Chapter Thirteen

The past, a certain place in the Soul Society

“Gah…”

Blood and an anguished cry came out of Shuhei Hisagi as he fell to the ground on his knee.

“What’s wrong, Shuhei? Weren’t you going to teach me about having the ‘right’ to do something?” This question was delivered harshly by the Ninth Company Captain, Hisagi’s superior Kensei Muguruma, who was looking down at him.

“I’m still getting started…”

Spitting out the words through gritted teeth, Hisagi stood up. “What? You still wanna go? I’m getting hungry and you’ll just end up dead, Shuuheiii.” The self-proclaimed “Super Assistant Captain” Kuna Mashiro at his side fussed from under her mask.

At the time, they were resisting the Vandenreich. Captain General Genryusai Yamamoto had been killed by Yhwach, and the unease that accompanied their defeat seemed to spread among the Soul Reapers like a plague. Four of the captains’ bankai had been stolen, and they didn’t even know how to begin fighting.

That was when Muguruma had commanded Hisagi, “Perform bankai.”

“I didn’t lose my bankai this time, but that may not be the case next time.”

“The more guys who can do bankai, the better.”

He had heard that the Department of Research and Development was currently researching a way to prevent bankai from being stolen. However, they had no idea whether that research would be complete before the next invasion or whether the stolen bankai could be taken back. Either way, if they could just formulate a countermeasure bankai it would undoubtedly be a major turning point in the war.

Though Hisagi wasn’t against the plan itself, Muguruma’s scheme was to awaken Hisagi’s bankai by having a Hollowified Mashiro attack him aggressively.

She was at the same assistant captain level as Hisagi, but she was tenacious and had been working with Hirako and the others in the living world as a Visored. She likely couldn’t have been outclassed by a powerful captain when she was Hollowified. Despite her power, she was distinctly uncharitable. Continuing to battle her despite the difference in their abilities was essentially putting Hisagi's life in danger. The basic plan was to make him learn bankai under threat of death. And Muguruma hadn’t chosen that method of learning anticipating automatic success.

In the past when Ichigo Kurosaki trained in order to bring out his mask—which was his Hollow power—he’d used a dangerous method that would cause the Hollow in him to take over his body if he made even one misstep. Muguruma had been involved with that effort, and as a result, Ichigo Kurosaki’s power increased by no small amount. Normally it took a long time to achieve bankai, but if they wanted to shorten that time, Muguruma knew that they needed to act accordingly.

If he couldn’t withstand it, then Hisagi would likely die in the next battle.

Although there were methods to use other than bankai if one did not have one, Shuhei Hisagi was not a skillful enough man to pull those off. Yet Muguruma knew that he had abilities worthy of being an assistant captain. In truth, Muguruma had complex feelings about Kaname Tosen, who had been his subordinate, and he had trained up the young boy who had been crying in the Rukongai to this level. That was exactly why Muguruma had purposefully invoked Kaname Tosen’s name so harshly.

“Do you doubt that she’ll really kill you?”

“I ain’t soft like Tosen.”

The assistant captain was perplexed by the question but reacted instantly.

“Hold on, Captain Muguruma.”

“I looked up to you. And I respect you too.”

“But…”

“You got no right to badmouth Captain Tosen…!”

By then he had gone through over half a day’s formal combat training with Mashiro, but…

“I never had a right to badmouth Tosen, you say? Don’t be soft. Whose fault is it that he’s getting badmouthed? I’m saying you’re half-baked.”

With Muguruma’s attempts to rouse him, Hisagi stood even straighter.

“I already knew that…”

Though it sounded like he had conceded, Hisagi’s eyes were not dead. If anything, they transformed with the resolve to challenge the deepest pits of hell.

“But I simply can’t condone anyone badmouthing him.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“Yeah…I am.”

Hisagi staggered as he stood up and once again bowed his head to Muguruma and Mashiro.

