With a sudden kip-up, Tsuna jolted awake from unconsciousness, his mind still locked in the tense state he'd been in during his battle with the Monk.
Tsuna's sudden movement startled Tatsuki, who had been keeping watch beside him. Seeing the tension on his face, she suddenly burst out laughing.
"The battle's over. You won. Did you forget?"
The muscles throughout Tsuna's body abruptly relaxed, and he collapsed back onto the bed. Images of Tatsuki and the others celebrating his victory surfaced in his mind. The battle with the Monk had simply been too intense, leaving his mind filled with nothing but scenes of combat.
"You should rest for now. I'll go get Captain Unohana to take a look at you." Tatsuki handed Tsuna a cup of warm water.
After giving him a thorough examination with Kaidō, Retsu Unohana confidently concluded, "I didn't find any hidden injuries. Your body is just somewhat weakened and needs to replenish its energy."
How could he not be weak?
Tsuna could practically hear his stomach growling.
"Thank you, Captain Unohana. How many days was I unconscious?"
"Five days. Tatsuki-chan has already gone to prepare some food. Get some rest for now."
Once Tsuna had recovered, Retsu Unohana did not stay long at the Sawada household. She had to go to the Fourth Division to find Tenjirō Kirinji. After finally getting hold of the teacher who had taught her Kaidō, how could she possibly leave without bringing back some local specialties?
Something like a weakened version of those hot springs, perhaps.
The news that Tsuna had awakened quickly spread among the upper ranks of the Seireitei. Tsuna had barely started eating when his room was turned into a sealed chamber.
Even Tatsuki was excluded from the room. The only people inside were Tsuna, Yamamoto, Urahara, and the newly appointed Captain-Commander, Shunsui Kyōraku. Shunsui had only managed to get in by virtue of his position as Captain-Commander; otherwise, he would not have been qualified to participate.
"The situation is rather serious. You eat first, and I'll explain everything." Kisuke Urahara spoke to Tsuna.
"While you were fighting the Monk, I was summoned by the Soul King and went to the Soul King Palace to pay my respects."
"The Soul King conveyed a great deal of information to me. I'll share it with all of you now."
"First, the seal on Beyond Bankai has been lifted. Because power at the Beyond Bankai level can shake the stability of the world, the Soul King had fundamentally sealed off this path. Even someone as powerful as Lord Yamamoto spent a thousand years and only managed to cultivate the second stage of Bankai."
"Tsuna, your Beyond Bankai completely exploited a loophole from another world. But there's no need to worry. The Soul King has left everyone with the potential to cultivate to the Beyond Bankai level."
"For example, when Lord Yamamoto fought the Monk, he directly completed the cultivation he'd been unable to finish for a thousand years."
"But unsealing Beyond Bankai means that the Three Realms are about to enter a period of upheaval. Every use of Beyond Bankai's power could potentially damage the stability of the world."
"So the Soul King made a decision. He consumed the vast majority of his own power to reinforce the stability of the world. This way, everyone can use Beyond Bankai to their heart's content without worrying about damaging the world."
"The price...?" Tsuna asked with a mouthful of food.
This obviously wasn't going to be good news. If this were something beneficial to the world, why hadn't the Soul King done it before?
After all, he was ruthless enough to cripple himself for the sake of the world.
"The price is that the Soul King's reinforcement of the world has damaged his very essence."
"The Soul King doesn't have much time left. In less than twenty years, he will inevitably exhaust all his power and disappear from the world."
"Although the Soul King has reinforced the world, his importance as the linchpin of the Three Realms remains. Once the Soul King disappears, the entire Three Realms will be destroyed."
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Tsuna thumped his chest, already regretting trying to eat while listening to Urahara.
Who tells someone over dinner that the world is about to be destroyed? How was he supposed to keep eating after hearing something like that?
He hurriedly picked up a bowl of miso soup and drained it in one gulp before asking, "So? Does the Soul King have a backup plan?"
With the Soul King's personality, he couldn't possibly fight an unprepared battle. Behind every seemingly incomprehensible move he made, there had to be careful consideration.
Kisuke Urahara remained silent, simply staring at Tsuna.
After a long while, he finally sighed.
"The Soul King has made a gamble. Because of your appearance, he has gambled the future of the Three Realms on us—the people you lead."
"Wait. That's a little complicated. Let me sort this out."
Tsuna hesitated before saying, "You mean that my appearance changed the Soul King's original plan, and he chose to entrust the safety of the world to us?"
"Me?"
Tsuna pointed at himself.
I'm that amazing? How come I didn't know about it?
More importantly, when had the Soul King changed his plan?
Could it be...?
Tsuna recalled the scene when the Soul King had held him in the Soul King Palace. The Soul King had clearly had no intention of harming him, yet he had restricted his movements.
At the time, Tsuna had thought the Soul King was helping the Monk.
But looking back now, perhaps that had been the moment when the Soul King used The Almighty to see through his future.
That was the only explanation for why the Soul King had suddenly changed his plans and repeatedly helped Tsuna afterward.
Tsuna couldn't help wondering what exactly the Soul King had seen to make him place his bet on them.
"Kisuke, you mean the destruction of the world has entered a countdown? We have only twenty years to find a way to replace the Soul King's function?"
Kyōraku looked incredulous.
"No wonder, Old Man, you had me order everyone to prepare for war."
They had only twenty years.
