"Yoruichi!" The moment the explosion occurred, Kōe shouted Yoruichi's name and rushed over.
Actually, with Yoruichi's strength, retreating unscathed from an explosion of this level wouldn't be difficult. After all, her title as the Flash Goddess wasn't just for show.
But Urahara had just called out to stop him from throwing a level seventy Kidō Ball, and coupled with the fact that Kōe hadn't noticed Yoruichi using Shunpo, an indescribable tension gripped his heart.
Suppressing the explosion caused by the Kidō Ball with his Reiryoku, Kōe appeared directly at the spot where Yoruichi had just been standing.
As expected, Yoruichi's Shunpo hadn't reached the level where it could deceive Kōe's perception. Right now, she was half-crouching on the ground, looking incredibly battered.
The cloth sack on Yoruichi's head, meant to restrict her perception, had been blown to shreds. The Shihakushō specially modified for Shunkō was now in tatters, and her originally smooth arms were blasted with bloody craters.
What pained Kōe the most were Yoruichi's hands. More than half of the flesh and blood had vanished, leaving behind ghastly white, incomplete hand bones.
"Hurry, take her to the hot spring!" Urahara wasn't much slower. After calling out, he and Kōe supported Yoruichi together and brought her to the cavern where they had originally dug the hot spring.
The hot spring healing techniques Urahara had secretly learned from the Soul King Palace played a massive role at this moment. But this was only natural; with such tightrope-walking training, it would be absurd not to have some logistical countermeasures.
The injuries to Yoruichi's hands were the most severe, but the bones throughout her entire body had also suffered varying degrees of damage in the explosion, making her movements quite restricted at the moment.
At this point, someone else should have assisted in lowering Yoruichi completely into the hot spring. Although the three of them had grown up together, there was still a difference between men and women. This left the two grown men, Kōe and Urahara, staring at each other, somewhat at a loss for what to do.
"How about we play rock-paper-scissors? The loser does it?"
Before Kōe could respond to Urahara's proposal, Yoruichi voiced her objection first. "What kind of monster am I?! Besides, don't you guys usually treat me like a bro!"
"That's obviously just talk." Urahara pointed at Kōe and continued, "Otherwise, when we were soaking in the hot spring back then, why did Kōe try to turn around? And why did you slap him?"
"Ahem! Ahem!"
Kōe tried to use coughing to cover up his embarrassment, but Yoruichi turned her head and glared at him intently. Kōe silently lowered his head and said, "So let Urahara do it. He doesn't have any impure thoughts."
"You do it!" Yoruichi said in a fit of pique before turning her head away. Beside them, Urahara looked as if a heavy burden had been lifted and hastily said, "I'll go outside and get some fresh clothes!"
Kōe was dumbfounded as he watched Urahara vanish in a puff of smoke. *'What's with this "I understand, I'll disappear, do as you please" vibe?'*
"Keep your eyes in check, and keep your hands to yourself!"
Hearing Yoruichi's threatening words gave Kōe a massive headache. Both he and Urahara realized this was a dangerous job, but he couldn't figure it out. He had disparaged himself to such an extent, so why did Yoruichi still pick him in the end?
Since things had come to this, there was nothing else to be done. It was just putting Yoruichi into the hot spring, right? It wasn't that hard. Just three steps.
Step one: pick Yoruichi up.
Step two: toss Yoruichi into the hot spring.
Step three: pull Yoruichi's head above the water and make her sit properly. That wasn't hard at all, right?
"Shihouin Kōe! Are you even a man?! I'm going to kill you!!!"
Outside the cavern, Urahara heard Yoruichi's frantic screams and walked back in with a helpless expression. When he saw Kōe sitting on the ground with a calm face, his back turned to Yoruichi, he knew his guess had been spot on. In fact, if it had been him just now, he would have done the exact same thing.
"How many times is this, Urahara?" Kōe asked softly. Hearing this, the noisy Yoruichi behind him also quieted down.
Previously, Kōe thought Yoruichi came to the secret base to practice Shunkō for the sake of secrecy, but now it seemed that wasn't the whole reason.
If it was just about secrecy, there were plenty of such places within the Shihouin clan. The reason she chose this place was likely primarily because of Urahara's hot spring.
Even with Urahara's assistance, Shunkō training was incredibly perilous. In the current Seireitei, aside from Squad 4 Captain Unohana Retsu, only Urahara's hot spring could rapidly heal such injuries.
"Counting this one, it's the fifth time. The last time was ten days ago," Urahara answered slowly. "However, the injury ten days ago was also caused by level seventy Reiatsu. It's a hurdle."
Yoruichi had been training in Shunkō for less than fifty days, and by now, she had reached the level where she could neutralize the Reiatsu of Kidō below level seventy.
It sounded like an incredible achievement, but Yoruichi knew this was merely the first step of her training. Compared to actual Kidō, the Kidō Balls only matched them in intensity. Their attack patterns were far too simplistic compared to proper Kidō of the same level, and their Reiatsu distribution was too fixed, making them much easier to neutralize.
But even so, releasing the exact amount of Reiatsu needed to instantly neutralize a level seventy attack was still too difficult.
According to Urahara, if one could perfectly neutralize the Reiatsu contained within the Kidō Ball, the ball would be knocked away intact. If the defensive Reiatsu was too high, the Kidō Ball would shatter.
Finally, if the defensive Reiatsu was too low, the Reiatsu inside the Kidō Ball would detonate. Urahara could have modified this aspect, but Yoruichi had forcefully demanded it remain this way.
"Yoruichi's reasoning is that her body needs to genuinely feel the threat so she can engrave the pain into her memory forever, ensuring she never makes the same mistake twice."
"That's just reckless." Hearing this, Kōe let out a heavy sigh and shook his head.
"Do you think I can't do it?" Yoruichi said faintly from behind him.
"I don't think you can't do it. It's just..." Kōe paused, then continued, "It's just that I feel there's no need to work so hard."
"Urahara might have had it a bit easier, but haven't you and I been doing this since we were kids? You know perfectly well that the hardships we endure now are so we won't have to suffer the ultimate hardship of death later."
Yoruichi was right. One of them was the successor to an assassination unit like Squad 2, and the other was the Head Captain's final disciple. They truly used their bodies to remember every mistake they had ever made—mistakes that could have been fatal.
But Kōe just didn't want things to be this way, or rather, he didn't want Yoruichi and Urahara to live so 'correctly.' There were many painful truths in this world, but people always hoped their friends could enjoy pleasant illusions as much as possible. He was exactly like that.
"Dead-eyes, you need to understand that we haven't reached this point on talent alone. It's precisely because we can endure the suffering that ordinary people can't that we can achieve things ordinary people can't!" Yoruichi's voice was sonorous and powerful, as if it could scatter the steam in the cavern.
"As if I didn't know that." Kōe suddenly stood up, his right hand resting on Kōki at his waist. "As you wish. Then let your body thoroughly remember the pain of your mistakes."
"Once you're healed, we'll start simulating proper Kidō battles. If you can graduate from my training, even the Kidō Corps Commander and Vice-Commander combined won't be able to do anything to you!"
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