Life after returning to Soul Society was mind-numbingly dull for Higashino Shuuichi.
Most of the Shinigami he'd once known had died over the last decade for one reason or another. Of those who remained, many had defected to the World of the Living—or were people he couldn't be seen associating with in public.
Otherwise, Tsunayashiro Kamihara would certainly take issue.
So on slow days, Higashino's must-watch program became checking in on the "traveling frog" he'd left behind in the Living World before coming back: the Quincy he'd fabricated and named Kubono Takuya.
Because Higashino's imagination had been constrained when he "fictionalized" him, Takuya acted a bit dopey whenever Higashino wasn't directly puppeteering him. But he did doggedly carry out the mission Higashino had written into him—find other Quincy in the Living World, ideally pure-bloods from the Kurosaki or Ishida families, and learn Quincy techniques from them.
Day 1 after Higashino's departure. Weather: clear. Takuya left New Osaka Prefecture to look for Quincy companions, but got lost and, by night, somehow ended up back in Osaka.
Day 2. Light rain. Takuya set out again, full sprint! By dusk he realized… he'd returned to Osaka.
Day 3. Overcast. He tried to take a car out, but was told he needed to pay the toll. He had no money, and he knew if he walked he'd just get lost again—so he came up with a plan and convinced the driver to take him to the next big city.
Day 5. Sunny. After two days on the road, Takuya finally reached a city called Tokyo Prefecture. He retrieved the katana Higashino had left him—from the driver's throat—and watched the man leave in tears of relief. Look at that—he'd done a good deed!
Day 6. Sunny, but Takuya's heart was rainy. He got arrested. He didn't know why. Human police grabbed him without asking questions. The driver from yesterday was there too; seeing the anger on the man's face, Takuya knew he must also be upset at the unfair treatment Takuya was receiving.
Day 7. Overcast again. Takuya broke out of jail. He hadn't learned Quincy techniques yet, but the Sankt Schrift was etched into his bones. His "Letter I" was still underdeveloped without mastery of Quincy art, but conjuring a key for the prison gate? That much he could do.
Day 8. Arrested again. He didn't understand. He hadn't even done anything this time—just walking down the street, trying to find Quincy. Why did human police grab him again?
Day 13. Security had been tightened, so he waited until a Hollow attack caused a disturbance to slip free. Lucky break—the ones who took down the Hollow were Quincy, a husband and wife. As a pure-blood Quincy himself, Takuya won their recognition quickly and secured their promise to teach him. He learned their names: Kurosaki Yuki and his wife, Kurosaki Mai.
Day 24. Takuya settled with the couple in Tokyo Prefecture and trained under them. Perhaps because he'd been fictionalized by Higashino using Yhwach's body as a template and had drunk the core blood from Yhwach's heart—Quincy power fixed in place by the Soul King's twin eyes—Takuya showed talent far beyond ordinary Quincy.
After just over ten days, he'd grasped most Quincy techniques, switching fluidly between Blut Vene and Blut Arterie; even Ransōtengai, which Yuki swore was the hardest to learn, took Takuya only three days to master. Today Yuki praised him as a once-in-a-millennium Quincy genius with the makings of a new Quincy King. Takuya, however, felt Kurosaki Mai kept looking at him oddly—as if pitying him.
Day 29. Takuya told Kurosaki Mai he knew Nagasawa Satomi. Mai was startled, and the three of them grew even closer.
Day 37. Takuya had just woken up, ready to refine his Quincy skills again, when an Arrancar appeared before Yuki and Mai—eight tubes protruding from its back, the lower half of its face under an oxygen mask.
At the same moment, Higashino—also newly awake in Soul Society—immediately seized Takuya's consciousness.
This wasn't normal. At this period, Aizen's Shinigami-Hollowfication experiments weren't yielding ideal results—at best, they bumped up a captain-class Shinigami's spiritual pressure ceiling a bit, nowhere near the shackle-breaking fusion he envisioned. His focus was still on blending Shinigami and Hollow power. Control over Hueco Mundo at this time was absolute.
Higashino could say with little exaggeration: even up to the main story's start, almost every Arrancar movement in Hueco Mundo required Aizen's nod.
Which meant a single thing if this Arrancar was here now: Aizen had taken Higashino's future briefing seriously—and had begun quietly pivoting his strategy toward Quincy.
A tsundere man whose mouth said no while his actions said yes.
Higashino recalled Aizen's disdainful look when he'd mentioned Yhwach that day.
That said, Higashino did have feelings about Kurosaki Yuki and Mai. Not only were they connected to Nagasawa Satomi, and not only did they bear the Kurosaki name, but they'd trained this dopey fabricated Takuya with patience, no matter how much trouble he caused—letting him master traditional Quincy craft in such a short time.
He wasn't about to watch them be slaughtered by an Arrancar.
Yes, Yuki was pure-blood—but Quincy vary in strength. With Yhwach asleep, the surviving Quincy in the Living World had long since lost their old luster; aside from the future Ishida duo, Ryuuken and Uryuu, most were weaker than a typical Gotei vice-captain.
To Higashino, Yuki was the type with theory to spare and not enough live-fire bite.
No wonder he and Mai had bolted from Osaka when they sensed Higashino's party near them back then.
But Higashino's Shinigami body was in Soul Society—no chance to rush to the Living World. Even if he could, the "Shinigami him" had no reason to intervene.
