The gathered powerhouses grew solemn.
Everyone understood what Genryusai meant.
After Aizen and his two accomplices defected, Seireitei had three vacant captain seats—positions that, by rights, should be filled as soon as possible. No one expected the Head Captain to press the matter this quickly.
Instinctively, several captains glanced toward five people: Kisuke, Rukia, Ikkaku, Renji, and Chojiro.
Those five all possessed a zanpakuto (soul-cutting sword) with bankai. The next captains would obviously be chosen from among them.
Under the weight of those stares, Kisuke sighed. "Don't look at me. I'm perfectly happy running my shop in the Human World. No desire to move back."
Ikkaku hurried to add, "Same here. I'll follow Captain Zaraki until the day I die."
Chojiro nodded frantically and looked at Genryusai with hopeful eyes. "I've served you for nearly a thousand years. I'm not interested in being a captain."
Three refusals out of five. Eyes moved to the remaining two—Rukia and Renji.
Great.
One was an absolute-zero, self-detonating shock trooper; the other's bone-white serpent wasn't even up to par.
Was Seireitei really this short on options?
As the mood turned awkward, Genryusai tapped his staff and looked at Cole. "Cole, you're very fond of staying in Seireitei, aren't you?"
Cole, mid-daydream, nodded without thinking.
"Of course. Everyone here's a character, conversations are never boring—I love it. Old man, don't you dare kick me out."
He still wanted to siphon more reiryoku (spiritual pressure) here—another ten days or half a month would be perfect.
Genryusai slowly nodded. "Since you like it so much, how about becoming a captain?"
"—Huh!?"
"Hmm!?"
"Hmm!?"
"Hmm!?"
"Hmm!?"
Everyone froze, then processed it—eyes heating as they turned to Cole.
Right.
Unlike Rukia and Renji, this kid's strength was the real deal.
If he stayed in Soul Society, he'd be a top-tier force who could pressure even Shunsui.
"Ha!?" Cole snapped back to himself, staring wide-eyed at Genryusai. "You want me to be a squad captain too!?"
First Rukia.
Then Soi fong.
Now even the old man.
Did he look that eager to die?
Genryusai actually smiled, kind for once. "Since you're so attached to Seireitei, why not move the time up a century and die early—"
"No way!!!" Cole barked. "I'm sixteen. I haven't lived enough to spend a thousand years cooped up with a bunch of weirdos."
Seireitei? What a place.
Mad scientists.
Yandere lilies.
And those nauseating nobles.
Dropping by for a couple of days was fine.
Staying long term would make anyone lose it.
Several shinigami shot him unfriendly looks.
Weirdos!?
Was he talking about them!?
Genryusai's face hardened; reiryoku rose, awe-inspiring without anger. "In that case, I'll settle accounts for attacking the nobles—and for all the buildings you've drained. By Seireitei law, that's at least two hundred years in Muken."
Cold sweat beaded on Cole's forehead.
A Hongmen Banquet, then.
Either die and join the Gotei… or be locked away.
Stick your neck out or shrink—it's the same blade.
He shot pleading looks at Rukia, Unohana, and Soi fong.
Help!
Rukia guiltily averted her eyes.
Unohana smiled with crescent-moon eyes and mouthed noiselessly: "Welcome~."
Soi fong's cheeks tinted pink; her gaze was hopeful. If Cole joined… then they could be together every day.
Dead.
All of them wanted him dead.
The ones who didn't were back in the Human World.
Cole swallowed and looked back at Genryusai, voice dry. "Think this through, old man. If I stay in Seireitei, you might end up sleeping under the sky, on the dirt, with crickets for company."
A ripple of unease ran through the shinigami.
With Cole's bottomless appetite, he really might gnaw Seireitei barren.
They'd be living like cave dwellers in no time.
"No matter," Genryusai said, resolute. "Whichever squad you captain, your subordinates can compress reiryoku for you to absorb."
