Bleach Cfyow Read Online – CHAPTER THREE – Part 1

THE SOUL SOCIETY WAS BEING steadily plagued by unusual events, such as the atrocity in the Seireitei’s aristocratic quarter. And that might have just been the beginning of it. Oddly, it had begun the day Shuhei Hisagi learned that Tokinada was taking on the role of head of the Tsunayashiro household.

Signs of the budding malevolence spread, like branches and shoots, extending into the Soul Society, the world of the living, and even Hueco Mundo.

≡

SEIREITEI, FOURTH COMPANY BARRACKS

A lone, timid Soul Reaper stood silently in front of the Fourth Company barracks. He was looking down the wide road that led to the other barracks as though very concerned about something behind him.

“What’s wrong, third-seat Yamada?”

The mousy young man—Yamada Hanataro—turned toward the other fourth company members who were exiting the barracks. “Huh? Oh, sorry. It’s nothing!

…I think.”

“Well, that answer is the opposite of reassuring,” Ogido, the cool-headed seated officer, replied.

Hanataro answered falteringly, “Assistant Captain Hisagi just headed toward the Ninth barracks with this extremely terrifying look on his face. I thought something awful must have happened…”

One could hardly imagine he was anything but a timid new recruit when he

replied with such a frightened expression. But in actuality, he was one of the Fourth Company’s distinguished practitioners of healing kido, or kaido. And although he was fainthearted in some ways, his genial personality made him widely trusted, and he had been elevated to the position of third seat of the Fourth Company.

Hanataro, however, believed the only reason he had been promoted to the third seat was because the original seat-holder, Yasochika Iemura, had transferred to another company. Hanataro, while still trying to fulfill his duties, battled with the pressure of feeling that under normal circumstances he never would have gotten the position.

A very large Fourth Company member reacted to Hanataro’s mention of the Ninth Company’s assistant captain. “You saw Hisagi like that…?”

“Hey Aoga, aren’t you from the same generation as Assistant Captain Hisagi?” Ogiba asked.

“Yes, but I haven’t had many opportunities to see him lately. We met each other while visiting a friend’s grave about half a year ago, and the last I saw of him was in a hospital room after the war.” Though Ogiba seemed the much younger of the two, Aoga spoke to him deferentially because Ogiba was a seated officer.

The other Fourth Company members nearby started talking excitedly when they heard Aoga’s comment.

“So Aoga’s from the same generation as Hisagi…”

“That’s amazing. Didn’t that era produce a ton of elite Soul Reapers?” “Yeah, that generation has produced a lot of captain-rank Soul Reapers in the

decades since Assistant Captain Hisagi, like Assistant Captain Abarai, Assistant Captain Hinamori, Assistant Captain Kira, and, of course, Captain Hitsugaya.

They’re legends, even in Shinoreijutsuin Academy, because of how exceptionally fast they got promoted.”

“If we’re talking about quick promotions, what about third-seat Yamada from our very own company?”

Hanataro bowed his head to his other company members when his name suddenly came up in conversation, even though he was their third-seat officer.

“Uh, um        Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Well, compared to Hisagi and the others, I’m just an incompetent causing trouble for the Fourth Company. ”

When Hanataro spoke so disparagingly of himself, despite being praised,

Ogiba said with a deadpan expression, “What are you saying, third-seat Yamada? You’re an elite among the elites, just as good as any of them with the same lineage and skill. They say even Kisuke Urahara acknowledged that your kaido ability was better than his.”

“I genuinely feel terrible… Wait, actually I feel like I kinda always get sucked into a horrible situation whenever I get involved with Urahara…”

“By the way, there’s someone who’s been waiting in the visitor’s room for our very own third-seat Yamada for the past half hour.”

“What!? Y-you could have told me that to begin with!”

After watching Hanataro scramble into the barracks, Ogiba muttered, unconcerned, “Sorry, I misspoke. He just arrived, so he hasn’t been waiting very long.”

