Chapter 190: Shinra Tensei
"Captain Gin Ichimaru."
Gin's voice carried that lazy, eerie warmth as he looked past Kurosaki Ichigo, toward the towering gatekeeper kneeling behind him. Jidanbo was drenched in sweat, shoulders shaking, like his bones had been scooped out and replaced with wet sand.
"Oh," Gin said, smiling, "I didn't expect you couldn't even handle something as simple as guarding the gate."
Jidanbo's lips trembled. "Captain Ichimaru…"
Gin's smile did not change.
"Division leaders have their own duties, and patrol zones are fixed. Even so, I still expect you to do your job." He tilted his head slightly. "Anyway, it's not a big issue. I won't blame you too much."
Jidanbo exhaled, as if a weight had finally been lifted from his chest.
Gin's eyes narrowed to slits.
"An arm," he murmured. "That should be enough of a price."
He moved his Zanpakuto with casual grace, as if he were brushing dust from a sleeve.
Nothing happened.
A breeze passed.
Then Jidanbo's terrified expression froze in place.
The blade did not extend.
It did not move forward.
It did not retreat.
It trembled, giving off a faint creaking sound, as if metal were being ground between teeth, trapped, resisting, pleading.
Ichigo held the tip of Gin's Zanpakuto between two fingers.
As if he were pinching a thin reed.
As if the so called divine spear were nothing but a stubborn nail that refused to leave the board.
Gin's smile flickered, just for an instant, the way a mask shifts when the face beneath it tightens.
Ichigo sighed softly.
"There's no need to be so harsh on someone you already spared."
His fingers loosened.
The blade snapped back into Gin's hand at once, retracting so fast it looked like a startled bird fleeing a cage.
Gin stared at Ichigo, eyes slightly wider now, the thin line of his expression betraying what his smile tried to bury.
A human.
Holding a Zanpakuto's transformation between two fingers.
For the first time in Gin Ichimaru's life, his weapon had been forced into stillness, unable to extend or retract, locked in place by nothing but a casual pinch.
The long haired youth did not press his advantage. He only looked at Gin with a quiet, almost pitying calm.
"It's impossible to stop me from walking forward," Ichigo said. "So don't blame him too much. Neither he nor you can stop me. I came with a purpose, and I don't want to do more than necessary."
His gaze remained steady.
"My request is simple. Overturn Kuchiki Rukia's sentence."
Gin did not answer.
Ichigo's mind flashed back to a voice that did not belong to this place.
Aizen's voice.
Earnest, almost amused, as if he were teaching a student how to be hated correctly.
If you want to look confident, speak like the villains in those shonen manga.
Be calm when others rage. Be polite when others threaten. Step on what they take pride in, and do it as if you're simply strolling past.
Frustration comes from comparison.
If you have what they don't, and more of what they do, then every second you breathe becomes an insult they can't swallow.
The goal isn't to kill them.
It's to grind their dignity down until the hatred sticks to your name forever.
Especially if you look relaxed while doing it.
That serenity becomes fear. That magnanimity becomes disgust.
And they will remember you.
So Ichigo's voice stayed even, courteous, and maddeningly calm.
"Captain or squad member, it doesn't matter to me," he said. "I just want to see Kuchiki Rukia. Can I go see her."
Gin's smile remained, but something colder crept into his eyes.
"This is really…"
His mind moved quickly.
Aizen had told him to hold back, to put on a show, to let the boy go.
But Aizen had not said anything about this.
A human pinching his Zanpakuto like that was not a matter of strength, it was a matter of something fundamentally wrong.
And the three black spheres behind the boy still had not moved.
Gin had seen them erase the ground without sound, like an ink brush dragging a black line across a map, tearing reality open.
If he let this thing walk deeper into Seireitei without understanding it, what would happen.
What if it reached Rangiku.
What if it decided, on a whim, to erase something important.
Knock him out. Then approach from another angle.
Gin's hand slid toward his hilt.
Spiritual pressure stirred, ready to rise.
