Too bright.
Too dazzling.
Wrapped in a tornado of flame, the mushroom cloud shot straight into the sky.
The surrounding trees, rocks, birds, and beasts melted away in an instant, as if they had never truly belonged to this world to begin with. Heaven and earth had already lost all trace of them.
Thud.
At the Ubuyashiki estate, Kiriya—who had obediently followed Amane inside after Kagaya's order—was peeking out the window when the blinding light suddenly stabbed into his eyes. He yelped and dropped onto the floor.
The young boy had heard his father and Kyojuro talking. Just as they had said…
a battle involving Lord Rōichirō had already gone far beyond something ordinary people like them could even approach.
Like those trees and rocks caught in the blast… if I were there, I'd probably melt away instantly too…
His heart pounded wildly.
Cold sweat ran down his face.
Thinking that, the boy shuddered uncontrollably, just like everyone else in the world, shaken to the core by what they were seeing.
"Kyojuro…"
The quiet voice drifted out in the small courtyard…
With his back to the room where Kiriya was secretly watching, Kagaya Ubuyashiki copied Kyojuro Rengoku and coated his pupils with a layer of Nen, activating [Gyo]. He lifted his head and stared at the flaming mushroom cloud as it scattered the moonlight, crushed the night wind, and slowly bloomed across the horizon…
Then he turned and looked at the young man beside him, whose flame-like yellow hair was stirring faintly in the wind, and who had gone just as blank with shock.
His tone carried a deeper meaning.
"Are you sure… fifty times would be enough?"
There was a gulf between [ordinary] and [Nen].
A man who had already had his aura nodes opened by Roy and begun studying the [Four Major Principles] knew exactly how terrifying Nen was.
You could say that for an ordinary person, awakening Nen and not awakening it was the difference between heaven and earth.
And yet…
Even a gap that vast felt nowhere near as terrifying or astonishing as the single exchange Roy and Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni had just unleashed.
Just as Kyojuro himself had said—there was no way he would ever catch up enough in this lifetime to truly "understand that battle."
It was despairing.
"Hss… ha…"
For a moment, even Kyojuro's breathing became uneven.
For a Hashira who had trained in Breathing Techniques for years, that was nearly impossible.
The young man with yellow hair and crimson-dipped ends fell into rare silence.
Normally, Kyojuro Rengoku answered any question put to him. He was cheerful, open-hearted, always the "big brother," always the warm and dependable one.
But fifty times… that truly wasn't enough.
It wasn't even close.
Ashamed, he lowered his head. After a moment of silence, he admitted,
"I was wrong."
Then he lifted his eyes again, fixed them on the horizon, took a deep breath, and said gravely,
"Whether it's Lord Rōichirō or the one he's fighting, I'm not even worth a ten-thousandth of either of them."
Another gust of wind blew through, carrying a faint trace of scorching heat…
The courtyard fell silent again.
Sitting there with them was Gyomei Himejima, who had once more torn his chain loose through brute force and pinned it beneath him.
Hands pressed together in prayer, his tear-filled eyes watched the flaming tornado and mushroom cloud sweep across heaven and earth.
Perhaps because the sight was too shocking, his mind blanked for a moment—
and by the time he recovered and reached instinctively for his prayer beads as usual,
the Buddhist heart he had relied on for years to steady himself through chanting cracked with a sharp sound—
and shattered.
Gyomei Himejima was, without question, proud.
In the original story, he had stood as the strongest Hashira, the number one swordsman the Demon Slayer Corps had produced in centuries, after both Yoriichi Tsugikuni and Kokushibo were gone.
Especially after opening his aura nodes and gaining Nen, mastering [Ten], [Zetsu], and [Gyo] at breathtaking speed—and even progressing halfway through [Ren], surpassing Kyojuro Rengoku despite the latter being the first to convert—Gyomei had more than once believed that one day he might at least be able to challenge Roy.
After all, strictly speaking, he had only started learning Nen a bit later than Roy.
The difference between them, he thought, was merely one of time and experience.
But now—
Gyomei silently murmured, "Praise the Sun," in shame.
In that instant, he felt exactly like a frog in a well, ignorant of how vast the world truly was.
His Buddhist discipline against greed, delusion, and anger—all three—had shattered.
Whoosh—
Another wave of hot wind swept over them…
The flaming tornado crashed into the mushroom cloud, and the aftershock still showed no sign of stopping…
At the very center of the explosion,
two figures stood in silence, blade against blade.
One had his eyes closed, his expression strange, still seeming lost in that enlightened state of descending into the [Sun] for contemplation.
