"The wind's picking up, Captain. You can leave this to me and go rest in your captain's quarters for a while!"
Inside the Fourth Division barracks, Vice-Captain Yamada Seinosuke stood in front of the Fourth Division members who were busy identifying medicinal herbs, and spoke to the captain at his side, Unohana Retsu.
This was one of the Fourth Division's daily routines. Only by learning to recognize all those medicinal ingredients could these Fourth Division members ensure that, when treating Shinigami from other divisions in the future, they would make as few mistakes as possible.
Normally, this work was jointly overseen by the captain and vice-captain.
However, in recent years, as Yamada Seinosuke grew increasingly proficient, this duty was often handled by him alone. As captain, Unohana Retsu generally only came by to take a look when she happened to be free and in the mood.
Today, as he felt the air around them cooling and noticed how thin his captain's clothing was, Yamada Seinosuke couldn't help worrying about her.
"Mm. I'll leave it to you, then~"
Unohana Retsu didn't show any particular reaction.
She had only intended to come by and take a look anyway.
As for this current vice-captain of hers, Yamada Seinosuke—although in many respects he was far less handy than that man from the past, when it came to handling the Fourth Division's day-to-day affairs, Yamada Seinosuke could basically be trusted not to make mistakes.
And so Unohana Retsu turned and left. However, the direction she took…
Yamada Seinosuke's brows furrowed slightly.
"Captain… hasn't gone there for a very long time, has she?"
As the Fourth Division's vice-captain, Yamada Seinosuke was very familiar with the layout of the division barracks. Judging from the direction Unohana Retsu was heading, she was definitely not going toward the captain's quarters—she was going toward her private training ground.
Or rather, a secret training ground that had once belonged solely to those two people.
Because ever since Yamada Seinosuke had become aware of that place, he had only ever seen two people enter it.
The one time he had barged in without permission was when he had misunderstood that man.
He'd been cold-shouldered by his captain for quite some time afterward.
To the point that, after that, Yamada Seinosuke never again had the thought of setting foot in that training ground.
But since that man had gained his current special status, Captain should never have gone there again. Why would she suddenly decide to go there now?
Unless…
A bad premonition suddenly welled up in Yamada Seinosuke's heart.
And that feeling grew stronger and stronger the longer Unohana Retsu was out of his line of sight.
"No… I have to go check."
In the end, Yamada Seinosuke couldn't suppress his anxiety. After handing his work over to Third Seat Kotetsu Isane, he prepared to head toward that training ground.
But he had barely taken a few steps when someone he'd absolutely never expected appeared in front of him, blocking his way.
"Yushima Ōko?"
Yamada Seinosuke didn't have the slightest shred of patience for the Shinigami standing in his path.
Yushima Ōko had long anticipated this kind of attitude from him. But after learning the story between Yamada Seinosuke and Higashino Shuuichi, seeing how Yamada was acting now only filled him with a sense of satisfaction.
"Good afternoon, Vice-Captain Yamada Seinosuke of the Fourth Division~"
Yushima Ōko said lightly, one hand stuffed in his pocket, the other resting casually on a nearby railing.
"If Twelfth Division has had another experimental accident and needs Fourth Division's help with treatment, go find our Third Seat, Kotetsu Isane. I'm very busy right now, I don't have time to clean up your Twelfth Division messes."
Yamada Seinosuke replied stiffly.
"Nope. This time, I'm not here about Twelfth Division business~"
"Then what are you doing blocking my way?
Our relationship isn't nearly good enough for this, is it?"
Faced with such open hostility, Yushima Ōko only gave a cold little laugh. Then he used just five words to make Yamada Seinosuke quietly follow him away.
Koizumi Izakaya.
He didn't even need to specifically mention that special extra-dimensional space.
Because Yamada Seinosuke was a smart man. For someone clever, a small hint was enough—if Yushima Ōko had come all the way here just to say those five words to him, then he clearly held some kind of evidence in his hands.
Right now, it looked like only two options remained in front of Yamada Seinosuke.
His expression darkened as he stared at the back walking ahead of him.
The first option was to kill Yushima Ōko outright and let him become yet another nameless corpse hanging beneath the dome of his secret space. The second was to force from him how he had learned about that matter—and then kill him, letting him keep company with those Gillians that still carried a trace of lingering warmth.
As the Fourth Division's vice-captain, Yamada Seinosuke knew very well how serious the consequences would be if what he had done was exposed.
Maybe, back then, he shouldn't have stubbornly resumed that experimental project—one that may already have been abandoned by that man and Captain Unohana—just to win back some pride in front of his captain, and then attempted to perfect it by relying on his own strength.