Before it could bloom, the long haired boy reached out and pressed down on Gin's hand.
Not forcefully.
Gently.
Politely.
So polite it felt like mockery.
"Before you release your Bankai," Ichigo said, "please look at my power first, then decide what you want to do."
Gin's eyes opened wider.
In that moment, the boy reminded him of a beast that did not bare its fangs until the prey had already stopped running.
No spiritual pressure.
No spiritual particle turbulence.
Yet something gathered in the boy's palm, something Gin had never heard of, never seen, never even imagined existing in a world built on spirit particles and blades.
Ichigo extended a finger behind him.
He pointed toward an empty cluster of buildings.
At his fingertip, a small, pure white sphere began to form.
The air changed.
Gin's skin prickled.
A catastrophic premonition crawled up his spine like ice.
He turned his head, disbelief widening his gaze as he followed the boy's finger.
Ichigo's voice dropped, calm as a prayer.
"Shinra… Tensei."
The roar that followed did not sound like Kido.
It did not sound like a Zanpakuto.
It sounded like the world itself being torn open.
In an instant, an unimaginable repulsive force erupted from the white sphere's center. It expanded violently, blooming outward like a silent god's palm slamming down.
Buildings that had stood for generations were ripped up in a blink.
Stone and spirit particle constructs did not crack, they vanished from their foundations, hurled into the sky.
The entire complex, spanning several square kilometers, the very architecture meant to embody Seireitei's authority, was blasted upward.
Bricks, beams, and shattered foundations poured into the air like a black storm.
Dust swallowed the sky.
Even those on the far side of Seireitei could see it, a rising column of debris, like a waterfall flowing upward instead of down.
The barrier above groaned as debris struck it, a muffled, terrible hum vibrating through the air.
When it ended, nothing remained.
Not a single intact tile.
Not a single recognizable wall.
Only an empty scar carved into the earth.
And within that storm of dust and falling rubble, Ichigo still stood where he had been, expression unchanged, eyes filled with quiet pity.
As if blowing part of Seireitei into the sky were as simple as exhaling.
"See," he said softly. "I told you it was impossible."
He released Gin's hand and walked past him without looking back.
"If you can, pretend you didn't see me, Captain Ichimaru," Ichigo said. "Because you can't stop me. It really is that simple."
Gin's smile tightened.
For the first time, frustration slipped through his voice.
"…This is really irritating."
Then he sighed.
"I give up. Keep walking."
Ichigo nodded with the same calm politeness.
"Thanks."
He continued forward along the main road into Seireitei, long hair flowing behind him, white coat shifting with each steady step.
Behind him, the debris kept falling.
A rain of rubble drew black lines through the air, a grim curtain that turned the world into haze. It was impossible to see clearly through the dust, as if the destruction itself had become a veil.
It was a signal.
A notification written in stone and smoke.
Almost everyone in Seireitei could see the rising black waterfall over the White Road.
There was no spiritual pressure.
No Kido resonance.
No spirit particle fluctuations.
It felt less like an attack and more like nature itself had struck.
And because Gin's Bankai never erupted, and because no emergency message spread through Seireitei, it meant only one thing.
Captain Gin Ichimaru had surrendered.
Far away, in front of a palace corridor, Shunsui Kyoraku lounged with a sake pot and cup, watching the black waterfall with a whistle.
"Wow," he muttered. "That's really something."
He glanced sideways, half smiling.
"Did Gin just surrender. Should I surrender too. Sitting around like this feels like prison, you know."
Behind him, Nanao Ise adjusted her glasses, expression sharp as a blade.
"Please have some self respect," she said quietly. "Captain. You have a duty to protect Seireitei. Even now, you should uphold its dignity."
Shunsui chuckled, unbothered.
"Why, Nanao. The person who came doesn't seem like the type to slaughter everyone. What's wrong with turning a blind eye."
"But…"
Shunsui's smile softened, and his gaze drifted, as if he were looking past the dust, past the walls, to someone nailed to stone.
