Time flowed quietly for several days.
Perhaps because he now knew from Gosuke Shigure that the Eighth Division was investigating the disappearance of Rukongai's souls,
Kenpachi Azashiro ceased his wanderings for a while.
He remained secluded behind the captain's quarters, in the training room that had once echoed with countless clashes of steel.
There, the air hung thick with spiritual residue and silence.
Shigure did not intrude.
Over a year of working together, captain and vice-captain had formed a strange rhythm — not of friendship, but of mutual trust.
The captain entrusted all team affairs to Shigure; in return, Shigure never questioned how or why his captain acted.
When the time came to fight, Azashiro fought.
When there was peace, he vanished into solitude.
It was an unspoken understanding that needed no words.
Occasionally, Gomisawa Yumi, ever the blunt one, would laugh among the officers and say,
"Honestly, our Vice-Captain Gosuke is more of a captain than Captain himself!"
Shigure always smiled and said nothing.
He neither confirmed nor denied — because in truth, he didn't know what kind of man Kenpachi Azashiro really was anymore.
…
Then, one evening, Azashiro left again.
It was discreet, almost noiseless, yet he never truly hid from Shigure.
It was as though he wanted to be followed — or perhaps he no longer cared who noticed.
Shigure set his brush aside.
The paper before him was half-filled with routine reports, but his eyes were on the open shoji door and the fading trace of reiatsu beyond it.
"Is it so unbearable…?" he murmured.
He rose, took his Zanpakutō from the stand, and followed.
…
North Rukongai. District Eighty — Zaraki.
A land that had long ceased to resemble civilization.
No paved streets, no fresh water, only dust, stone, and desperate souls fighting for scraps.
It was a place where strength decided life and weakness guaranteed disappearance.
But few souls chose their homes in the Soul Society.
When a spirit arrived from the world of the living, the Seireitei bureaucracy assigned it a sorting voucher, designating its district.
Those with faint reiatsu were sent to the outermost areas — where poverty hardened into savagery.
By the time one reached the seventieth district, even clean water became rare.
By the eightieth, life was nothing more than survival.
The strong sometimes clawed their way forward to better districts.
The weak rotted where they fell.
It was here, among the discarded and forgotten, that Kenpachi Azashiro carried out his work.
Perhaps it was because he believed no one would care if these souls vanished.
Perhaps because he believed that their deaths — uncounted, unlamented — would serve a greater good.
…
On a barren hillside, beneath a sky veiled by drifting gray clouds, several spirits writhed on the ground.
Their cries tore through the silence, raw and terrible.
*Aaagh—!*
A storm of spiritual pressure swirled around them, expanding violently — then collapsing in on itself.
The air rippled with residual energy.
*Crack… whoosh…*
And then, nothing.
Their bodies dissolved into fine particles of light, vanishing into the night wind.
Kenpachi Azashiro exhaled slowly. His brow furrowed.
"Still not enough…" he muttered.
He stood there for a long moment, eyes fixed on the fading remnants of the souls he had tried to transform.
This was not his first attempt.
Each time, the result was the same — failure.
He sought to harness the essence of his Zanpakutō — to use its properties to alter souls themselves, forcing them to awaken latent power.
If ordinary spirits could be reforged into beings of strength, they could become weapons — soldiers born from Rukongai itself.
A new army to counter Hueco Mundo.
That was the vision.
And every death here was a step toward it.
Hueco Mundo birthed hollows endlessly.
The Soul Society did not.
The number of shinigami was finite — a few thousand across all thirteen divisions, most too weak to even face a Gillian.
If such disparity continued, the Soul Society's eventual defeat was inevitable.
So he had sought another path.
The souls of Rukongai were countless, their flow unending.
Most lived and died in obscurity, their existence dissolving into reishi.
But if they could be changed — awakened — then the Soul Society's weakness could be undone.
His Zanpakutō, unique and cruel, gave him hope.
It could interact with the core of a soul, reshape its very structure.
But so far, it had only destroyed.
"Why can't you endure it…" he whispered, gazing at the last spark fading from the ground. "The potential is there. I can feel it."
He turned away, the edge of his robe fluttering in the dry wind.
*Swish*
He would need more subjects. More data.
But as he moved to find them, a sharp wave of reiatsu brushed against his senses.
It was calm, focused — and familiar.
…
Azashiro turned, and his expression shifted for the first time in days.
"Gosuke…?"
His tone carried neither surprise nor guilt, only acknowledgment.
Gosuke Shigure stood a short distance away, his hand resting casually on the hilt at his waist, his face unreadable under the moonlight.
"Does the captain intend to use these souls for experiments?" he asked quietly.
"The disappearances in Rukongai — that was you."
For a moment, there was silence. The dry wind swept through the hillside.
Then, Azashiro nodded.
"That's right. I did it."
He looked straight at Shigure, voice calm as if discussing paperwork.
"And you found out. As expected of you, Gosuke. You really don't miss anything."
He didn't bother asking how.
The question was irrelevant.
The only thing that mattered was truth.
Shigure's eyes narrowed slightly, but his voice remained composed.
He already knew the answer; still, there were questions that demanded to be spoken.
"Why?"
…
Azashiro's gaze grew distant. "Do you remember that night?"
Shigure frowned. "That night?"
"When I asked you about Hueco Mundo. And about the nobles."
Shigure's breath stilled.
Azashiro continued, voice low but steady.
"You said Hueco Mundo and Soul Society are two sides of one existence — that their balance must be maintained. You weren't wrong. There is balance. And shinigami are meant to preserve it."
He took a step forward, the air quivering faintly with suppressed reiatsu.
"But tell me, Gosuke — how long can that balance last? The hollows multiply endlessly. They devour and evolve. We, meanwhile, have limits. Our numbers stagnate. Our nobles drain resources that could train new shinigami, and they've reduced us to their servants."
He clenched his hand slowly, the bones creaking under the strain.
"I've seen men like Kuruyashiki — heroes who could stand against a thousand. But even they die. Strength fades. Time devours everything."
He turned his eyes toward the lifeless ground where the souls had vanished.
*****
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