One of the exasperated company soldiers who overheard that scolded, “You would’ve had to tell him eventually anyway. You’re as unpleasant as always, Ogiba.”

“Well, I would have told him if it had been someone he couldn’t keep waiting.

Anyway, as far as unpleasantness goes, I think that visitor is way worse.” “Huh?”

Ogiba just shrugged, and the other soldiers cocked their heads quizzically. Aoga was the only one of the group looking at the main road Hisagi had run down just a short while ago. He seemed conflicted as he said to himself, “He had a terrifying look on his face, huh?”

Aoga remembered when Hisagi had been in a grave condition after the war and had been brought into the Fourth Company for treatment. Hisagi had been so horribly injured, it was a wonder he was still alive. He had somehow managed to briefly survive thanks to Orihime Inoue, but it had taken quite some time for him to replenish his spiritual pressure after that.

After Hisagi had regained consciousness, Aoga had asked the Soul Reaper, “Are you planning on fighting again?”

When they had reunited in front of their classmate Kanisawa’s grave, Aoga had thought that Hisagi had cast his fear aside, since he had continued to fight after so many close calls.

But when Aoga saw Hisagi on the verge of death again, he realized that no matter how many times a Soul Reaper cast it aside, they could never escape fear on the front lines. Hisagi’s strength came from his being prepared to keep surviving even while battling his perpetual fear. That was why Aoga had known what Hisagi would say. But he still couldn’t leave the question unasked.

Hisagi had just made one remark, smiling all the while. “Why are you making a face like that when we just got through the war? Kanisawa would’ve given you a talking to.”

The next day, Hisagi forced his discharge from the hospital in order to witness Aizen’s reimprisonment. It made Aoga very concerned that the very same person had just run by with a frightful look on his face. As though half praying and half frustrated by his own powerlessness, Aoga muttered, “I hope that nothing happens to make him put his life on the line in a fight, at least until reconstruction of the Seireitei is finished.”

If anything happened, Hisagi would head right toward the fight, regardless of the state of the world around him. Aoga was incredibly familiar with that aspect of Hisagi’s personality.

But destiny, which had Hisagi in its grasp, was already trampling Aoga’s wishes underfoot.

≡

FOURTH COMPANY BARRACKS, VISITOR’S ROOM

Kaido functionality had been put first when the Fourth barracks were built, but a room with slightly more splendor in mind had still been included in the plans. It was the visitor’s room, used by the Captain General or aristocrats as needed.

However, the Fourth Company prioritized the lives of the soldiers of the Thirteen Court Guard Companies foremost and had opened the visitor’s room as a temporary aid station during the war. The smell of medicine and other such things still lingered faintly in the space.

Hanataro Yamada ran into the visitor’s room, accompanied by the sound of his rushed footsteps. He tripped on the edge of the doorway but used the momentum of that near tumble to bow his head and apologize. “Oh whoa…

Uh…um…apologies…for the delay.”

Hanataro had displayed his awkward manners before even seeing the visitor’s face, but the guest did not reproach him. Instead, the visitor’s sage voice filled the room, “You seem and sound just as dreary as usual. When you try to sympathize with your patients, do you allow their ailments to take root in your own heart, Hanataro?”

Hanataro felt nostalgic as he realized the voice was one he was long familiar

with. His eyes went wide and he raised his head. “Uh…um…S-Seinosuke!?” “Oh, even your face has grown dreary. I worry your patients might hang

themselves after a face like that treats them.” That was Seinosuke Yamada. He was also Hanataro’s older brother and until a few decades ago had been the Fourth Company’s assistant captain. He was currently decommissioned and had retied from the Thirteen Court Guard Companies, so his zanpaku-to was in safekeeping at the barracks.

