(T/N: Chapter 2 out of 3!)
Katori Nanatsuki returned to Muken once more.
While testing Kakyō's Zanpakutō, he discovered that the Breath of Yomi released by Enma actually contained concentrated Hell Reishi. The intense presence of this energy had triggered the Sound of Hell, unintentionally reconnecting Nanatsuki with Saitō Furaofushi's grandmother—Saitō Seiko.
Seiko had asked Nanatsuki to help confirm something.
Back when he first created the Sound of Hell in Muken, Nanatsuki had already detected traces of Hell Reishi lingering in that place.
They now suspected that Muken might be directly connected to Hell.
Saitō Seiko was currently attempting to verify that theory.
Nanatsuki, deeply intrigued, agreed to help.
"I'm in Muken now," Nanatsuki reported through the conch.
On the other side, in the depths of Hell, Saitō Seiko stood before a roaring river.
The river was unusually vast—more akin to a lake than a stream.
At the center of the surging current was a colossal vortex.
This massive whirlpool was known as the Eye of Hell.
A legend circulated in Hell: those who could safely enter the Eye of Hell from the Wastelands would be able to reach the Three Realms.
If there were a place in Hell that could potentially connect to the Soul Society's Muken, this whirlpool was Saitō Seiko's best guess.
"Let's begin the test," Seiko said as she approached the Eye of Hell.
The depths of the vortex were unfathomable—jumping in directly was clearly dangerous.
She decided to probe it first.
Seiko drew her Zanpakutō, which transformed into a massive pufferfish.
Like Unohana Retsu, Saitō Seiko wielded a rare creature-type Zanpakutō.
The pufferfish rapidly inflated to over ten meters in width. Its back and belly were uniformly white, making it look like a giant balloon.
It opened its mouth and spewed out a number of grotesque Hell creatures.
If Nanatsuki had known Seiko's abilities, he would've noticed their resemblance to Kakyō's.
The pufferfish's stomach contained a unique Reishi Pocket, capable of absorbing living beings into its belly.
Inside this stomach-dimension, everything was shrouded in black mist—identical to the Breath of Yomi released by Kakyō's Enma, derived from Yomi Spring Water and capable of corroding the mind.
As a captain-level Shinigami, Seiko's mastery over the Breath of Yomi far surpassed Kakyō's. She could even use it to control the minds of those corrupted by it.
The creatures she released entered the Eye of Hell vortex.
Seiko had prepared extensively for this moment, capturing numerous native Hell creatures in advance.
These beings were indigenous to Hell, which, like the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, had its own independent ecosystem.
Once inside the vortex's core, the Hell creatures began falling endlessly.
Controlled by Seiko's Breath of Yomi, she could monitor the vortex's interior through their senses.
After falling past the reach of the river, it became pitch-black—as though they had entered a black hole.
Once they reached that darkness, Seiko could no longer steer the creatures. They had to fall freely. But she could still see through them.
Eventually, through one creature's view, Seiko spotted a distant light.
Though she couldn't change their direction, the creatures' descent happened to be aligned with the glowing point.
Her vision drifted closer.
Soon, one of the creatures neared the light source.
Through its eyes, Seiko finally saw the source clearly.
It was a cluster of glowing symbols and runes.
These symbols formed a tangled chain of script—a brilliant, spinning mass of light.
"A Reishi-based technique array inside the Eye of Hell?!" Seiko exclaimed.
Her voice traveled through the conch to Nanatsuki, who also learned what lay within the vortex.
"Can you identify the type of technique?" he asked.
For any Shinigami skilled in Kidō, recognizing spell arrays was basic training.
"It's still a bit far. I need to get closer to see it clearly," Seiko replied.
Once the Hell creatures neared the light, they began orbiting the glowing core—as if caught in an invisible current.
Floating around the space were stones, debris, and other objects dragged in by the vortex. All of them spun around the light source.
Seiko quickly realized that once anything drifted within a few meters of the light, it would be obliterated by an invisible force—dissolved into Hell Reishi.
Time was short. She had to identify the technique before her creatures were destroyed.
As they continued to circle the light, Seiko's view finally sharpened enough to recognize the glyphs.
"This is some kind of sealing spell!" she declared.
Then the creature's vision went dark—several had already been destroyed by the invisible force emitted by the seal.
"This is an extremely complex formation… even the Grand Kidō Chief of the Kidō Corps couldn't craft something like this!" she added, observing through the remaining Hell creatures.
"Can you see what's being sealed?" Nanatsuki asked.
"There's a spherical object in the center... looks like… an eye?" Seiko said.
"Could the vortex be named after this eye?" Nanatsuki frowned. After all, the place was called the Eye of Hell—was that glowing eye the namesake?
A chilling thought occurred to him: the eye might be connected to the Lord of Hell, or perhaps it was the Lord of Hell's eye.
According to legend, a Lord of Hell once ruled, but after being defeated by the Soul King, vanished without a trace.
This sealed eye might be a remnant of that Lord.
As Seiko and Nanatsuki contemplated this, the seal began to change.
All objects—spirits and debris alike—that fell into the darkness were being disassembled into Hell Reishi near the core.
The density of spiritual energy in the dark zone was now immense.
Through her creatures' vision, Seiko saw the seal flare with intense radiance.
Dense, blood-red Reishi swirled into a vortex, converging toward the seal.
The spell was absorbing the Reishi from the surrounding space.