I swore after dealing with the Soul King that I'd never clean up another man's mess again, yet here I am, doing it anyway.
But honestly, watching these bastards fumble around was so frustrating I just couldn't sit on my hands.
Still, I don't regret it.
It was a massive pain, but I saved a guy who was about to get royally screwed over. I'd call that a net profit.
So, what am I doing now that the dust has settled?
*Crunch—*
"This is actually pretty good."
I'm on my way to see that bastard Tsunayashiro's face.
I don't really have a specific plan. Since I've bothered to crawl out of Hell, I figured I might as well check in on him.
Curiosity, mostly. I wanted to see what he's been up to.
Actually, that's just an excuse. Truth is...
'Something feels off.'
For the record, I'm flying solo.
Shiryu is tied up with the funeral, and Rasatsu rushed back to her research on the Six Realms of Reincarnation.
Myoren? I told her to stay put.
The sight of that old woman trying to keep up with me with those precarious, shuffling steps was too painful to watch, so I sent her packing.
When she insisted I'd need a guide, I just smirked and recited the exact location of the Kuchiki family's secret storehouse. That sent her scurrying back in a panic.
'She should have just left when I told her to.'
To be fair, there was another reason I turned down Myoren's offer. Tsunayashiro's residence... or rather, the Soul King Palace where they say he's been holed up, was sitting in a spot that was impossible to miss.
"Is this it?"
Crunching down on the apple core and all, I looked up at a wooden gate three times—no, maybe five times taller than me.
"Tch... this feels eerily familiar..."
I walked up and rapped my knuckles against the gate. The texture and density felt strangely nostalgic. Oh, I remember this...
"It's that tree. The one I used to use for carving figurines back in the day."
Touching and tapping it confirmed it. It was wood harvested from the forest where I used to live aeons ago.
"So they used that to build a door, huh?"
I stepped back a bit to take in the gate and the massive stone walls flanking it. There were four of these gates in total—North, South, East, and West. Dividing the area into five sectors with one central building as the axis...
"Hmm..."
I moved back even further and looked up at the structure looming in the distance, shaped like the Tower of Babel.
Well, I mean it looked like the tower from the stories; it wasn't the actual thing.
A Babel-esque building. A long, vertical cylinder.
And from within, I could sense three familiar Spiritual Power signatures.
Naturally, those three were the Soul King, the Monk, and Tsunayashiro.
Incidentally, the Tsunayashiro main estate was on the exact opposite side of where I was heading.
So, where was I going?
"The Soul King Palace, huh?"
*Chomp.*
"I can smell the bullshit from here."
I wondered what that devious prick Tsunayashiro was cooking up this time.
Knowing him, he was definitely up to something shady, but I just hoped it wasn't anything too catastrophic.
Who's going to clean up the mess if a walking corpse with barely a century left in him decides to take a dump on the world before he goes?
The idea of living a life of luxury, doing whatever you want, and then dying while dumping all the responsibility on your descendants?
That's just petty as hell.
"Doesn't this place even have a house-sitter?"
If there had been a gatekeeper, I would've asked them to announce my arrival, but there was nothing but massive doors and walls.
"Pardon the intrusion."
I didn't care about getting a warm welcome.
I didn't come here expecting one anyway.
I gripped the tightly shut doors, heaved them upward, and strode inside. I don't know how heavy they'd made the damn things, but when I let them drop back down after clearing my height, the entire ground shook.
I guess that's why there wasn't a gatekeeper.
No matter who showed up, they wouldn't have the strength to budge the things.
"You should've expected I'd show up."
Sometimes Tsunayashiro seems like the most thorough bastard on the planet, but then he leaves these weird, glaring holes in his logic. Thinking that, I looked around and spotted more of those familiar trees.
Sure enough, they were exactly the same as the ones from the forest.
"Knew it."
That wood is notoriously sturdy, after all.
With a small smirk, I walked down the grand boulevard that extended in a cross shape (+) from the Soul King Palace at the center.
"What's with all these pillars?"
For a place with no ceiling, the number of pillars was excessive to the point of being eerie. And it wasn't just this path; identical pillars were lined up at regular intervals along all four major boulevards stretching out in every direction.
It was as if they had been built for a very specific purpose.
"They look like streetlights."
Except they were just chunks of rock that didn't emit a lick of light.
As I strolled along, tapping on the pillars, I felt a familiar Spiritual Power approaching.
"I knew you would come, Master."
It was expected, but the signature belonged to Tsunayashiro.
Like Shiryu, Myoren, and Rasatsu, he hadn't escaped the ravages of a thousand years; he appeared as a frail old man.