When had things started to spiral out of control?
Yamada Seinosuke thought back. It must have been about a year ago, when he successfully attained Bankai (Final Release), that he picked up this almost-abandoned experiment again.
But if you asked him whether he regretted it…
Yamada Seinosuke's answer would be a resolute "No."
He would prove to Captain Unohana that even if he really couldn't fight as well as that man, when it came to experimentation, he was absolutely superior.
What that man couldn't accomplish, he, Yamada Seinosuke, would accomplish.
Thinking, remembering, and brooding like this, Yushima Ōko had already led Yamada Seinosuke into a sealed space.
And the instant they stepped inside, Yamada Seinosuke sensed, through his spiritual perception, a subtle disturbance in the ambient spiritual pressure.
An ordinary Shinigami might not notice such a fluctuation, but to Yamada Seinosuke—who had, purely through his own research, fully mastered the spatial device of the West Administration and successfully created a space of his own—this kind of ripple was all too familiar.
It was the special spiritual pressure fluctuation produced when space jumped.
Which meant that he and Yushima Ōko were now inside an extra-dimensional space that was not part of the Soul Society.
However, if this was one of Twelfth Division's newest spiritual-pressure-shielding barriers, and the fluctuation only appeared when they entered, then that could only mean one thing—there was someone else here responsible for activating the barrier from within.
Otherwise, with Yushima Ōko making no visible movement, there was no way this kind of barrier could have triggered by itself.
That was the logic. The analysis, too, was sound.
But Yushima Ōko quickly demonstrated, through his actions, what it meant to "look fierce as a tiger, only to realize you're a complete fool."
"Don't be surprised. This is my Zanpakutō (Soul-Cutter Sword) ability—space manipulation. I only did this so that we can keep the content of our conversation strictly confidential~
After all, you don't want what you've done to be exposed, do you?"
Right now, Yamada Seinosuke wanted to retract every bit of analysis he'd just made.
The guy in front of him was too straightforward—how was he supposed to respond to that?
SOS, please help, urgent.
Still, he couldn't really be blamed. For every Shinigami, a Zanpakutō's abilities were theoretically something that, aside from being automatically recorded in the Great Spirit Book Corridor, no one in the Soul Society—whether the Gotei 13, the Central 46, or even their own captain—had the right to inquire about.
And Shinigami, by unspoken agreement, didn't ask one another about their Zanpakutō abilities unless they'd seen them with their own eyes.
Therefore, even though Yushima Ōko had been vice-captain of Twelfth Division for some time now, there were still only a handful of people in all Soul Society who knew what his Zanpakutō could do.
And Yamada Seinosuke was not among that small handful.
Still, Yushima's brief explanation had indeed answered a lot of his questions in one stroke—such as how Yushima Ōko had learned about his secret space.
For a Shinigami whose Zanpakutō ability was to manipulate space, discovering that pocket dimension anchored to Koizumi Izakaya was practically trivial.
But in that case…
The look Yamada Seinosuke gave Yushima Ōko was now overflowing with killing intent.
Yushima Ōko had to die.
He would not allow anyone to cut short his experiment before its success, for any reason.
Especially now that he had finally found the perfect excuse: Sakahone Saizō, that first-generation captain who had blundered into his space—and those so-called other first-generation captains who allegedly wanted to challenge the current Gotei 13…
Yamada Seinosuke didn't care in the slightest how much truth there was in what Sakahone Saizō had said. He only cared about one thing: the Soul Society had believed it. From that day on, the entire Gotei 13 had entered a state of heightened alert.
Which meant he could conduct his experiments openly under the vague banner of those supposedly rebellious first-generation captains.
That allowed him to massively accelerate the iteration and refinement of his current techniques.
Yamada Seinosuke believed that as long as he could maintain his current pace, it would take only a few short years for him to create a perfect fusion of Shinigami and Hollow—something that would force Captain Unohana to look at him in a new light. At that time, he would use this achievement to humiliate that man thoroughly.
He would let that man taste exactly what it felt like to be completely outclassed by someone else, and to be ignored by Captain Unohana.
And so—
"Yushima Ōko… I'm sorry."
"Hm?"
All of that inner monologue had taken place in the span of a mere instant in Yamada Seinosuke's mind—so fast that Yushima had no time to sense the violent shift in his emotions.
Which was why, faced with that sudden apology, Yushima Ōko was genuinely confused.
But a second later, he wasn't confused anymore.