The other had already released his Shikai with a single slash.
Clearly he held the upper hand.
More than that—he still had plenty left in reserve.
He could have used that opening to strike the boy dead again at any moment.
For example, [Castle of Burning Flame].
Or [Scorching Hell].
Even if he had discarded his sword entirely, a single [Ikkotsu] or [Sōkotsu] from his fists could have reduced the boy to dust.
And yet—
Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni simply stood there, quietly observing the boy's condition.
A heart of his that had remained frozen for nearly two thousand years suddenly skipped once—
because of the slash Roy had just unleashed.
That kind of jolt had not appeared in a very, very long time.
It was the sign of danger.
The sign of warning.
So—
a boy not even fifteen years old yet could actually pose a threat to him, the one who wielded the oldest fire-type Zanpakuto, the strongest Shinigami in history?
Yamamoto narrowed his old eyes into a line and studied Roy deeply.
For the first time in his life, the old man's certainty in the idea that Shinigami > Humans began to waver.
After all, in the Bleach world, [Shinigami] and [Humans] were fundamentally different species.
It wasn't as though any human who died would become a Shinigami.
In fact, if someone died in the Human World, they would usually only become one of the lowest-ranking souls in the Rukongai outside Seireitei—
so insignificant that even Aizen, when conducting Hollowfication experiments, would have found them beneath notice.
Not to mention that Shinigami were spiritual beings by nature, long-lived, and born with powerful spiritual pressure.
Even Hitsugaya Tōshirō, over a hundred years old, was still considered just a child by Shinigami standards.
And Roy…
his bone age wasn't even fourteen.
In the Bleach world, he could easily be classified into the "infant tier" without anyone finding that strange.
Sizzle—
The flames burned on.
High heat and intense pressure swept downward, forming a fierce wind that made the skin on their faces tighten.
Roy's consciousness remained immersed in contemplation of the [Sun], ignorant of the passage of time.
He became an atom.
Then fused with another atom.
Then exploded, losing himself in the process—
repeating that transformation again and again, over and over,
until finally—
at the moment he completely understood the fusion process—
he found himself again.
He could feel his limbs.
His heartbeat.
His breathing.
And under Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni's astonished gaze, he slowly opened his eyes.
"Anything left?" the old man asked.
"No," the boy said with a bitter smile.
He could clearly feel that every part of his body had run dry. His Nen had been completely drained, to the point where even maintaining the [Gate of Cognition] had become difficult.
So he simply tossed [Eclipse] into [Sumeru Mustard Seed] and sprawled flat on the ground, limbs spread wide.
Buzz—
Above him, the flaming tornado wrapped around the mushroom cloud rose higher and higher, growing thinner and fainter with every moment…
Yamamoto's figure suddenly trembled slightly.
As Roy's Nen emptied out, he clearly could no longer maintain the [Gate of Cognition], and the whole world around them began to fade.
The old man understood at once.
It was time for him to go back.
He lowered his head and looked deeply at the boy lying at his feet like a salted fish, shamelessly giving up and focusing on restoring his Nen.
Then he said,
"Among all the young people I've known…"
"I, Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni, am willing to call you the most talented of them all."
"Does that count as recognition?" Roy grinned through the pain. "Too bad, though. In the end, I never even touched a corner of your robe."
"The you of now can't reach me," Yamamoto replied.
He lightly tapped the ground with Ryujin Jakka, which returned to the form of an ordinary cane once more.
Then he said proudly, dragging that long beard of his along,
"But the you of the future…"
"May I look forward to him?"
Roy bared a row of white teeth.
"As long as you're not afraid of getting cut to death, look forward to it all you want."
Heh… heh…
A flash of divine light suddenly flickered in Yamamoto's narrowed eyes. For the first time in a very long while, a faint trace of a smile appeared on his stern, razor-sharp face.
It was slight.
Gone in an instant.
If Chōjirō Sasakibe had seen it, he probably would've dropped the watering can in his hand and wondered if someone had possessed the Head Captain.
After all, he'd followed Yamamoto for nearly two thousand years—
and had never once seen him smile at anyone.
It was truly rare.
"Young man… you really are arrogant…"
His figure had already faded a little more.
Leaning on Ryujin Jakka, the old man planted it once against the ground and said slowly:
"I'll be waiting for you."
Then, without even waiting for the [Gate of Cognition] to force him out,
Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni took the initiative.
He found the slight opening of the gate and, as Roy's thoughts shifted, drifted into the [Bleach Gate], his consciousness half-obscured by the flowing Nen-light.
The familiar sensation of falling returned.