If the Shinigami didn't work hard now, they might really end up bringing about their own destruction. They still had no idea where their efforts should be directed, but that was certainly better than simply waiting to die.
"I'll correct that. It's not twenty years. It's less than twenty years."
Urahara's tone was precise.
"The Soul King's power is being consumed constantly. At any moment, he might have to increase his output to protect the world, which would shorten the remaining time accordingly."
"Now that's a serious headache. Does the Soul King have any other warnings?"
Kyōraku refused to give up.
Urahara slowly shook his head.
For the time being, he had no intention of revealing that he had created two candidates for the position of Soul King. The truth about Ururu and Jinta's identities might affect the Shinigami's motivation to work toward a solution.
Moreover, the roles of Ururu and Jinta were only theoretical data. Urahara had no idea how long the final result would last.
He couldn't exactly bring the Soul King over while he was gasping for breath, put Ururu in his place, and conduct a test, could he?
That would truly be asking to die.
So Urahara concealed the results of his research. It was better to let the Shinigami feel a greater sense of crisis.
"No. The Soul King only said that the future lies among us, with Sawada Tsunayoshi at the center."
"The Soul King really is optimistic. I didn't even know I was this amazing. Why didn't he place his bet on you instead?"
Tsuna threw the complaint at Urahara.
Urahara gave an awkward laugh without answering.
Tsuna knew about Ururu and Jinta's potential roles, and he could more or less guess what the Soul King was thinking. Artificial Soul King candidates had limited utility and fundamentally could not resolve the instability of the world.
"All right. What are we supposed to do next? And let me make this clear beforehand: all of you know that I only fight because I want to go back to living a peaceful life. As for stabilizing the world and all that, I don't really have any particular thoughts on it."
Tsuna spread his hands helplessly.
The three of them—Urahara, Yamamoto, and Kyōraku—all knew that the reason driving Tsuna to fight wasn't even the Monk.
It was Yhwach, who had declared that he would return the world to chaos.
Amid the ensuing silence, Kyōraku scratched his head and sighed.
"What a time of internal and external troubles. Old Man, how about you take back the position of Captain-Commander?"
"The position of Captain-Commander is not something to be treated like a child's game!"
Yamamoto rebuked Kyōraku irritably, though he did not press the matter further. Even he found the current situation difficult to handle.
"Tell me, what if we seal away the one hiding in the shadows and make him the new Soul King? Would that work?"
During the brief silence, Tsuna quickly ran through his memories.
At the end of the manga, Ichigo fought Yhwach, and whoever lost became the Soul King.
Perhaps that could provide a way to solve the problem.
To avoid directly mentioning Yhwach's abilities, Tsuna took a slight detour in his explanation, but the others understood what he meant.
"Look, he's the Soul King's son. It's only natural for a son to inherit his father's position."
Just as Yamamoto and Kyōraku thought they had found a possible solution, Urahara poured a bucket of cold water over their hopes.
"If it were that simple, then the problem would indeed be easy to solve. After all, a war between us and the Quincy is inevitable sooner or later."
"But what I'm afraid of is that even if we find a new linchpin, it may still be impossible to prevent the world's crisis."
"When the Soul King transmitted the information to me, he deliberately showed me a scene. The entire Three Realms were being swallowed by destruction. The scene looked like hell itself."
"Hell?"
The moment Urahara uttered that word, the other three immediately focused their attention on him.
In the Bleach world, Hell existed independently of the Three Realms. Even the Shinigami had to perform a specific ritual to summon and make contact with Hell.
"Why does Hell have something to do with this now?"
Kyōraku did not believe Urahara would casually throw out a meaningless word.
"The Reishi balance system?"
A term suddenly escaped Tsuna's lips.
"Under normal circumstances, Reishi flows between the Three Realms, maintaining a balance, right?"
"But when a Shinigami with an exceptionally high spiritual density dies, their corpse cannot normally decompose into Reishi. So the Soul Society performs a special ritual to send their corpse to Hell, right?"
"Don't you think using Hell as a garbage dump like this is essentially throwing away Reishi that should have been circulating within the Three Realms?"
"That's true, but..."
Kyōraku smiled bitterly.
"If we didn't do that, the Reiatsu remaining in their corpses would also affect Soul Society. It's already the best way of dealing with the problem."
"So, Tsuna, you think the future crisis might come from Hell?"
Urahara asked.
Tsuna rolled his eyes at Urahara.
"You deliberately brought up Hell in the first place. Isn't that exactly what you're thinking?"
"Not at all..."
Whenever things reached this point, Urahara would open his little folding fan and hide his smile behind it.
Tsuna wasn't making a baseless guess.
If he remembered correctly, Kubo had drawn a continuation of Bleach involving Hell. Unfortunately, it had only been one or two chapters—or something like that. The actual crisis had never been explored, leaving readers hanging on purpose.
"Anyway, Captain Kyōraku—no, Captain-Commander. Make a note of it for now. There might be a problem with Hell."
"All right, all right."
Kyōraku was helpless.
Ever since taking office, he'd been hit with one major incident after another.
Was he really just born to be overworked?
The four continued discussing matters for a long time, but ultimately, they still had no good way to deal with the crisis mentioned by the Soul King. All they could do was take things one step at a time.
In the end, they decided that everything should focus on strengthening themselves and increasing their side's overall power.
At this point, the four of them could only trust the Soul King's choice—and trust in that so-called omniscience and omnipotence.
They could only hope that the Soul King had truly seen a future he was satisfied with.
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