"You're nothing but Rukongai trash!"
"A mere commoner thinks they're qualified to point fingers here?"
"A worthless piece of garbage like you—ten of you wouldn't last against one hand of mine!"
"Don't make me laugh. Filth like you—if I threw you out on the street, I'd still think it's dirty just to touch you. If we weren't short on manpower, you think I'd even bother taking you in?
And with that, you still have the nerve to daydream about trying to become a Shinigami?
Hilarious.
You don't actually think being a Shinigami is that easy, do you?"
Kira Izuru jolted awake from the nightmare again, one hand propping up his head as he sucked in ragged breaths.
"Hm? Izuru, another nightmare?"
A companion on the other bed asked with concern.
"Yeah… but it's fine."
Kira Izuru shook his head.
Everything in that dream would become the past—he believed that.
Because not long ago, he had successfully passed the initial Shinigami screening held in Rukongai. All that remained was to complete an assigned task here in South Rukongai District 4 with the other candidates who had passed—and then they would earn the right to enter the Shin'ō Academy prep course.
And as long as he could pass the prep course graduation exam, he could formally enroll in Shin'ō Academy.
Once he graduated from there, he would be a real Shinigami.
All those doubts, all that contempt, all those sneers from people who looked down on Rukongai commoners—every last one of them would become a thing of the past!
"It's just a shame… Rukia and Renji didn't pass the initial screening. If they had, the three of us might've ended up in the same class."
Two other figures surfaced in Kira Izuru's mind.
They were companions from the outer districts, just like him—both carrying the same dream of becoming Shinigami, coming here together.
But unfortunately…
"I'm one step ahead of them now~"
Remembering the gloomy looks on Renji and Rukia's faces when they saw they'd failed, Kira Izuru couldn't help finding it a little funny.
Still, it didn't matter.
He decided that once he became a Shinigami—if Renji and Rukia still hadn't made it yet—he'd lend them a hand.
After all, the three of them had shared a stretch of unforgettable life in the outer districts together.
Before long, the door to their room was shoved open violently. A middle-aged man in a Shihakushō (Shinigami Robe) barked at the dozen-plus Rukongai civilians inside, including Kira Izuru.
"Up! Get the hell up! It's time for you bastards to go do your task!"
The man's words were brutal—yet Kira Izuru's heart pounded with excitement.
Because according to the process they'd been told, if they completed this task smoothly and nothing went wrong, it meant they truly had the potential to become Shinigami. And based on their performance, they would be assigned to different Shin'ō Academy prep courses afterward.
Kira Izuru had secretly asked this middle-aged Shinigami about it: the best prep course only took one year, and you could enter Shin'ō Academy directly after!
Of course, Kira Izuru wasn't the only one thinking that way. In fact, everyone in the room had the same goal.
They all wanted to get into the best prep course—the one that would get them into Shin'ō Academy in the shortest possible time.
To these commoners, becoming a Shinigami meant changing their place in life.
It was the greatest dream they had ever dared to hold.
Not long after, the middle-aged Shinigami led them to a place that felt strangely secretive. It was technically within a bustling area, yet the surroundings were unnaturally quiet—aside from outsiders like them, it didn't seem like any civilians lived nearby.
But that wasn't Kira Izuru's concern.
His task, according to the manual they'd been handed, was to assemble a strange device he couldn't even begin to understand.
On the surface, it looked simple.
But Kira Izuru quickly realized what the real problem was.
Even during assembly, the device was faintly—yet continuously—drawing in his Reiryoku (Spiritual Power). Sometimes he would even see a ghostly afterimage of himself from moments ago. Other times, the afterimage in front of him would become… a version of himself from moments ahead.
And that wasn't all.
While Kira Izuru worked, he saw two companions who had come with him get crushed by an invisible force.
Crushed in the purest sense—no fragments left behind, not even a speck of blood splashing out.
"Will I end up like them too?"
For a moment, doubt slipped into Kira Izuru's heart.
But the instant he remembered those nightmares that had tormented him for so long—those suffocating memories—he shook his head.
No.
He had to become a Shinigami.
He had to make everyone who had always looked down on Rukongai commoners see it—
They weren't worthless.
Time passed, minute by minute. His progress advanced, step by step.
And the more complete the device became, the more clearly Kira Izuru could feel it—an oppressive pressure swelling from inside the mechanism.
To the point that he often had to rest for three to five minutes after working for only one.
Meanwhile, the number of people assembling devices alongside him was shrinking at a pace too terrifying to think about.
"How many are left…? Five? Three? Or am I the only one now…?"