His awareness immediately began to sink.
Then, as the old man slowly opened his eyes,
he had already left the Demon Slayer world behind and returned to the world of Bleach.
Before him lay the familiar little courtyard.
Under the veranda, the two plump cats—Fat Chrysanthemum and Flower Raccoon—were chasing each other and tumbling around.
Then, turning his head, he looked beside him.
Chōjirō Sasakibe stood there in his immaculate suit, Western-style sword at his waist, platinum-gold vertical pupils fixed on him the moment he returned.
He was clearly waiting—
waiting for an answer.
Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni carefully turned over in his mind everything he had just witnessed together with Roy in that Demon Slayer world.
After a long silence, he finally gave his conclusion.
"Chōjirō… perhaps we've been trapped by our own foolish rigidity."
The old man sat cross-legged on the wooden veranda, Ryujin Jakka across his knees once more in the form of an ordinary cane.
Under Sasakibe's confused and stunned gaze, he looked up at the sun shining recklessly with light and heat, then continued:
"Like a frog trapped at the bottom of a well, thinking the sky is only as large as the circle above it."
"Without knowing…"
"that heaven and earth are far greater than merely the Three Realms and One Prison."
[Three Realms and One Prison]:
The world order established by the first Soul King, sustained by the Soul King's very body.
Put simply, it consisted of:
the [Human World], inhabited by humans,
the [Soul Society], governed by Shinigami,
Hueco Mundo, where fallen souls—Hollows—roamed,
and…
Hell, the final destination of souls, the realm that represented the end.
Drip… drip…
"Meow~"
In the courtyard, Fat Chrysanthemum and Flower Raccoon accidentally knocked over the watering can on the rack while playing, sending a spray of water over a broad patch of grass.
Silence ruled the courtyard.
Sasakibe stared blankly at Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni.
He looked shocked.
Or perhaps his mind was just racing, trying desperately to digest what he'd just heard.
His brows drew together. He swallowed hard.
"So what exactly did you see?"
"The sun and a boy."
"?"
"A human boy… who stands outside the Three Realms, and walks toward the sun…"
Outside the Three Realms.
Human.
Sasakibe thought back to that strange "void gate" Yamamoto alone could enter—one he himself couldn't even see, let alone pass through.
Everything seemed to point toward the truth of what Yamamoto had said.
This vice-captain of the First Division, wielder of the lightning-type Zanpakutō [Gonryōmaru], the man who in the Thousand-Year Blood War was grievously wounded to death after losing his Bankai to Driscoll Berci—becoming the spark that finally ignited Yamamoto's wrath—
had followed Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni for nearly two thousand years.
And he had never once doubted the old man's words.
It showed on his face.
After a long, visible silence, he finally came back to himself and said gravely,
"If it's true, I wish it were false."
"And if it's false, I still wish it were true."
Sasakibe looked at Yamamoto with complete seriousness.
"Captain-Commander, you know Soul Society cannot be allowed to fall into chaos. But if the Royal Palace were to learn of this…"
He paused.
Then his tone grew even heavier.
"If their faith collapses, then order itself will collapse with it."
After all, the reason the Three Realms and One Prison existed, and maintained even a fragile balance, was because of the Soul King's power.
And those in Squad Zero of the Royal Palace had built their pride, their purpose, and their faith around guarding the Soul King's body and protecting that order.
So if they ever learned that the so-called Three Realms and One Prison were nothing more than the "well" Yamamoto spoke of—
Sasakibe could almost imagine what kind of madness might follow, once the faith and pride of Squad Zero crumbled all at once.
The first thing they would surely do was interrogate the man beside him—his captain and oldest friend.
Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni, in his white haori over black robes, his long beard woven into thick braids and coiled across the floor around him, sat there in silence.
He understood exactly what Sasakibe meant.
He heard the warning in his words.
And the worry.
In truth, he had already thought deeply about all of this long before Sasakibe ever said it.
That was precisely why the other Shinigami—captains and lieutenants alike—had so often caught him zoning out during meetings lately.
And yet—
"What is meant to come cannot be avoided."
"What is meant to leave cannot be kept."
The old man sat with the First Division barracks at his back, and Muken beneath him, watching the sun recklessly spill out light and heat.
Faintly, he seemed to see Roy again—that youthful figure with flame-red hair drifting in the wind.
And then, under Sasakibe's dumbfounded gaze, the old man's weathered mouth slowly lifted into a faint smile.
"If there really is a problem…"
"I'll just cut it down with one stroke."
Chōjirō Sasakibe: "...…"
~~~
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