“Captain, thank you very much. You too, Kuna.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m not the only one risking their life.”

“Hmph.”

When Muguruma heard that, he averted his eyes uncomfortably. A bankai could be obtained by toeing the line between the zanpaku-to’s externalization and submission, and it was the deepest power a zanpaku-to held.

Because of that, in the middle of attempting the process of submission it was possible to roughly estimate what kind of bankai it would be and when it was learned, so the user could often naturally handle the power. However, when suddenly attempting to bring out a bankai’s power like this, there was the chance that the bankai would rampage.

If a bankai like Mayuri Kurotsuchi’s Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo Matai Fukuin Shotai’s “Spray lethal poison in a hundred-mile radius” were to be invoked and Hisagi were unable to completely control it, Mashiro and Muguruma would die.

Even if it didn’t come to that, since bankai often had special abilities, even if the user did have complete control over theirs, getting anyone in the surrounding area caught in its power was a concern. Hisagi had realized that was exactly why they were training so far away from the Seireitei, and he had thanked Muguruma and Mashiro for putting themselves in harm’s way despite such a risk.

“That’s quite immodest of you. If your bankai runs wild, I’ll be fine.”

“Could you quit saying stuff to demoralize me?”

“But you know, I hope it’s not like that Sakanade thing.”

“Sakanade…? Is Captain Hirako’s bankai that dangerous?”

In response to Hisagi’s question, Muguruma awkwardly tutted and shook his head.

“If you don’t already know, then forget about it. You just don’t tell people about other people’s bankai.”

“Right…”

He remained curious, but if a bankai’s ability was revealed to the enemy, there was a chance they could come up with countermeasures, and since it was common to hide one’s bankai’s nature, Hisagi didn’t pursue it further. Though there were some who were cocky and didn’t hide their bankai in order to prove they could resist whatever counterattack they faced, those who did so were often Soul Reapers who didn’t shirk their self-discipline. As though to change the subject, Muguruma started talking about Hisagi’s bankai.

“Well, if we’re talking seriously, I think your Kazeshini already packs a punch as a shikai. If you make it a bankai, there’s a chance you might not be able to make adjustments. That’s why I’ve left this to Mashiro, since she can probably deal with it.”

Mashiro, who had been listening in but seemed bored up until that point, pouted and complained to Muguruma, “Huh? What the heck? But then you’re not doing anything, Kensei! I’m actually the only one who’s been battling all along! You’re the one who’s supposed to be a captain! It’s unfair! Unfair! Unfair gorilla!”

Mashiro kept repeating “gorilla, gorilla,” and although a vein started pulsing on Muguruma’s forehead, he used all his power to ignore her and took a deep breath as he turned back to Hisagi with a serious look on his face.

“To phrase it another way, it’s actually a wonder that you haven’t been able to acquire bankai up until now. If you know how to use your shikai, then you can at least have a conversation, right?”

“Yes…”

With a zanpaku-to, the user would answer the call inside the zanpaku-to, and by calling the sword by its assumed name, they should be able to turn an Asauchi into a shikai. When that happened, they could talk to the soul in the zanpaku-to—or rather what perhaps could be called the true form of the zanpaku-to—in a mental realm. In Hisagi’s case, since he could use a shikai with no issues, all he had to do was externalize the true form inside the zanpaku-to in this world and use force to make it submit, but—“To be honest, even though I’ve talked to Kazeshini, I don’t think anything I’m saying is getting through. Actually, it will barely show me itself even in the mental world and just appears in the form of a black shadow or a black puddle or a black twister every once in a while.”

“That’s an odd one.”

“In the past, it externalized once when we were in the middle of a huge conflagration, but it looked a little different, and for a moment I had no idea it was Kazeshini.”

“Right. I don’t know the details, but it seems you were once forced to make it externalize.”

Hisagi didn’t speak more about the incident itself and instead focused on Kazeshini’s nature.