By the end, Kira Izuru didn't even dare ask anymore.
He was afraid his resolve would waver.
But even if he didn't want to face reality, reality would come for him anyway.
Outside the room where they were building the device, sounds of combat and screams erupted!
Kira Izuru immediately dropped the nearly finished device in his hands, shoved the door open, and looked outside.
The dozen-plus Shinigami who had been supervising them—every single one—was locked in battle against a horrifying opponent.
The strength of those enemies was beyond anything Kira Izuru could comprehend.
To him, the supervising Shinigami had already seemed overwhelmingly powerful. The way they had demonstrated Kidō—Hadō: Shakkahō (Red Flame Cannon), and Kōka-sen (Yellow Fire Flash)—had looked like a force he wouldn't have dared to imagine even in dreams.
But now he saw it:
The unfamiliar Shinigami who had attacked them were even more monstrous—one after another.
They could use Kidō comparable to the supervising Shinigami. Their Zanjutsu (Swordsmanship) and Shunpo (Flash Step) didn't lag behind at all. And beyond that, the attackers were using abilities that weren't Kidō at all.
Kira Izuru guessed those abilities were what Shinigami called Zanpakutō release.
But he'd heard that Shinigami capable of releasing their Zanpakutō were, at minimum, seated officers within a division.
Did that mean another major Shinigami rebellion had broken out inside Seireitei?
"...This won't affect my evaluation task, will it?"
Kira Izuru muttered instinctively.
It was ridiculous—when one glance told him the gap in strength between the two sides was enormous, the first thing Kira Izuru worried about was whether the attack would ruin his task.
Because he valued this evaluation more than anything.
Before he left, he had already bragged to Rukia and Abarai Renji, telling them to wait back home for good news.
So he truly didn't want to give up this hard-won chance.
Especially since he could clearly feel how abnormal this evaluation was—those companions who had likely already died were proof enough.
Kira Izuru turned back toward the mysterious device behind him, the one he had set aside and was close to finishing.
He didn't know whether, if he abandoned it now, he would ever again get a chance like this—one where he could endure to the end, instead of dying a miserable death like the others.
For him, this might be the closest he would ever come to becoming a Shinigami.
So—
"I can't give up here!"
Kira Izuru clenched his teeth.
In the brief time he'd been thinking, one of the supervising Shinigami outside had already failed to hold on—his attacker crippled both of his hands.
There wasn't much time left.
Kira Izuru decided to gamble everything.
He rushed back to his task, determined to finish the device no matter what.
But reality wasn't a movie.
And Kira Izuru wasn't the protagonist.
The eerie force inside the device wasn't moved by courage or grit.
Kira Izuru failed.
At the final step in the instructions—when he tried to connect the device to its core—his hands were shredded into pulp by a terrifying surge of Reiryoku (Spiritual Pressure).
The fact that it didn't erase his entire body in an instant was probably the device's last mercy.
But that mercy didn't last.
Ink-black Spiritual Pressure took shape, spilling out from the junction between the device and its core. It spread in midair like a massive net, aiming to completely erase the helpless Kira Izuru from the world.
If nothing changed, then to most Shinigami in Soul Society, the world would simply have one fewer insignificant Rukongai commoner.
But something did change.
"Sh-Shinigami…?"
A streak of white entered Kira Izuru's widened eyes.
He had been ready to accept his fate in bitter resignation—
And yet, he witnessed a miracle.
That despair-inducing Spiritual Pressure… the weird, dreadful pressure that even the supervising Shinigami outside could only avoid, not daring to approach—
In front of the Shinigami who appeared here, it became like a disobedient child.
Beaten once—
Then crying and scrambling as it fled back where it came from.
From start to finish, that pressure never crossed the black, bewitching eight-petaled flower.
Bakudō no Hachijūichi: Dankū (Severing Void).
Kira Izuru engraved the name of that absurdly powerful Kidō in his mind.
And he engraved the name of the Shinigami before him as well.
"I'm the captain of the Katana-gari-shū (Blade-Hunting Corps), the Grand Blade-Hunting Chief, Higashino Shuuichi. Kid—you're safe now~"
The Shinigami said it while looking at him with gentle eyes.
And in that moment, Kira Izuru learned something:
A white haori symbolized a captain among Shinigami.
In that same moment, Kira Izuru forged a conviction in his heart.
He would become a member under this man.
Higashino Shuuichi hadn't expected he would meet a "plot character" like Kira Izuru in a place like this—let alone in this way.
He was only following Tsunayashiro Kamihara's orders step by step, completing his assigned task.
To be honest, when he learned the full shape of Tsunayashiro Kamihara's plan, he was shocked.