Because Yamada Seinosuke released his Zanpakutō right before his eyes.
"Interpret and unravel—Hyakka (Hundred Lineages)!"
In an instant, the Zanpakutō at Yamada Seinosuke's waist turned into strand after strand of needle-like thread that spun around him, wrapping him in a butterfly-wing-like cocoon.
Then Yamada Seinosuke pinched one thread in his left hand and chanted, skipping the full incantation:
"Hadō no 54: Haien (Abolishing Flames)!"
At the same time, his right hand pinched a thread from the same side, this time without chanting—but the phantom light shimmering along it fully revealed the Kidō embedded in the strand:
"Bakudō no 62: Hyapporankan (Hundred Steps Fence)!"
Yamada Seinosuke clapped his left and right hands together in front of him, and the two threads, each carrying their respective Kidō, twisted and fused into a single mass of pure spiritual power that bared its fangs and lunged at Yushima Ōko.
Haien Shūdō (Flame Prison Path)!
In Yamada Seinosuke's view, Yushima Ōko was instantly swallowed by a ring-shaped corridor of roaring flame.
"Run. Struggle. Until you collapse… until you die."
Standing outside the corridor, Yamada Seinosuke muttered as he stared coldly at that mass of fire.
Once someone was trapped in his combined Kidō, Haien Shūdō, the only option left to them inside was to keep running forward through the corridor. If they ever stopped, they would immediately be devoured by Haien—those flames that would never go out until they had burned their target to ash.
Breaking through the corridor itself was impossible as well, because the walls of fire that formed it were also Haien.
That was why he had named it Haien Shūdō—Flame Prison Path.
Every Shinigami trapped inside was a death-row inmate, someone who knew exactly how it would end, yet still struggled desperately against the inevitable.
It was just that Yamada Seinosuke might not yet grasp what it truly meant to "manipulate space."
But that was all right. Yushima Ōko would show him.
"Shuuichi-sama told me there was a high chance you'd attack me without asking questions first…
As expected of Shuuichi-sama—you really did attack me~
But, Yamada Seinosuke, it seems you don't understand what it really means when a Zanpakutō's ability is to manipulate space…"
When Yushima Ōko's voice echoed through the space from every direction, the frenzied whirl in Yamada Seinosuke's mind was finally doused as if by a bucket of cold water, and he recovered a sliver of calm.
But it was already too late to regret anything. Putting himself in the other's shoes, if someone suddenly ambushed him like this, he would never let the attacker go. So he had no right to expect mercy now.
As for the "Shuuichi-sama" on Yushima Ōko's lips—whether that was that man or not…
So what if it was? So what if it wasn't?
Yamada Seinosuke knew he had no way out.
All that remained was to fight.
Bankai (Final Release)!
Casting aside all hesitation, Yamada Seinosuke decided to unleash his strongest form and fight Yushima Ōko with everything he had.
Everyone knew that there weren't many Shinigami who could even achieve Shikai (Initial Release) with their Zanpakutō. Those who went a step further to reach Bankai were rarer still—one in a million. If he had any desire to become a captain, Yamada Seinosuke believed he'd stand a real chance at winning a captain's position.
So even if Yushima Ōko's Zanpakutō ability was powerful, as long as Yushima was still just a vice-captain and hadn't attained Bankai, then with the overwhelming boost in spiritual pressure released by his own Bankai, Yamada definitely had a chance to crush him by sheer force.
Unfortunately, what he might not know was that the gap between one captain and another could be as vast as the distance between heaven and earth.
And if that was true for captains, how much greater could the gap be between vice-captains?
Some vice-captains held that position simply because their abilities really were only good enough to be vice-captain.
But some vice-captains were vice-captains only because someone, somewhere, needed them to remain in that role.
Otherwise…
"Yamada Seinosuke, don't forget—this is a space I created. On my turf, you still think you can use Bankai?"
Yushima Ōko's contemptuous voice echoed through the space. At the same time, Yamada Seinosuke felt his own spiritual pressure being stripped away from him at a rate he couldn't even put into words.
"How is this possible? Isn't your ability supposed to be just space manipulation?"
The spiritual pressure was escaping his body faster than he could release it. His Bankai activation was forcibly cut off halfway.
"Sure, it is space manipulation.
But who ever told you that a Zanpakutō can only have one ability?"
Yushima Ōko's voice sounded again—and this time, it came with a tidal wave of terrifying spiritual pressure.
Yamada Seinosuke was slammed to the ground by that crushing pressure, unable to resist at all, utterly losing his ability to fight back.
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