“Maybe it’s because it knows I might not like its form, but it won’t really talk to me. Every so often when it does speak, all it says is disturbed stuff like, ‘Give me blood,’ or ‘Offer your life.’ I know it’s not fundamentally a bad guy, but honestly I have some reservations. I’m worried that if I understand it completely…that maybe I’ll end up tainted by it.”

“Are you scared?”

“I can’t say I’m not.”

As he spoke, Hisagi regarded Kazeshini, which he had made into shikai during training. Muguruma thought for a bit then muttered as though talking to himself, “You can’t know for sure that a zanpaku-to’s words are really what it thinks.”

“Huh?”

“Well, whatever path we take, it’s clear we won’t make it in time using the usual methods.”

Muguruma simply approached Hisagi and brought his hand up to his own forehead—then making a motion as though he was tearing at his own face, he pulled a Hollow mask out of thin air and equipped it.

“Wha…?!”

The air creaked, and Hollow spiritual pressure coursed past Hisagi’s spiritual pressure perception. Adding to the Hollow spiritual pressure from Mashiro, who had had her mask on until then, the dense pressures sandwiched Hisagi and resonated around him.

“Huh? Are you taking over, Kensei? Then can I go get a snack?”

“No, you idiot.”

Dismissing Mashiro’s words, he hit Hisagi with a spiritual pressure filled with the brutal thirst for blood.

“From here on out, we’re going to tag team.”

“Huh!”

In Hisagi’s mind, the image of death came to him even more clearly than when he had been fighting Mashiro. Rather than the deaths of those in the living world, he imagined the death of his konpaku itself. All of his memories and experience would disappear, and he would turn into scraps of reishi on a journey to nothingness. For a moment, Hisagi’s mind flashed back to a certain scene…

This scene, the clearest vision of death that had been burned into the foundation of his very konpaku, came back to him. It was the scene of death itself that came to mind every time Hisagi confronted fiendish Arrancars, Aizen, or formidable enemies like the Quincies just now.

It wasn’t the time he had been attacked by a Hollow in his youth, or when he had almost been butchered by a monster called Ayon, or when he was almost killed by the bankai of Chojiro Sasakibe that had been stolen by the Quincies.

It was the time when, after being attacked by countless huge Hollows, he had lost a friend named Kanisawa. What allowed him to move through that fear were the teachings of Kaname Tosen, but even now, that scene still came back to him.

What this meant was that the spiritual pressure of Muguruma before him was just as dangerous, and Hisagi’s instincts were warning him that he was on the brink of death. When Hisagi started to freeze up, Muguruma spoke to him with his mask still on. “So you’re afraid of your zanpaku-to? That Tosen guy also said something like that. He was always blathering on about how that was why he could fight.”

“…”

“I can’t clear away your fear. But if it’s like Tosen said, and you can fight because of your fear…”

Readying his zanpaku-to, which was in a knifelike form, Muguruma hit Hisagi with even stronger spiritual pressure.

“Then prove it.”

As he thought of the man who had once betrayed him and killed his friends, he took that action to check whether that man was a reviled enemy even now or the teacher that had raised the man called Shuhei.

“Prove whether you’re worthy of talking about Tosen or not.”

Then time flowed onward.

≡

The present,
Karakura Town, Mitsumiya

In Karakura Town’s western area, where Mitsumiya ward was located, there was a candy shop with a peculiar atmosphere called Urahara Shoten. Normally it was bustling with the traffic of children and other customers. But presently, perhaps because something like a barrier to drive people away had been invoked, one couldn’t even glimpse a cat strolling on the road. Instead, a group of figures clothed in black were in formation around the shop. Nearby, a girl in a red tracksuit held two Soul Reapers on her shoulders.

“What’s that? What’re they fighting against?”

“Huh?”