And while Takuya could fight…
Higashino glanced at the Arrancar manhandling the Kurosaki couple and decided—no.
There was something Yuki couldn't see: the Quincy power in this fabricated body had a hard cap on how much spiritons it could manipulate.
That was the biggest difference between Higashino's Quincy power and a normal Quincy's.
As the first Shinigami to accept a full Quincy conversion, the only reason it worked at all was the peculiar capability housed in those Soul King eyes.
Otherwise, a standard Shinigami—no human body, no human soul—could never wield Quincy power.
Which produced a ridiculous reality unique to Higashino: his Quincy power was throttled by his own spiritual pressure.
Laughable on its face—two powers that should be opposites, oil and water—yet thanks to Fiction-to-Reality, one side ended up constrained by the other.
Because of that mutual repulsion, even if he wanted to siphon off a sliver of his Shinigami reiatsu to feed the Quincy side, he couldn't.
So this body—Takuya—was entirely propped up by those twin Soul King eyes.
And those eyes' limit was to hold back the pressure of his Shinigami power and keep the Quincy power from collapsing. Asking them to provide more—more duration, more control over spiritons?
Simple. Subsidize it.
If Higashino wasn't mistaken, stuffing more Soul King fragments into this fabricated body would let him use Quincy abilities longer and stronger.
But where was he supposed to find Soul King shards now?
The Fullbringers he'd delivered to Mayuri ten years ago… those fragments had long since been consumed. He didn't even need to ask. The way Mayuri never mentioned them told Higashino everything—guilty conscience and all.
So—could he take down this Arrancar? Maybe. Odds weren't great. By contrast…
Higashino narrowed his eyes. The Arrancar was still toying with the Kurosakis. From experience, it had passed up multiple chances to kill them.
Why?
Do you even have to ask?
A knowing smile tugged at Higashino's lips. He crouched and extended his right hand, palm up.
If there was a flaw in his Sankt Schrift, Letter I, it was this: the fiction had to be something that ought to exist in the future.
Because a man with Yhwach's body ought to appear, Higashino could template Takuya on him.
For ninety-nine percent of people in this world, that made the power useless junk—if you couldn't envision what the future held, you couldn't fictionalize it into reality.
But for Higashino? That "limit" might as well not exist.
Who knew the future of this world better than he did?
"Take off—Strix micro-drone swarm."
In an instant, nightingale-sized drones bloomed one after another from his palm and zipped away.
In under three minutes, a live 3D feed stitched by the swarm painted everything within several kilometers into Higashino's view.
Including the man himself—Aizen Sōsuke.
"So these little things that just appeared in the sky are your handiwork?"
Hovering in midair, Aizen pinched a fluttering Strix drone between his fingers.
Higashino's appearance surprised him—but felt reasonable enough. More interesting than that was the unfamiliar gadget in his hand and the unfamiliar Quincy who'd fabricated it out of thin air. How?
"Yes, Aizen-dono."
Higashino flashed a sunny grin.
"Aizen-dono? You know me?"
At the address, Aizen finally took a longer look at the young stranger. Decent face. Not in his memories. Aizen prided himself on recall; if he didn't remember, the youth wasn't someone he'd met.
"Last time I mentioned it in passing—you were probably too distracted by the part where someone kills you in the future and forgot. I said I'd gotten some… unexpected boons from that fictional future."
Higashino was frank.
It wasn't worth hiding. One, Quincy power wasn't the key to beating Aizen. Two, if he wanted to fuse more Soul King shards into this body later, he might need Aizen's Hōgyoku.
Otherwise he'd have to beg Urahara Kisuke—or wait for Mayuri's studies to bear fruit.
The former wanted unknowable things—worse than dealing with Aizen, whose desires never clashed with Higashino's. The latter was uncertainty embodied.
Either way, he'd have to tell Aizen sooner or later. Better to be early and bank some "loyalty."
"I see. So this is what you took from that fictional future—Quincy power. It suits you."
Aizen grasped his meaning at once, and his eyes warmed with greater appreciation.
Surprises—no one ever had enough.
Watching Higashino grow, step by step, into something even he could scarcely read, Aizen felt an unrealistic idea bubble up.
What if Higashino broke the Shinigami's limits before he did?
Higashino always claimed he just wanted to keep up with Aizen, endlessly refining himself to match his pace. But looking back—from a man capped at a "normal captain's" ceiling to where he stood now—hadn't Higashino been snapping shackles one after another?
"Interesting. Truly… interesting."
Higashino watched Aizen casually flick the drone away and mutter to himself, baffled by his mood.
He didn't know Aizen felt freer and more exhilarated than ever.
Once, the only peak before him had been Yamamoto Genryūsai—the rotten old mountain. Get past him and there'd be none left. It was lonely.
Now, that mountain was practically gone. After he'd finally found a barely worthy rival in Urahara Kisuke, Higashino had brought three more gifts:
He'd led Aizen to the Great Spirit Book Gallery—there he learned of the Soul King, and the Royal Guard.
He'd brought word from the future: not long from now a Quincy king named Yhwach would try to destroy the world for a foolish goal.
And lastly, Higashino himself. Even now, he still looked so weak—but he never stopped, step after step, toward Aizen. Would there come a day when he truly stood shoulder to shoulder—perhaps even surpassed him?
"Hahaha… this world… is getting more and more interesting, isn't it?"
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