He wasn’t unemployed though. Seinosuke Yamada had withdrawn from his post as assistant captain because he had been headhunted into a new occupation, which made him an exception of exceptions. The Thirteen Court Guard Companies usually stuck any discharges into a special prison called the Maggot’s Nest on principle, and had required Seinosuke to formally retire in order to leave his post.

Hanataro was puzzled specifically because he knew the new occupation his brother had been recruited into. “W-what happened? Do you have the day off? I heard you were quite busy.”

“Hm. More or less. But the work is worthwhile. Those old aristocrats who don’t want to die even though they’re Soul Reapers come to see me incessantly. Watching such authorities floundering as they disgracefully cling to something out of fear of old age is always a pleasure.”

“Uh, um…are you really sure you should be saying that? E-e-especially about the aristocrats…”

“Of course I shouldn’t. It’s defamation and possibly even a death penalty offense. Are you planning to tattle on me, Hanataro? If you’re saying you want me to die, I suppose I’ll just need to be brave and give up on life as my dear little brother wishes.”

“Uhh…I-I wouldn’t do that, Seinosuke…”

After waving his hands back and forth in a fluster, Hanataro awkwardly disclaimed, “Y-you certainly are spiteful, and no one’s a fan of your personality, but…there are good things about you if people look for them…I think… We can’t let anyone who has it out for someone join the Fourth Company to begin with!”

“It hurts me in its own way that you’d consider it so seriously.” Despite his words, Seinosuke smiled as though he were enjoying himself and shrugged before he broached the subject at hand. “Well, it’s my day off and I had some business here. So I came to give you some advice while I was around, Hanataro.”

“Advice…for me?”

Seinosuke narrowed his eyes slightly, and his smile disappeared as he got to the crux of the conversation. “Hanataro, how would you feel about taking some time off from the Fourth Company?”

“Huh?”

“A lot of rumors come my way in my line of work.”

When Hanataro seemed puzzled at the sudden request, Seinosuke, the Seireitei Shino-Seyakuin delegate—in other words, the highest authority in the relief office that specifically catered to the Four Great Noble Clans and specialized in serving the upper nobility—snickered. “Now that we’ve done away with the Quincy threat, it’s unlikely that we’ll be having any big wars for a while.

Instead, the Seireitei will probably hit a rough patch. And not one that’s small enough to stop just by putting some effort into it either.

“If you don’t want to get dragged into the mess, you should distance yourself from positions of responsibility for a while and keep your eyes and ears closed.”

≡

THE WORLD OF THE LIVING, KARAKURA TOWN

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I can’t believe we got dragged into this! We’re really deep in it this time!”

It was dusk in Karakura Town. Keigo Asano, who had been enjoying his day off just minutes earlier, was running down a deserted alley and filling the area around him with tearful shouts.

Mizuiro Kojima, the poker-faced boy running next to him, said, “You’ve got to be quiet, Keigo. You’re wasting your energy by yelling.”

“You know, I’ve been wondering about this for a while, but how do you always keep a cool head whenever something like this happens?”

“Because there isn’t really a point in panicking, I guess.” Mizuiro kept up his pace as he glanced behind him.

“I’ve never seen a monster like that before, but I suppose it’s better than that walking pile of lies, Aizen.” He was looking at a giant crab-shaped abomination, a Huge Hollow that was closing in on them, raising its claws with an unpleasant gnashing sound.

Mizuiro Kojima, Keigo, and Tatsuki Arisawa had once been pursued by Sosuke Aizen. This time as their pursuer got close, they didn’t experience that

feeling of death bearing down on them. That made things better than last time, but it was their only consolation. Their lives were still in danger. At least the monster wasn’t directly after Keigo and Mizuiro right then.

The target the Hollow was trying to crush with its claws was a young man in a shihakusho running just behind Keigo and Mizuiro.

“Ahhhhhhhhh! Th-this is dangerous! It’s dangerous, so leave this to me and get out of here! Also, somebody save me! Anyone!” The young Soul Reaper, wailing just about as much as Keigo, kept running away from the Hollow without even the mental composure to activate his zanpaku-to’s shikai.