After hearing what the girl in the red tracksuit—Hiyori Sarugaki—had to say, Ryunosuke Yuki held back the urge to throw up and looked up at the sky even though his head was spinning

“Ahh?! What is that thing?!”

In order to understand what was happening with Karakura Town after it had been abruptly spiritually sealed, they went to the front of the shop where Kisuke Urahara should have been. Instead they witnessed a somewhat bizarre battle scene. Kisuke Urahara and Shuhei Hisagi were there.

They were the former captain and founder and chief of the Department of Research and Development, Kisuke Urahara, and the current assistant captain and editor in chief of the Seireitei Bulletin, Shuhei Hisagi.

They were flamboyantly leaping through the sky and violently battling something whose nature they did not know.

“Mr. Urahara, I’ll ask again. Are you sure this isn’t some sort of special ability like a bankai?”

“Yes, it’s something like kido. It’s a basic ability that any Fullbringer should be able to use. There is likely iron or rust or something that she’s mixed with her blood to raise the quality of the konpaku. She’s moving it using the Fullbringer ability Reishi Subjugation.”

“She’s subjugating reishi. That’s definitely a concept we don’t have.”

“But it’s a little different from the Quincies' reishi enslavement. The size of those things is nothing to trifle with, but if you get swallowed up by something like that, your body and your zanpaku-to might end up ‘subjugated.’”

They were confronting countless reddish black gigantic dragons that had been formed from a spurt of blood. These were not Western dragons, but the type of dragon from Eastern legend that looks like a gigantic snake with arms and legs. The five dragons had turned into red-black silhouettes in the light gray sky they were coursing through.

“It’s pretty unbelievable, though…” Hisagi muttered, looking at the gigantic dragons floating in front of him.

When he looked closely, he saw they were a gathering of letters and patterns, but like a school of fish in the sea, they were packed together and wriggled in unison to create the form of one living creature—the writhing body of a dragon. A jaw the size of a large truck’s payload closed in on Hisagi and Urahara in an attempt to swallow them. Urahara just barely dodged it and made his shikai-state zanpaku-to glisten.

“Kamisori Benihime.”

The red slash that appeared from the sword’s tip easily chopped off the dragon’s head. However, the cut wafted like smoke and regenerated as though it had never been cut in the first place.

“Shibari Benihime.”

This time, a black kimono sash stretched out from the zanpaku-to and wrapped around two of the dragons, forming a lattice net.

“Hiasobi Benihime Juzutsunagi.”

In a moment, the black lattice knot burst into flames with a chain reaction and dyed Karakura Town’s sky red with explosive fire. The flames illuminated the thin clouds covering the town and made it seem as though Karakura Town were lit by a second sun.

“Whoa…! Are you sure we should be doing this?!”

Hisagi was worrying about what would happen when the humans of the living world witnessed the spectacle from the ground, but Urahara grinned and said, “Let’s hope President Vorarlberna will do something about it. Well, if it’s necessary we’ll use a wide-scale Kikanshinki to deal with it.”

Though they had participated in several large fights in the past, excluding the decisive battle against Aizen, such showy displays as this were rare. In battles between Soul Reapers and Hollows, neither could be perceived by living humans, but in this instance, though their opponent Aura was a Fullbringer, she was also a living person. If someone on the ground were to see her, what would they think about what was going on? Hisagi considered that as he looked for Aura, but he couldn’t find her. “Huh! Where did that woman go?!”

“It’s likely she’s hiding in the dragon or something. No, if she can make her body into smoke, I suppose there’s no need for her to hide in the first place.”

“Then there’s no way we can fight something like that using a zanpaku-to.”

“It depends on the zanpaku-to. I think the one with the most affinity in this case would be Mr. Hitsugaya’s.”

“You’re right…”

The ice- and snow-type zanpaku-to that Toshiro Hitsugaya and Rukia Kuchiki had, or Genryusai Yamamoto’s zanpaku-to, which had the ability to scorch a widespread area, would undoubtedly be able to defeat their opponent whether she was made of liquid or vapor. But Hisagi’s Kazeshini, which contained physical attack at its core, had the absolute worst predisposition for this.

