The fitted school uniform traced Rukia Kuchiki's slender figure. Her short black hair, the tips playfully flipped outward, carried both elegance and a girl's liveliness. Her deep purple eyes shimmered with a flowing light, as if they held a spell that could draw people in.
Before Rukia Kuchiki could say a word, waves of soft exclamations rippled through the classroom.
By lunchtime, many classmates had already gathered around her desk.
"Kuchiki-san, do you study dance? Your posture is amazing!"
"Your eye color is so beautiful! Are you mixed-race?"
"Why did you transfer here?"
"What do you usually like to do?"
Rukia Kuchiki answered politely, her smile gentle and warm as she patiently responded to each question.
Beep, beep, beep.
Her phone rang.
Rukia Kuchiki's expression shifted. She reached out and grabbed Muten Natsu, who was sprawled face-down on the desk.
"It's here!"
"Huh?" Muten Natsu barely managed to respond before being dragged out of the classroom.
They left behind a group of classmates staring after them in confusion.
Orihime Inoue had intended to follow, but her own phone rang at that moment. By the time she lowered her head to check the caller ID, Muten Natsu and Rukia Kuchiki were already gone.
Pressing her lips together, Orihime Inoue answered the call.
Where had they gone?
...
Yumisawa Children's Park, to the north of the school.
Rukia Kuchiki stared at the instructions from Soul Society displayed on her phone:
[Yumisawa Children's Park]
[20m]
[12:00pm]
[±15min]
The Spiritual Wave Measurement Departmentt of the Twelfth Division's Research and Development Institute in Seireitei conducted year-round studies on spirit wave detection. By monitoring the Dangai and capturing abnormal soul fluctuations, they could, to a certain extent, predict where Hollows might appear and guide the Shinigami stationed in the World of the Living.
"Fifteen minutes around noon?" Muten Natsu slapped his chest, and his soul slipped free from the gigai. "It should be soon."
Rukia Kuchiki watched him with curiosity. "Normally, don't you need the Gokon Tekkō or a Gikon Pill to separate your soul from the Gigai?"
Muten Natsu rubbed his ear, his gaze drifting to the black knee-high socks wrapped around her calves. "Nice socks."
Rukia Kuchiki lifted her leg and kicked at him. "I'm being serious here!"
Muten Natsu easily caught her slender ankle. "These socks are very improper."
"You're the one who's improper!"
Muten Natsu chuckled softly, about to say something more, when a shrill scream suddenly tore through the air.
"Waaaaaaaaah!!!"
Behind them, a small boy with a chain across his chest was being chased by a Hollow, crying as he fled in panic.
The enormous Hollow had six spider-like legs, stabbing alternately into the ground and driving its massive body forward at terrifying speed.
Clad in his Shihakushō, Muten Natsu pushed off hard, rushed forward, scooped the boy up, and flashed aside.
If the child hadn't been there, he would have already cut the Hollow down with a single draw of his blade.
But his strength had only just recovered. He wasn't confident he could kill the Hollow without injuring the boy.
"Shinigami?" The spider Hollow's face was covered by its mask, a hole running clean through its chest. "I've never seen such weak Reiatsu before."
"Quite the opposite," Muten Natsu said, patting the boy's shoulder and signaling him to run farther away. "I've seen plenty weaker than you."
"Arrogant!"
The spider Hollow flexed its legs and leapt into the air. Its huge body blotted out the blazing sun, casting a shadow that completely swallowed Muten Natsu.
Muten Natsu shifted his stance slightly and let out a long, steady breath.
Rukia Kuchiki fixed her gaze on his back.
As beings with extremely dense spiritual composition, Shinigami possessed far greater Reiryoku than ordinary souls.
But what measured a Shinigami's true strength was not Reiryoku.
It was Reiatsu.
Reiryoku was physical.
Reiatsu was power.
Like water.
The same amount of water, splashed out, caused little damage.
But under high pressure, it could tear everything apart.
Dust billowed and rolled away from Muten Natsu, driven back by the Reiryoku he released.
The release halted right at the edge of what he could control, then began to contract.
As it drew inward, his Reiatsu steadily intensified, pulling Reishi from the air and turning it into drifting points of light that gathered toward the scabbard at his waist.
The hazy boundary around him sharpened with each pulse. Through repeated cycles of contraction and expansion, the trembling circle finally settled into a stable form.
That was the limit of what Muten Natsu could command right now.
Inside that nearly perfect circle, his Reiatsu filled every inch.
The moment an external attack touched the boundary, the immense Reiatsu he'd stored would pour out with the swing of his Zanpakutō, unleashing itself on the enemy without restraint.
This was where the name of Muten Natsu's strongest draw technique came from: [Flash God].
The reason he mastered it was simple.
He was lazy.
If one slash could solve it, Muten Natsu didn't want to swing twice.
Of course, every advantage had its price.
A draw technique like this let him erupt with more than three times the destructive force of someone with comparable Reiatsu, but the consumption was just as extreme.
And there was another flaw he couldn't avoid.
The spider Hollow's attack brushed the edge of the circle, and almost at the same instant, a flash flared from the mouth of the scabbard at Muten Natsu's waist.
A clean arc of light flickered past and vanished, splitting the oncoming webbing in two.
But the spider Hollow came down anyway. Its chest split open in a curling, ragged wound. Its sharp legs trembled hard, then steadied again amid its roar, gleaming with cold light as it stabbed toward Muten Natsu in furious retaliation.
That was the weakness of a draw technique.
To bring out its maximum power, Muten Natsu had to compress his Reiryoku to the absolute limit. Once the Reiatsu wrapped around him reached that state, any external disturbance would trigger it, and even he couldn't control the release.
The web the spider Hollow spat out had set it off and emptied his stored Reiatsu in an instant. With the Hollow pressing in, trying to draw again so soon was nothing but wishful thinking.
So...
He'd just switch techniques.
Muten Natsu gripped the hilt with both hands, raised his Zanpakutō high, and chopped down at the lunging spider with a decisive strike!
[Soul-Severing Sword Technique: Water Flow Flash activated]
[Remaining uses: 0]
Water surged with a continuous rush, clear streams spilling from the blade. With Muten Natsu's swing, the flow stretched into a strange, elegant crescent that tore free of the edge and flew straight at the spider Hollow.
The web it spat out and the legs it threw up to guard itself did nothing at all. The Reiatsu-formed water slipped through the gaps in the netting, shattered the crossed legs, and plunged into the Hollow's body.
Then it burst out the other side, dragging blood with it, scattering wildly in the sunlight before falling away.
The webbing that had crept close broke apart, and along with the fragments of the collapsing spider Hollow, it was all drawn into the scabbard at Muten Natsu's waist.
Rukia Kuchiki stared at his back, and in a daze, she saw that day again.
Crimson flashes bloomed one after another. Each flare marked a life being snuffed out.
A soul that collapsed was seized by force in the next instant, poured into the next flash.
Wailing spirits and broken limbs drowned in blood, smeared into filthy blossoms that bloomed around Muten Natsu, spreading into a horrifying sea of death.
In that crimson sea of flowers, he called her name.
And so...
She drove the blade into his chest.