Maybe it was still too early in the morning, but the streets were nearly empty, just the occasional shadow moving between ruins.
Well, "streets" might be too generous a term.
There weren't any real roads here, just rubble and ruin as far as the eye could see.
You'd be hard-pressed to even find a single fully intact building.
Still, compared to the wasteland that was District 80, this place was a definite step up.
Marginal, but better.
This was District 77.
Seff had fought his way here from the farthest fringe, carving a path from 80 to 77.
At first glance, this area might've seemed slightly more livable.
But that was just the surface.
The deeper truth still clung to the air: the stench of theft, murder, and desperation.
A stink Seff had become intimately familiar with.
He'd been surviving in it since the moment he arrived.
And even Seff himself, if he were honest, could hardly believe how fast he'd changed.
Just a week ago, he was alive, a regular man.
Now he'd grown used to the feel of a sword in his hand… and the act of killing.
Every so often, he'd spot people slumped against broken walls or trees, sleeping.
Men, women, it didn't matter.
Everyone looked malnourished, sickly, just barely clinging to life.
They weren't exactly skin and bones, but their faces were sallow, their limbs thin.
Under their ragged clothes, barely enough to cover the essentials, their ribs were visible, their bellies sunken.
Each one of them had a weapon at their side.
Not all of them carried swords or metal blades.
Most had wooden clubs, sticks, or even crudely shaped spears fashioned from sharpened stones tied to branches.
No one truly slept here.
The moment you got too close, they would snap awake, hands tightening around their weapons.
Sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, watching you like demons crawling through the edge of hell.
Only when they confirmed you posed no immediate threat would they slowly relax and drift back into shallow sleep.
Even if they weren't actively ganging up on someone, every single person here carried an unspoken hostility toward anyone who wasn't themselves.
This was how people lived.
Like beasts.
They had long since shed dignity, shame, and humanity.
Seff had no plans to linger here.
As he passed through, the ones he disturbed squinted warily at him, their bodies tensing, hands curling tighter around their weapons, ready to pounce if the opportunity looked good.
They didn't attack immediately.
That was because, the moment they saw him, they began evaluating him.
Compared to their frail frames, Seff's physique was almost monstrous.
His clothes were nothing special, tattered like theirs, but his body?
Solid muscle, tightly coiled strength, that wasn't someone they could take down one-on-one.
And he wore a katana at his waist.
Not the standard black Soul Reaper uniform, so clearly not one of them.
But anyone carrying a Soul Reaper's blade had either looted it… or killed one.
Both options meant the same thing: dangerous.
More importantly, they couldn't see any visible food or water on him.
No reason to pick a fight.
Not yet.
And so, like a procession of silent watchers, they let him walk.
From one end of the ruined street to the other, Seff passed through under a constant barrage of hostile, wary, and calculating stares.
Only once he was fully out of sight did those stares finally fade away.
Seff let out a quiet sigh.
The Soul Society, as he'd learned, was divided into four great sectors: North, South, East, and West.
Each sector had eighty districts, arranged in order from the center out.
The lower the number, the safer and more orderly the district.
The higher the number… the worse it got.
Beyond the outer districts lay the central region, the seat of the Soul Reapers.
What exactly that place looked like, Seff didn't know.
But one thing he had accepted early on: He was dead.
This was the afterlife.
What he couldn't help feeling a little bitter about was how he'd ended up here.
He died doing the right thing, heroically, even.
Sure, maybe he didn't expect to be sent straight to paradise, but come on… at least put him in one of the better districts. Top thirty, maybe?
Instead, he opened his eyes in District 80, the worst place possible.
With a bunch of dead Soul Reapers around him.
Like a horror story with the worst possible opening scene.
Worth noting: those dead Soul Reapers, though injured and bloodied, had clothes that could be salvaged.
Seff could've pieced together a uniform.
But being new to this world, he decided not to.
Wearing the outfit of an official death god seemed like a surefire way to attract unnecessary trouble.
Turned out, that was the right call.
At least in the outer districts, there was no such thing as "respect" for Soul Reapers.
This was lawless territory.
Order and justice didn't exist here.
From the thugs he fought and interrogated on his journey inward, Seff learned something crucial:
Even among Soul Reapers, there were weaklings.
And if one of those weaklings wandered into a high-numbered district, injured and alone?
Locals would descend like vultures, kill them, strip them of everything useful, and leave the corpse in the dirt.
If the victim was a woman, the fate could be even worse.
And because this place was so chaotic, investigations were useless.
Even if the killers were eventually identified, they'd likely already be dead, murdered in turn.
By contrast, the fact that Seff had gone out of his way to bury the Soul Reapers he found when he arrived?
In District 80, that practically made him a saint.
To the people here, Soul Reapers were just walking treasure chests.
Everyone dreamed of being the one to crack one open and get rich.
Wearing their uniforms was just asking to get stabbed.
But Seff?
Striding boldly through the district with one of their blades at his hip, unafraid of any revenge?
That marked him as a different breed altogether.
The kind of man you didn't mess with lightly.
...Though only slightly less lightly.
<><>---------------------------------------
200 P.S = 1 Extra Chapters
Add to Collection!
• TL/N •
Hello guys Fanfic recommendation!
Check out my other work:
> Naruto: Mind Control
If you like smart and strong MC, this fanfic is for you.
It's Peak.
Give it a chance and you won't be disappointed