Feeling the Head Captain's resolve, every gaze on Cole turned unfriendly.
Knuckles cracked; fists tightened.
Time to send this brat to the afterlife a century early—
and since he currently wore a Hollow form, no one had to feel guilty.
Cole drew a deep breath. Under a forest of suspicious eyes, he extended his right hand.
"Honestly, I didn't want to do this."
Shunsui's pupils pinched tight—space in front of Cole's fingers split open, torn by his five spread digits.
Cole slashed down.
A rift ripped straight through the First Division's audience hall.
Bottomless.
Black as a night curtain—
a chill abyss that breathed out strands of malevolent air.
The shinigami jolted to their feet. Toshiro placed a hand on his zanpakuto, watching the crack warily. "Garganta (Black Cavity)? A passage to Hueco Mundo?"
He'd only been captain for a little over a century, but he'd fought plenty—and most Hollows he'd faced invaded through a garganta.
Soi fong narrowed her eyes at the dark gap. "That malice isn't the Dangai (Precipice World) or some random sub-dimension. It feels like true Hueco Mundo."
Ukitake coughed, wan. "A garganta, yes—and a direct tear between worlds."
At over seven hundred years old, he knew his garganta types.
As everyone tensed, a shrill roar welled from beyond the black seam—growing, swelling—until a mountainous, feral face loomed at the lip.
A Gillian, pitch-black and hideous, peered through the crack.
Those ink-dark eyes roved greedily over the captains.
The reiryoku of Seireitei.
The delicious shape of the leaders before it—
Hunger flared a hundredfold as it clawed and wrenched, trying to widen the breach and force itself into Seireitei.
But captains were not about to quail before a lower-class Menos.
Kisuke stepped forward, studying the snarling Gillian, then glanced at the forest behind it. "Not just a garganta to Hueco Mundo. It links to the Forest of Menos—the second subterranean layer. That's a deep corridor boring through multiple world-barriers."
Between world and world stood walls, and as Soul Society's center, Seireitei was wrapped in layers of barrier. The Forest of Menos had its own natural bulwarks. A garganta that punched through that many obstructions—this was his first time seeing one.
Inevitably, eyes drifted back to Cole.
Was he even a shinigami anymore?
Cole tapped the shard of Hollow mask at his eye and grinned. "In this hollowfied state, I can tear open a garganta myself. I can leave Soul Society whenever I want—you can't kill me."
After he poured a million points into Hollow power, he'd become a true upper-class Menos—sensitive to Hueco Mundo, as if it were home. A sweep of the hands, and space ripped. Compared to a senkaimon (world-transit gate), it was hundreds of times more convenient.
If he wanted to leave now, he'd just enter Hueco Mundo via garganta, then tear back to the Human World from there. Even if every shinigami here gave chase, he could stroll out of Soul Society.
The shinigami's expressions turned… complicated.
Toshiro couldn't hold it in. "Cole, are you a human, a shinigami, or an Arrancar?"
That, everyone wanted to know.
Before, even hollowfied, he'd still looked like a shinigami.
Now he could tear gargantas.
Was that still "shinigami"?
They turned to Kisuke.
He spread his hands helplessly. "Don't look at me. I don't even fully understand Cole-san and Ichigo's conditions."
Normal hollowfication meant controlling a Hollow.
Cole and Ichigo… had become the Hollow.
The looks returned to Cole.
He snorted. "Duh, I'm a shinigami. Ever seen a Hollow this handsome?"
A field of black lines crossed foreheads.
Handsome—compared to monsters?
"Kidding, kidding…" Cole chuckled. "Mask, void within, sure—but personality-wise, I'm nothing like a Hollow."
Only then did Shunsui and the others nod.
Whether Adjuchas or Vasto Lorde, Hollows had holes in their hearts; even with intellect, their natures skewed to extremes—pride, wrath, greed, lust, envy, sloth, gluttony—the darker side of humanity.
