"All right, I've finished with the Soul King's secrets. Now we still have to circle back to Yhwach."
Kazuma had said all of that, but in the end, it was still for the sake of Yhwach — the final boss.
Aizen vaguely guessed there had to be some link between Yhwach and the Soul King.
He just wasn't sure what it was.
"Let me guess. This Yhwach is some kind of second coming of the Soul King, isn't he? He raised his blade against the Shinigami to take revenge on the Five Great Noble Clans?"
Aizen offered what he thought was a fairly reasonable answer.
It would explain why the Quincy wanted every Shinigami dead.
"Sorry. Wrong answer. Yhwach is actually the Soul King's son."
Kazuma's bombshells kept getting bigger, one after another. By this point the feeling was hard to even put into words.
The Soul King was supposed to be the highest existence there was, yet a relationship this tangled was hidden behind him.
The news that Yhwach was the Soul King's son struck everyone present hard.
The Quincy leader who had once seemed so mysterious, who had turned his blade on the Shinigami as if purely for revenge, actually had a background like this behind him.
A flicker of shock crossed Aizen's eyes.
He'd thought his guess was already close to the truth, but the truth was far stranger than he'd imagined.
A father and son — the Soul King and Yhwach.
Did that mean the Quincy's actions had an even deeper purpose?
"How is that possible? Nonsense! How could Yhwach be the Soul King's son?"
Ichimaru Gin couldn't hold back his shock.
Even the fox-like smile on his face fell away. Everything Kazuma said had turned his whole view of the world upside down!
"Yeah, it sounds ridiculous, but it's the truth. If we're talking about Yhwach, he actually had it pretty rough too. From the moment he was born, the Soul King disliked him. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't speak, and couldn't even move.
He was basically a vegetable. But he was still the Soul King's kid, so even like that, he survived, and eventually became the King of the Quincy.
Everything Yhwach has done is for revenge against the Soul King. He wants to destroy everything the Soul King built, then make a new world in its place — one ruled by him, one that belongs only to the Quincy."
Kazuma laid out everything he knew about Yhwach.
"Earlier, you said the Captain-Commander and I defeated Yhwach a thousand years ago. I won't deny it. But the Yhwach back then was already half-crippled. Against a Yhwach who returns at full strength, I don't have the confidence to kill him."
"Half-crippled? Who did that to him?"
Aizen was interested at once.
Whoever could wound Yhwach was no unknown nobody — yet Aizen had never heard a word about it.
"The one who did it was none other than Squad Zero's Hyōsube Ichibē, the Manako Oshō."
Inside this barrier, Kazuma could speak the monk's true name freely.
The power he was using didn't belong to the Shinigami system, so there was no need to worry about being noticed.
"Squad Zero?"
Aizen and Gin still had some memory of Squad Zero.
Back then, Kirio Hikifune had been promoted and taken there.
Rukia, meanwhile, was lost again. She'd never heard of anything called Squad Zero.
'Is there more drama I don't know about? Knowing everything really does feel great.'
She leaned forward slightly, looking exactly like a curious child.
"If I ever get the chance, I'd like to meet that man."
As Aizen said this, he glanced at Kazuma.
His words carried two meanings.
First, he wanted to see how strong the monk was.
Second, he was quietly testing whether Kazuma meant to kill him in the end or not.
"You'll get the chance. Just not now."
Kazuma's words put Aizen's heart at ease.
Somehow they scattered the tension buried deep inside him and let him relax fully.
By now, Aizen was certain. Kazuma wouldn't attack him.
"In truth, as powerful as the monk is, he's nowhere near strong enough to wound Yhwach directly. Back then, he simply set a trap for Yhwach and cleverly used the ability of the Soul King's left hand to seal Yhwach's Almighty.
If he hadn't done that, then in that world-shaking war a thousand years ago, we Shinigami would probably have been wiped out."
Kazuma spoke slowly with a faint, thoughtful look in his eyes.
"Teacher! Stop teasing us and hurry up. Tell me more about Squad Zero! You keep hiding half of it, and it's driving me crazy!"
Rukia urged him anxiously.
She was dying to uncover the mystery of Squad Zero and learn what this legendary group was really like.
She didn't care what the monk had done to Yhwach — Squad Zero had taken over her whole attention now, and she just wanted to know all its secrets as fast as possible!
Kazuma looked at Rukia's curious face and sighed inwardly.
He was a little annoyed that she'd cut him off, but in the end he couldn't bring himself to turn down her eagerness to learn.
So he raised his hand and flicked her forehead. It wasn't hard, but it still made her frown a little.
Then Kazuma slowly began to explain about the Squad Zero.
"Squad Zero is a very powerful group. Its overall strength is greater than the entire Gotei 13.
That's not just talk.
Squad Zero has only five members in all.
Hyōsube Ichibē, who has always stayed at the Soul King's side. The Divine General of the West, Nimaiya Ōetsu. The Divine General of the North, Shutara Senjumaru. The Divine General of the East, Kirinji Tenjirō. And the Divine General of the South, Hikifune Kirio.
Their duty is to guard the Soul King and keep him safe. They don't interfere with how the Gotei 13 runs — not unless the Gotei 13 truly reaches the edge of life and death, on the brink of being wiped out."
Kazuma stopped there and didn't reveal their abilities.
Some things still had to be held back. If he exposed everything, it would be no different from stripping himself bare.
Aizen and Gin had only known about Hikifune Kirio before.
Just now Kazuma had told them about Hyōsube Ichibē, and now they'd learned of the other three as well.
They still didn't know much, but it was already enough.
Rukia listened, fascinated, her eyes shining with excitement.
She quickly asked, "So how strong are they, exactly?"
Kazuma smiled and shook his head.
"That's something you'll only understand if you face them yourself one day. But I can tell you this much for certain. They're all among the strongest in Soul Society. Even the current me can't kill them."
Kazuma wasn't wrong.
As long as the Soul King Palace stood, and their own palaces stood, the members of Squad Zero could revive endlessly.
Their bones were all built from the Soul King's power — in other words, they were what people called the Ōken.
Because their bodies had been rebuilt into Ōken, their true hearts were, in effect, their Squad Zero palaces.
Even if they died, as long as their names were called, they could come back to life.
The sinners of Hell were different, though.
The sinners relied on the will of Hell.
As long as Hell wasn't destroyed, they too could be reborn without end. But if you could cut off the will of Hell, then a sinner could be killed for good.
That was how Gunjo had died at Kazuma's hands.