Because it was so sharp it didn't feel like something a man of Tsunayashiro Kamihara's era could come up with.
The plan itself—setting up special devices throughout Rukongai that would later be used to rapidly transport Fullbringers from the World of the Living through the Dangai (Precipice World)—wasn't particularly strange to Higashino Shuuichi.
He had long suspected Tsunayashiro Kamihara hadn't truly severed all contact with the Fullbringers in the World of the Living. That time the Fullbringers retreated into the West Administration's territory—both Higashino Shuuichi and Aizen had seen it as a delaying tactic.
A way to keep the already-suspicious Kyōraku Shunsui from continuing to dig.
What was truly twisted was this:
Because these special devices involved the Dangai, and because Tsunayashiro Kamihara didn't have someone like Yushima Ōko under Higashino Shuuichi—someone deeply familiar with the Dangai—and because Jigokuchō (Hell Butterflies) were strictly controlled contraband in Soul Society…
For ordinary Shinigami to transport Fullbringers directly through the Dangai without paying a price was impossible.
So to avoid massive casualties during the installation stage, Tsunayashiro Kamihara established "fake" Shin'ō Academy offices across Rukongai.
Those offices, under Shin'ō Academy's banner, openly intercepted Rukongai civilians with potential.
Using names like "prep courses" and "evaluation tasks," they tricked these civilians into working for them.
If the plan stopped there, Higashino Shuuichi might not have been so shaken. At most, it would just be Tsunayashiro Kamihara pulling a con—something any clever man could do if he wanted.
But Tsunayashiro Kamihara had actually sent some truly talented civilians into Shin'ō Academy.
Which meant—
The lie wasn't the scary part.
The scary part was that Tsunayashiro Kamihara turned the lie into reality.
In Higashino Shuuichi's eyes, that kind of method didn't feel like something Tsunayashiro Kamihara could have devised.
Because if you thought further—
If Tsunayashiro Kamihara handled this carefully, it wouldn't just affect a single mission.
In the future, he could directly manipulate the entire structure of Soul Society's Shinigami combat strength.
After all, as the older generation of noble Shinigami retired and died, Soul Society's future would belong to commoners. Among the new generation, the proportion of Rukongai-born Shinigami would only grow higher.
Aizen had seen that clearly from early on, which was why he had proactively applied to become a permanent instructor at Shin'ō Academy—breaking precedent in Gotei 13 history.
And to Higashino Shuuichi, Tsunayashiro Kamihara's move was even crueler—like cutting the roots out from under the tree.
More importantly…
It seemed that Seireitei—including the Sōtaichō Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni, and Kyōraku Shunsui of the Eighth Division—hadn't noticed any of this.
As for Aizen, Higashino Shuuichi felt that even if Aizen hadn't known before, after today he would understand.
Otherwise, the one who showed up at Yamada Seinosuke's Director-General inauguration wearing "Aizen's skin" wouldn't have been Ichimaru Gin.
"This isn't something a civilian like you can be involved in—nor is the device you were made to build.
Kid, you were lucky. Lucky you didn't die during the assembly. Lucky you ran into me in time."
Before Kira Izuru, Higashino Shuuichi released his Zanpakutō, Spiritual Pressure rising as a transparent film of Reishi (Spirit Particles) formed around Kira Izuru.
"Heisha, Tōgen (Peach Spring)!"
Higashino Shuuichi sealed Kira Izuru into a separate space.
And then—
He flipped the table.
Outside, Shinigami were still desperately fighting their own manifested Zanpakutō, helpless and overwhelmed. If those manifestations had carried genuine killing intent, those Shinigami would've died a thousand times over already.
But the short lifespan of those manifested blades was due to end.
A windlike flash of deep green light cut through the air.
"Bungetsu-giri (Crescent Moon Split)!"
With his actions, Higashino Shuuichi proved one simple truth to them all.
What was a captain?
Higashino Shuuichi.
Those manifested Zanpakutō—no matter their abilities, no matter their Spiritual Pressure—were not worthy enemies for even a single exchange.
Overbearing.
Unbeatable.
Inside Tōgen, Kira Izuru watched everything happen.
A thousand words choked in his throat, until all he could reduce them to was two.
This… is a Shinigami captain.
When the dust settled and Higashino Shuuichi dismissed Tōgen, preparing to move on to the next location, Kira Izuru dropped to his knees before him.
"Taichō! I want to become a Shinigami!"
Higashino Shuuichi stopped. He looked down, then smiled softly at Kira Izuru.
"Yeah. I'll be waiting for you~"
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