"Shouldn't his death have consequences," he asked quietly, "for the ones who tried to make Soul Society better. Captain Aizen didn't die for nothing."
Nanao's mouth opened, then closed.
When that name was spoken, the air turned heavy.
She had always felt Aizen's kindness held something unnatural, something too polished.
But dead was dead.
Whatever he had planned, the effort he showed had been real, and now the nobles continued tearing at each other as if a captain's corpse were just another inconvenience.
Shunsui took a slow sip.
"What about Captain Zaraki."
Nanao's eyes tightened. "The Eleventh Division is a combat division. Shouldn't Zaraki be the strongest."
Shunsui sighed lightly, shaking the sake cup as if measuring its emptiness.
"In war, maybe. But now we're in confinement. Peace. It doesn't matter." He smiled faintly. "Besides, even Zaraki might not stop that thing with its strange power. It looks pretty strong."
As if answering him, somewhere deeper in Seireitei, a roar like a starving beast echoed through the streets.
"Hey, don't run. Hey. Come back and fight me. Come back and slaughter me."
Zaraki Kenpachi was trapped in the center of a moving cage.
Three black weapons, a sword, a spear, and a shield, formed from the Truth Seeking Balls, floated around him with eerie precision. Their movements were smooth, experienced, like they belonged to a veteran who had fought for centuries.
Every time Zaraki surged forward, the spear intercepted.
Every time he tried to force through, the shield slammed him back.
The sword carved angles that forced him to retreat, again and again, not with overwhelming brutality, but with a maddening, methodical restraint.
Even after removing his bell and blindfold, he could only hold a draw against those three weapons.
Worse, they seemed to swallow spiritual pressure.
Zaraki's grin was feral, eyes bright with hunger, but the longer it went on, the more it felt like being forced to spar with a machine that refused to bleed.
Ichigo stood outside the circle, calm, almost indifferent, watching the weapons stall Zaraki while he continued walking.
Aizen's note had been simple.
The easiest captain for you to deal with is Zaraki Kenpachi.
He is obsessed with battle. As long as he can fight, nothing else matters. If your fighting spirit is low, he will not raise his intensity to the point of killing you. Use the weapons to buy time, then leave. He will not stop you.
Aizen's information was accurate, as always.
Zaraki roared, charged, crashed, laughed, and swung.
But he was also satisfied.
Like a dog given a bone, he chased what was in front of him, eager enough to ignore the fact that the real prey had already walked away.
So Ichigo walked.
And from the perspective of the captains, it looked like two of their own had already been defeated without Ichigo even slowing down.
From the perspective of ordinary Shinigami and wandering spirits, it was worse.
A stranger had entered through the White Road.
He walked forward without hesitation.
A gatekeeper collapsed.
A captain surrendered.
Another captain was being stalled like a toy.
And the intruder was already nearing the core of Seireitei.
Then Ichigo stopped.
Ahead of him stood a man wearing a massive white hat, a black clown mask covering his face. Behind him, Shinigami soldiers gathered with stiff bodies and strained expressions, as if invisible strings were pulling them into place.
Ichigo raised an eyebrow, gaze flicking to the uneasy squad members.
"Even if it costs your own subordinates' lives, you want to stop me," Ichigo asked calmly. His tone carried no anger, only sorrow. "That mask, that behavior. You're Mayuri Kurotsuchi, the head of the Technology Development Bureau."
Mayuri's voice came out through clenched teeth, sharp with disgust.
"Did those two who held back give you an illusion," he hissed, "that a captain is nothing special."
His head tilted slightly, like an insect examining prey.
"Your face is irritating. It reminds me of certain people I hate."
He snapped his fingers.
"Go," Mayuri ordered. "Grab him."
"Yes."
The squad members stepped forward.
Their faces were twisted, caught between fear and compulsion, bodies moving as if forced by something they could not resist.
Ichigo watched them approach.
The sorrow in his eyes deepened.
He already knew what would happen to them.
He just did not want to see it.
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