Ryunosuke Yuki, the Soul Reaper in charge of Karakura Town, had come across a Hollow stronger than he was and had, in the middle of running away in a panic, gotten Keigo and Mizuiro caught up in the mess as they were walking down the alley.

Keigo and Mizuiro had been swept up in many such incidents because of their friendship with Ichigo Kurosaki, and they had even received something called soul tickets from an eye patch-wearing Soul Reaper. All in all, they had become rather attuned to spiritual phenomena.

They had occasionally caught a glimpse of Ryunosuke and at least knew his name from Orihime and the others. But they hadn’t tried to get involved in his business themselves, believing that he had to be stronger than “fro-man” if he’d been picked as that guy’s successor.

But while the young Soul Reaper had replaced the man Keigo called “fro- man” and whom Ichigo referred to as “Imoyama” and whose real name was Zennosuke Kurumadani, Keigo and Mizuiro were just now realizing he was actually much less dependable than they had imagined.

When Keigo saw Ryunosuke fleeing and the unpromising way the Soul Reaper failed to even unsheathe his zanpaku-to, Keigo screamed even louder. On the other side of things, Mizuiro was serenely wondering, Can we can get to Mr. Urahara’s shop if we keep up this pace?

Mizuiro had more or less heard about Urahara Shoten from Ichigo, who had told him it was a safe place to escape to if a Hollow ever attacked while Ichigo wasn’t around. During the Aizen incident, Mizuiro had gathered what information he could and had concluded that the owner of Urahara Shoten was a big shot of captain rank or higher.

“He’ll probably try to con you into buying all kinds of crap though. Well, just think of it as thanks for him saving you and go with it.”

After Ichigo had told him that, Mizuiro had gone to check out the store many

times when nothing bad was happening. It had indeed been stocked with dubious products like the ghost medicine rub Stiff-Be-Gone Theta and the spirit repellent Spray X, which were obviously not being sourced from normal manufacturers.

“Oh, actually!” Reminded of something, Mizuiro started to rummage dexterously through his bag as he ran.

“W-w-w-what are you doing, Mizuiro!? Are you going to pull out a stun gun again or something like that!? But I can’t see a chance in hell of us holding that thing back with a stun gun!”

Mizuiro pulled a ball with a strange face drawn on it out of his bag. It was a Zeta Ball, as Mizuiro recalled. An electromagnetic capture bomb.

When he had asked the girl who looked like she should have been in middle school but who was working as the shop clerk how to use it, she had explained, “Uhh…if you’re being chased by something beyond human understanding, twist the knob on the back and throw it at the Hollo…at the monster.”

“Well, this is a last resort,” Mizuiro muttered. He took the thing he’d been carrying around in place of a good luck charm, did as he’d been instructed, and threw it at the gigantic crab monster.

Lightning and a terrible sound engulfed them in the next second, and the monster’s whole body twitched as its movements slowed.

“Whoa, that’s harsh. If I’d chucked that thing at a person, they’d probably be dead.”

Keigo was taken aback at Mizuiro’s calm statement. He slowed down. “What was that!? A stun gun!? Uh…huh? What was that!? A stun gun!?” Keigo repeated himself, as though he’d given up thinking after the initial utterance.

Mizuiro kept Keigo in the periphery of his vision. He expected the young man in black to start going on the offense. But Ryunosuke Yuki, the essential part of that equation, had been so shocked by the recent roar and lightning that he was paralyzed with fear.

“Guess we’ve got to restart the marathon.” Though its movements had been impaired, they hadn’t completely beaten the monster. Mizuiro started to think that at this rate, they might need to grab Ryunosuke and run.

But his train of thought was abruptly derailed by a voice echoing through the alley—a girl’s powerful shout!

“What do you think you’re doing, Ryunosuke?”

