership, risk a blatant, unsanctioned assassination that could invite Yamamoto's wrath while their position was still unstable? It was possible, but unlikely. It was a reckless move, and the Shihoin, for all their stealth, were not typically reckless. They were precise.
The Tsunayashiro Clan.
The name sat in his mind like a shard of ice. The oldest, and by many accounts, the most powerful of the Great Clans. The clan known for its immense influence within the Central 46, its vast wealth, and its infamous, insatiable hunger for maintaining that power. They were the spiders at the very center of the Soul Society's web, pulling strings from the shadows for millennia. If any clan had the arrogance to believe they could act with impunity, the reach to command a middle-level family like the Ōshiro, and the cruelty to dispose of them without a second thought… it was the Tsunayashiro.
His doubt crystallized into a grim conviction. It wasn't proof. It was a predator's instinct, the same instinct that had allowed him to feel the assassin's teleportation. The pieces fit together too neatly. The power, the motive, the method.
"Tsunayashiro," he whispered to the empty room, the name tasting like a threat.
Far across the Seireitei, in a mansion that made the Ōshiro estate look like a peasant's hut, the current head of the Tsunayashiro Clan sat in a chamber of silent luxury. Tokinada Tsunayashiro, a man with sharp, aristocratic features and eyes that held a perpetual, bored malice, lowered the same newspaper Akio had been reading.
A faint, irritated sigh escaped his lips. The report on Lord Ōshiro's "suicide" was a masterpiece of misinformation, exactly as he had orchestrated. Yet, it represented a failure. An annoyance.
"I should have handled this myself," he mused, his voice a soft, cultured thing that belied the coldness within. He tossed the paper onto an exquisite lacquered table. "To delegate was an error. I underestimated the child and overestimated that fool Ōshiro's competence."
A flicker of genuine regret passed through him. Not for the loss of life, but for the inefficiency. He regretted not sending one of his own personal retainers, a true artist of silence from his household, to ensure the job was done cleanly. A simple, quiet death in Karakura Town that could have been blamed on a powerful, lucky Hollow. A tidy solution.
Instead, he had allowed Ōshiro to use his own man, Wuie, and his family's artifact. It had seemed elegant at the time—plausible deniability layered upon deniability. Now, it was a mess that had required cleaning.
He steepled his fingers, his mind working through the puzzle. Wuie had been a capable tool. A former Onmitsukidō operative, skilled in assassination, with a Shikai release that should have made short work of an academy student, no matter how promising. The boy, Akio, had been in the World of the Living. Isolated. Vulnerable.
The outcome should have been a foregone conclusion.
"So how did he survive?" Tokinada wondered aloud. "Two possibilities."
He played them out like moves on a Shogi board.
"First: The boy possesses a Shikai of significant power. Powerful enough to not only counter Wuie's experience and Kageokami but also to kill him." The notion was intriguing. A hidden power, festering within a Rukongai brat taken in by Kyoraku. It was a variable he hadn't sufficiently accounted for. If that were true… then the boy wasn't just a loose end; he was a potential threat. An unknown element that had already proven capable of dismantling a carefully laid plan.
"Second," he continued, the thought more comforting in its familiarity, "someone intervened. Yamamoto's shadow, perhaps? Or maybe the ever-righteous Byakuya Kuchiki took a more… direct interest in his student's safety than anticipated. An unseen guardian."
This possibility felt more probable. It was easier to believe in the interference of a known power than in the sudden, explosive emergence of a new one. The Soul Society was a stagnant pond; new fish of that size simply didn't appear without warning.
But a sliver of doubt remained. A cold, calculating part of him acknowledged that the first option, however unlikely, could not be entirely dismissed. And if it were true…
"Then the child is danger," Tokinada murmured, a slow, sinister smile touching his lips. It wasn't a smile of fear, but of interest. Like a botanist discovering a fascinating new breed of venomous plant.
The game had suddenly become more complex. More interesting.
He rose and walked to a window overlooking his immaculate, silent gardens. The action was decided. For now, direct action was off the board. The Ōshiro incident had created ripples. Yamamoto's instincts would be sharpened, the boy's guard would be up, and any further move against him would be scrutinized under the harshest light.
"Patience," he told himself. It was a lesson all great nobles learned. Power was not always about striking; it was about waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
He would let the dust settle. Let Yamamoto and the boy believe the threat has passed. Let them lower their guard. He would watch, and he would wait, gathering his threads once more.
The child, Akio Kurozume, had won a battle. But Tokinada Tsunayashiro was playing a war that spanned centuries. And in that war, he had all the time in the world.
Back to Akio...
Akio's face was set in a mask of cold resolve. He saw the situation with perfect, brutal clarity.
"Tokinada expects me to report this to Yamamoto," he reasoned, his voice low and steady. "But it would be a wasted effort. He eliminated the Ōshiro clan head—the only link connecting him to the attack. We have no proof, only my word against a Great Noble Clan. Bringing it forward now would accomplish nothing."
He understood the new playing field. "His next move will be to lay low, to avoid any connection to me while the dust settles. That's his strategy."
A determined glint sharpened in his eyes. "And that's my advantage. He's giving me time. I intend to use it. I'll get stronger. I'll master my power. And when he finally makes his next move, he'll find I'm no longer the same opponent. And I also have this. In his hand was the heirloom artifact of the Oshiro clan. With this I can train in secret."