“Do you want to do this focusing on using kido?”

“Yes, that was what I was planning for the time being.”

Hisagi hadn’t noticed it yet—that Urahara had been handling things up until that point using several tactics he had used against the Hogyoku-fused Aizen.

“We can’t be unwilling to try anything. Anything we can do, we must try with everything we have.”

The only thing Hisagi had already realized was that the Fullbringer Aura Michibane was someone to be cautious of. As Hisagi listened to the kido chants that Urahara immediately started, he opened his eyes wide and prepared for an impact.

“Beyond the end of a thousand hands,

The hand of darkness out of reach,

The archer in heaven that goes unseen,

Road that lights the way

Wind that ignites the embers—

Gather without hesitation,

Look where I point.

Bullets of light, bodies of eight, rays of nine, paths of heaven, treasures of speed, wheels of immensity, and cannons of grey.

From a distance, the bow is drawn and fades in light.”

Someone as powerful as Urahara could likely have released the attack without the chant. However, he had purposefully chanted to increase its power, so Hisagi guessed that Urahara was testing something.

“Hado Number 91, Senjukotentaiho.”

The swarm of lights that had spread across the sky converged in front of Urahara and turned into a dense barrage that pierced through the surrounding atmosphere itself and the red-black mob of dragons, burning them away.

Curiously, it looked very similar to the Gran Ray Cero that Grimmjow and the others had been shooting in the Rukongai around the same time. When evaluated on the basis of power, the strong kido shot absolutely wouldn’t have been beaten out by a Gran Ray Cero. That is, if it weren’t already stronger than one.

When Hisagi saw the kido, which showed how little of Kisuke Urahara’s potential he was aware of, Hisagi unintentionally gulped. Though he had just unleashed such a massive kido, Urahara’s breathing and spiritual pressure were undisturbed and he was observing his surroundings calmly.

“I see. So it seems she really can subjugate kido’s reishi as well.”

Then, after the smoke in front of their eyes cleared, a shadow appeared. With the ruins of what used to be the red-black dragons around her, Aura Michibane stood there with her usual intrepid smile.

“No, if I had to say which it is, she controlled the soul in nitrogen to create a barrier, it seems. Well, if she can do that in the living world where reishi is thin, then she really isn’t anything to scoff at.” Urahara assessed Aura as though he really hadn’t expected to be able to stop her. “Though it looks like she didn’t come out of that unharmed.”

Though there weren’t any conspicuous wounds on her body or clothes, even Hisagi felt the change. She was likely no longer able to put her spare energy into making her existence seem scarce through her Fullbring anymore. Her spiritual pressure, which had been completely diluted until then, could clearly be felt by Hisagi’s spiritual perception now. On top of that, her spiritual pressure seemed to quiver as though she were exhausted, and for the first time, Hisagi determined the woman in front of his eyes had lost her cool. “Well, what a relief. If she were still unharmed after all that, then we would have had to deal with her with the same level of attack as Sosuke Aizen.”

“Is this kido? I’ve never been hit by it directly, but it definitely isn’t a skill to underestimate. It seems I miscalculated the Soul Reapers slightly.”

It’s not exactly like Mr. Urahara is the norm…

Hisagi recognized that misperception and decided that if she mistakenly thought Hisagi’s kido was on a similar level and became cautious of him accordingly, that wasn’t a problem. So he intentionally did not point out her mistake.

“Is there no way to convince you to lend us that power?” Without regard to the fact that she had been hurt, Aura gently continued to persuade Urahara.

“I’m very pleased you’ve extended me the invitation, but the Hogyoku…is not something I can create frivolously. And regardless of the reason, I can’t undertake the task of creating one so lightly. If we were able to mass produce it and could have regulated it, I would have released it and just handed one over to Mr. Kurosaki during the last war.”