Cole, though…
Chins were rubbed.
He seemed… relatively upright.
Cole smiled, about to speak—when the Gillian at the breach roared again, clawing for Kisuke. Its scrabbling widened the crack another notch.
Cole's eyes chilled. "Trash. Did I say you could come out? Get back."
A formless pressure spread.
Shinigami couldn't feel it—
but the Menos did.
The apex predator's sovereign aura, born of devouring tens of thousands of Gillian—instinctive terror made manifest.
"GROAAAH—!"
With a scream like tearing metal, the hulking Gillian yanked its arms back and fled into the dark without looking over its shoulder.
The shinigami: "…"
A few seconds later, Shunsui rubbed his temples and sighed. "Forget it. Whatever you are—so long as you remember you're Cole."
Cole frowned. "What do you mean 'whatever'? I'm a proper human shinigami, okay?"
Ukitake gave a wry smile. "First time I've seen a shinigami who can dominate Hollows like that."
Not Aizen's kind of manipulation—
but the absolute command of an upper-class Menos over those below.
In essence, it already exceeded "shinigami."
Kisuke, however, was thinking of something else; delight flashed in his eyes as he looked to Genryusai. "Head Captain, since Cole can open a garganta, perhaps we should revise our expedition plan."
"Expedition?" Cole glanced over.
Soi fong explained, "We're going to invade Hueco Mundo. We can't let Aizen build power there. A traitor like that deserves the severest sentence."
Several captains nodded.
Unlike Shinji and the Vizards, Aizen's crimes were blood-inked: hollowfication experiments in the Rukongai, murdering colleagues, wiping out Central 46, consorting with Menos—
a list that would get him executed and resurrected for execution again, hundreds of times.
Leave him alive, and Seireitei's authority was a joke—others might follow his path.
The headache, as always, was how to enter Hueco Mundo—and how to return safely. That was the Hollows' world; even captains could be ground down if stranded.
With Cole, though, those obstacles dissolved.
Genryusai was quiet a long moment, then shook his head. "This is Seireitei's business. Since this brat refuses to join us, we won't ask his aid."
The brief spark of joy faded from the captains' faces.
The Head Captain was… correct.
Aizen was Seireitei's shame.
They had to deal with him themselves.
If Cole wouldn't join, he remained an outsider.
Cole stared, speechless. "You're really that stiff, old man? Must you be so stubborn?"
This time, Genryusai was adamant.
No matter what Cole said, the thousand-year-old hard-headed codger refused to budge.
At last, Cole gave up.
Too stiff. Too old. Too stubborn.
Once he decided, nothing changed.
As the meeting closed, Genryusai shot Cole a dark look. "Brat, return to the Human World. If I catch you siphoning even a building's worth of reiryoku again, you can stay in Soul Society forever."
Other captains eyed him coldly.
Thanks to Cole, they'd been sleeping on the grass these past days.
Their fists itched.
When it finally adjourned, Cole stalked out, grumbling nonstop about Genryusai. "Soi fong, isn't the old man too rigid? With my garganta, we'd be in and out the same day."
"The old man's lived over a millennium," Soi fong said helplessly. "A little stubbornness is understandable."
Rukia huffed at Cole. "It's your fault. Why won't you hurry up and die into Soul Society!?"
She wanted him here too—then she could have him to herself.
Cole sighed deep.
My Ghost Wife Always Wants Me to Join Her—What Do I Do?
Walking along, he remembered the Forest of Menos he'd glimpsed and paused, eyes brightening. He turned to the two women. "You two… want to take a look at Hueco Mundo with me?"
He'd traversed this world for more than ten years. Human World, Soul Society, Dangai—he'd seen them all. The only one left was Hueco Mundo, peer to the other two great realms. He'd always been curious.
Both were tempted.
"Go to Hueco Mundo…?"
(End of Chapter)
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