A hunchback with a spine curved into a question mark, bald as an egg, and not a single tooth left in his mouth—a miserable wretch.
Frankly, it was a miracle he was even alive.
"If you knew I was coming, you should've been out here sooner to show your face. You sure are taking your sweet time getting up."
"This withered body was unable to venture out to greet my Master. I ask for your immense grace and understanding."
"So the others who are just as old as you are what, total idiots for coming to meet me?"
Tsunayashiro simply offered a thin, toothless smile. Typical. Whenever I say something he doesn't like, he just shuts up.
"By the way, didn't I tell you to stop calling me Master?"
I specifically remember saying I never took a disciple like him.
When I scratched my head and answered, Tsunayashiro gave a low chuckle and nodded.
"Indeed... you certainly said as much. The memory of that day is still vivid. Ah... I cannot describe the despair I felt then..."
"See? Look at this piece of shit trying to stall for time and change the subject again."
"You are as impatient as ever, Master. Almost like a man being hunted by something."
"I've got nothing but time. What would I be running from? I just hate it when people beat around the bush. It's a waste of energy for both of us."
Why the hell does he feel the need to speak in riddles? We aren't in a contest of wills.
Wouldn't it be great if people just laid everything out on the table instead of leaving it to be misinterpreted by some moron?
"Oh my, to think such an unfortunate soul exists."
"I'm talking about you, you bastard. You."
I said it straight to his face, but he just kept smiling. Shiryu and Myoren aside, even Rasatsu was a saintly, dignified elder compared to this guy.
Having a man whose thoughts you can never read smiling like that is enough to make my skin crawl.
It wasn't just that his appearance had changed; his presence had become strangely blurred, which felt even worse.
How should I put it?
'His Spiritual Power has grown faint...?'
Compared to what I remembered, his power was hazy. No, not hazy—more like... diluted.
It was like watching ink dissolve in clear water. That was the bizarre sensation it gave off.
And then...
"What are you doing there, Monk?"
Did he really think I wouldn't notice him hiding?
I turned around and met the eyes of the Monk, who looked exactly as he did a thousand years ago.
"Oho, will you no longer call me Dharma?"
Dharma, my ass. A shitty monk trying to compare himself to the founder of Zen Buddhism? Man...
Sigh. I guess this is my fault for starting it.
"I'm not calling you that. So, what are you doing here?"
"Are you asking the Gold General why he guards the Jade General?"
"I don't know how to play Shogi."
"For someone who doesn't know the game, you seem to understand well enough?"
I stared at the laughing monk and let out a long, weary sigh. Between him and Tsunayashiro, I don't know who's more unpleasant.
"Right. Sure, I get the gist. Looking at that old prick, I figured he was about to kick the bucket, so I didn't think much of it..."
But now that I see you, you're blurry too.
"What the hell have you been doing here?"
"You ask the same question. Then I have no choice but to give the same answer."
The Monk scratched his cheek and folded his arms.
"I am, of course, protecting the Soul King Palace."
"Who doesn't know that?"
The Soul King is here, the Monk is here, and for some reason, that bastard is here too. With a lineup like that, it has to be about defending the palace. But that's not what I'm asking.
"You and Tsunayashiro. Why have you both become so faint?"
Wait... they aren't becoming faint.
Assimilation.
"Ah."
Don't tell me these bastards...
"Hey, Tsunayashiro. Are you out of your mind?"
"I am perfectly sane. This is all for the Great Cause."
"The Great Cause? Great Cause, my foot, you son of a bitch."
"The Soul King has become the lynchpin of the Three Worlds, and he requires guardians to protect him! However, ordinary souls cannot withstand the spiritual decay caused by the passage of time..."
But he didn't give up.
If a soul cannot withstand decay, then it simply must be forged into a soul that can. That was the logic that drove him.
"Like pounding iron to remove impurities... you thought a soul could be tempered the same way."
But the method was too dangerous. The side effects of failure were catastrophic.
"And that was when a question occurred to me. Why must 'I' be the one to stop the decay?"
If there already existed an entity that does not experience decay, why should I exert myself so needlessly?
"So the 'method' you chose... was fragments of the Soul King?"
"Yes. This Soul King Palace is the lynchpin itself, made from the Soul King's power. Currently, the Soul King is a being who is neither dead nor alive. Therefore, if one were to simply... hitch a ride on this flow..."
Tsunayashiro opened his toothless mouth wide, stretching his face into a distorted, ghoulish grin.
"As long as the Soul King does not die, I can protect the Soul King Palace as an eternal, immortal being."
As he spoke, Tsunayashiro's form began to shift, reverting to how he looked a thousand years ago.