Urahara was joking now, but…

“That’s…a lie, isn’t it?” Aura asked, still smiling.

Urahara was silent for a bit, and then replied, “If Ichigo Kurosaki were given a Hogyoku, the world would become very solid for sure. However, that is far from the result you’re looking to achieve isn’t it?”

“Hm?”

Not understanding what Urahara meant, Hisagi tilted his head quizzically. Urahara put on a self-deprecating smile and looked momentarily lonely as he replied, “Yes, I’m sorry. I lied. If I had given Mr. Kurosaki the Hogyoku, it would have been something entirely different, wouldn’t it have?”

“Mr. Urahara?”

Ignoring Hisagi, who was dubious, Urahara asked Aura a question. “So, how much of this are you aware of?”

“Oh, are you sure you want to discuss that?” Aura snickered as she looked at Hisagi and continued, “Isn’t he a journalist? I don’t think this is something that we should be talking about in front of that kind.”

“What’s going on here? What’re you trying to say?”

Hisagi interjected, not understanding what was going on, and Aura smiled thinly as she simply continued to look at Urahara. Then Urahara glanced at Hisagi and, unusually for him, said with a serious look on his face, “Since I think Mr. Hisagi would have found out about this no matter what road we took after the Tsunayashiro family got involved, I don’t mind talking about it in front of him in the least.”

“What are you talking about? Even I know that the Tsunayashiro family is doing something dangerous to the Soul Society and the living world.”

“That’s not what this is about. Mr. Hisagi, I’m sorry that this will challenge your resolve as a reporter…or really, as a Soul Reaper.”

“My resolve as a Soul Reaper…?”

Hisagi was bewildered by the conversation and realized that his own hand gripping Kazeshini was oozing with sweat. His many years of experience as a Soul Reaper had likely honed his instinct so that he was aware that right at that moment, he was stepping into a conversation in forbidden territory.

“Afterward, I’ll tell you what I can myself, but when that happens, will you be able to continue to pledge that you will keep with the justice of the Thirteen Court Guard Companies? That’s the kind of conversation this is.” Though he spoke in a light tone, his words were strangely insistent. “You can also continue to pretend to remain ignorant of these matters. Before she speaks, I might be able to force her into silence. Rather, I probably ought to do that for the sake of the Soul Society. Mr. Hisagi, should you be a part of the Soul Society, then I have no right to stop you from knowing about it.”

Feeling sweat starting to ooze from his back as well, Hisagi was silent and lent his ear to Urahara.

“Had the battle with Yhwach not occurred, I would have kept it in the dark. Even I have hesitations. Aizen attempted to change the way of the world for himself. I think that was a mistake even now. However, if the world of the Soul Society itself were to seek change, I do not have the qualifications to decide whether that is right or wrong.” Urahara paused at that point, then smiled gently at Hisagi. “That is something a reporter like yourself ought to be asking about the world. That is the sort of conversation this will be from now on.”

“I…” Hisagi started…

“Well, let’s continue to talk about this later—after we resolve the situation in front of us.” In saying this, Urahara cut off Hisagi, who seemed to have been about to say something, then turned back to Aura. Hisagi had a strange feeling from Urahara that something was off.

What is this?

Mr. Urahara definitely likes talking, but was he really the type to talk like this in the middle of a fight?

Though he cracked as many silly jokes as he wanted, he wasn’t one to speak in a serious tone for no reason—that was Hisagi’s impression of Urahara. And it was precisely why Hisagi was bewildered that Urahara would bring up a topic “we can talk about later” right then. However, Urahara did not answer Hisagi’s question and turned the point of Benihime at Aura, who was standing some distance away.

“Now then…Ms. Aura, I’m surprised by your integrity. You didn’t try to attack us by surprise during that long conversation.”

“How you jest.” Aura quietly shook her head. “While you were talking to that assistant captain over there, weren’t you also preparing your spiritual pressure and sneaking in several kido yourself?”

“That would be the same for you, wouldn’t it? The dragon we just dispersed is still scattered all around this band, isn’t it?”

“Huh.”

Until he heard their conversation, Hisagi hadn’t even realized the information that was being exchanged below the surface. Mr. Urahara’s consistently impressive… Well, this isn’t the time to be dwelling on that.

Realizing his own inexperience, he felt powerless, but Hisagi faced forward regardless.

Still, I can’t let myself be a burden on him.

As Hisagi prepared himself to fight again, even though he already knew he didn’t have the ability, the two preternatural people in front of him made their move.

“Turn inside out.”

Just as soon as Aura muttered those words as though she were issuing some kind of command, the air around her completely transformed. The matter that Aura had been hiding in the atmosphere through Reishi Subjugation used the fragments of the dragon as an intermediary to reorganize all at once.

Instantly, gray water dominated the gray sky.

Above the skies of Karakura Town, it appeared—compared to the real thing it was tiny, but considering where they were, it was extraordinarily vast. An ocean had appeared. The two Soul Reapers who were watching the scene unfold from the ground were dumbfounded and let out cries of wonder.

“An ocean…in the sky?”

“Ahhh! If that comes down on us, we’ll drown, Shino! L-let’s run away!”

Just how much water could be up there? The ocean that had started as a lump covered the sky, eventually undulating in one direction to turn into a gigantic river that ran freely through the air. With that vision in front of her—overwhelming, beautiful, and frightening— Hiyori jeered at the Soul Reapers, “Stop peeing your pants! Anybody with a zanpaku-to can handle that thing! Even when this Espada shark lady created something like that…”

However, at that point Hiyori stopped talking because, as a complement to the mass of seawater, a violent storm revealed itself next.

“Ugh…”

Tessai and the others who had been watching the scene from afar couldn’t help but pause in their counterattack against the black-clad people that had appeared around them. It was that startling a scene. As though a counterpart to the flow of water, a scarlet river of lava, like a raging firedrake dragon, rushed through it.

“I think we’d better hurry up, under the circumstances…”

As though in response to Tessai’s words, Jinta and Ururu both knocked out the adversaries they were dealing with.

“Seriously, what’s with these guys?! They just swarmed us outta nowhere! What are they, bugs?!”

As Jinta complained behind her, Ururu stared at the sky and muttered, “There’s…something else coming.”

“Hunh?! What the heck?! What could come after water and magma?!” In response to the question he had just asked, Jinta had a sudden insight and yelled, “So then is it a drill and missile dragon?! That’s the strongest!”

Entirely ignoring his shouting, Ururu named the flow of spiritual pressure that her own eyes captured. “It’s Mr. Kisuke’s dragon.”

“Hado ninety-nine, Goryu Tenmetsu.”

At Urahara’s words, the skies parted. Five pillars of light in the form of dragons and composed of reishi had appeared. It was a type of Hado that usually created dragons from a ley line in the ground and broke apart the surrounding earth as it attempted to swallow up its target. The Hado carried a tremendous power that was fitting for the meaning of its chant: five dragon destruction.

Urahara had adapted it and hacked into the spiritual pressure of the souls flowing through the atmosphere that Aura had been subjugating, using that in place of a ley line to accomplish the Hado.

“This is more than I expected.”

The composure disappeared from Aura’s face, and in its place, mechanical surprise came over her.

“You’ve finally shown us your true face, haven’t you?”

When Urahara murmured that, as though Aura were denying him, she sent the lava and magma dragons leaping at Urahara and Hisagi. Meanwhile, three of the dragons that had been created through the Hado protected Urahara and Hisagi by covering them, and the remaining two plunged at Aura to sandwich her from the top and bottom. Then, right as the dragons of three colors intersected in the air, an explosive water vapor rose up, and the entire area was blanketed in a newly created bright white light.

This battle is next level.

Hisagi, who had created the bare minimum of defense using kido but had still taken some damage from the aftermath of the explosion, cursed himself for being unable to do anything as the powerhouses several levels above his own abilities fought in front of him. However, he did not attempt to run.

He knew he was a burden. Urahara’s power was tremendous, to the point that Hisagi had no idea why Urahara had suggested that they would tag team. Though he had been shown a way of battling that was great enough to make him think that the only person who could keep pace with Urahara in terms of ability was Yoruichi Shihoin, Hisagi stayed to maintain dignity as a Soul Reaper.

Had Hisagi been a Soul Reaper driven by reason, he likely would have put down his zanpaku-to as soon as he felt the fear of death. For better or worse, Shuhei Hisagi was a clumsy man. At Shinoreijutsuin he had been praised as a talented student, and though as a Soul Reaper he had actually been a heroic figure who had been better than average at most things, the illogical dignity at his core had caused him to make choices that were disadvantageous. However, it was because of that trait that Hisagi had become strong.

As a Soul Reaper, or because he had inherited the pride of an ideology from his superior as a Soul Reaper, he had continued to walk many illogical paths and had, at those times, wandered upon the line between life and death.

Though at times he had done so clumsily, he had survived in the end, and because of that unskillfulness, he hadn’t allowed himself to run away. He stayed on the battleground of his own volition in this instance as well.

“Mr. Urahara! I don’t know if it will work, but you could use a Binding Spell to divide her power and—”

Hisagi thought of the things he could do in his own way and tried to make a suggestion to Urahara, but he realized at that point that Urahara’s spiritual pressure had disappeared from the surroundings.

“Mr. Urahara…?” The steam steadily cleared from Hisagi’s vision, and Aura, who seemed to have sustained a great deal of damage and didn’t appear to be doing very well, came into view. Still, he didn’t see Urahara anywhere.

In front of the bewildered Hisagi, Aura once again twisted her mouth, and as though that were a signal, a voice mixed with static that seemed projected through a megaphone echoed around them. “Scenario over. You’ve cleared the mission, Ms. Aura.”

“Thank you very much, President Yukio.”

“With that score, I can’t put you in double-S rank. You’d be B at best.” At Yukio’s nonchalant words, Hisagi unintentionally raised his voice. “Hey! What’s going on here?! What’d you do to Mr. Urahara?!”

“I told you from the start, didn’t I, that our goal was Kisuke Urahara?”

When he examined his surroundings, in the place where Urahara had been standing before the explosion he could feel a disturbance in the spiritual pressure of the space itself, as though it had been warped.

Had Mr. Urahara been kidnapped?

That’s impossible. This is Mr. Urahara we’re talking about! What the hell did they do to him?!

As though ridiculing Hisagi, who was panicking, Yukio’s voice continued to echo out between distorted electronic artifacts that came from the warped place. “My preparations were complete, so I had Kisuke Urahara come to my stage. That’s all.”

“Don’t screw with me! Release Mr. Urahara right now!”

“Sorry, but you’ve got to have an event flag set to progress farther than this point.”

Yukio was still expressionless as he said that, as though to tease Hisagi. Then Aura called out to Hisagi, “I’m sure that we will meet again soon.”

The woman bowed politely and started to disappear again into the artifacts of noise that Yukio had created.

“I hope we meet under favorable circumstances.”

“You just wait right…”

Though he raced through the sky using shunpo, he was late by a moment. Only the vestiges of the twisted spiritual pressure were left behind, though Hisagi looked for an opening for a while.

“Damn it!”

In the end, he was unable to find anything, and he let out a resentful cry while floating in the air. It was resentment aimed not at Yukio or Aura, but at himself, for being helpless in this situation. There was nothing he could do, and Kisuke Urahara had been snatched. He had no idea what that could mean and had no way of finding out.