Mizuiro saw the silhouette of a girl leap down from the roof of a building and confirmed that she was the Soul Reaper who had come to Karakura Town with Ryunosuke. I think her name was Shino Madarame?

As her shihakusho billowed, Shino used her downward momentum to swing the naginata blade of her zanpako-to with as much force as she could muster.

The terrific impact of the blade shook the surrounding alleys like an earthquake. The huge, crab-shaped Hollow was smashed to smithereens, and the resultant soul particles were purified by the zanpaku-to.

Keigo looked at the Soul Reaper who had defeated the gigantic monster in a single swing with surprise while Mizuiro calmly grasped the situation. Oh, so some Soul Reapers are dependable.

Ryunosuke, who realized that the Hollow had been purified, looked at Shino with relief and said, “So you’re safe, Shino… I’m so glad.”

“That’s what I should be saying to you, you fool!” Shino, who had landed with her back to Ryunosuke, leapt backward immediately and crashed into him with her shoulder. Whether it was intentional or coincidental, she sent Ryunosuke tumbling to the ground as though performing a luchador’s tope en reversa and then locked his arms and legs while he was down.

“You’re pitiful! How could you freeze up during the chance of a lifetime?!” “Ow ow ow! You’re going to tear me apart! My arms are going to fall right

off, Shino! You’re going to break my arms and neck and back at this rate!”

Keigo let out a huge sigh as, watching the two Soul Reapers exchange what could have been dialogue in a comedy skit, he realized that they really were finally out of danger. “Whew, you saved us. It’s Shino, right? I think I’ve seen you around before.”

“Huh? Oh, you’re that guy, aren’t you? The one my big bro Ikkaku took under his wing when he was in the world or whatever.”

“Your big bro Ikkaku?! Is that what he thinks of me?! That baldy didn’t take me under his wing! He didn’t do a single kind thing for me at all!”

When Ikkaku Madarame came to the world of the living, he had threatened Keigo Asano into housing him, partly against the boy’s will. One of the main reasons the Soul Reaper had been allowed to stay was because Keigo’s older sister had been all for it.

“I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that… Ikkaku would kill you if he found out you called him baldy.”

Once they were in a calmer location and could talk, Mizuiro and Keigo found out that Shino was probably Ikkaku Madarame’s little sister or possibly his cousin. The uncertainty was because their family had been in daily violent struggles in the Rukongai, and their parents had died one after another before they had been old enough to form memories. They were then passed around to

various relatives, so they themselves didn’t know exactly what their relationship was to each other.

Although she had followed in Ikkaku’s footsteps and attended Shinoreijutsuin after he had unexpectedly be-come a Soul Reaper, Ikkaku had told her, “I think you’ll have a tough time in the eleventh company.” The top brass must have come to the same conclusion, since she was currently assigned to the Thirteenth Company.

“Seriously, we’ve been training ever since that war with the Quincies ended, but there’s no point if you wuss out right at the critical moment!”

“Ugh, I’m sorry, Shino…” Ryunosuke’s shoulders slumped as Shiho chewed him out.

Possibly because he couldn’t just stand by and watch Ryunosuke suffer anymore, Keigo tried to redirect the conversation in order to put an end to the lecturing. “So actually, I haven’t been too concerned about it since Ichigo came back safe, but shouldn’t there be fewer of those white monster things now that the fight’s over?”

Shino breathed a small sigh at the question from the boy who had been dragged into their business. “It’s not like we or Kurosaki were fighting against the Hol-lows. And Hollows are already more likely to appear here anyway…”

Mizuiro nodded as though he understood. “Right, since this is a special sacred place. Supposedly that’s why Aizen targeted it.”

“You sure know a lot for a human. That’s right. That’s why anything could happen here. So we can’t ever let our guard down.”

Ryunosuke spoke up with a serious look in his eye. “Well, I think that I’ve been incredibly careful since the moment we were dispatched!”

“Stop making that call for yourself!”

Ryunosuke’s shrieks as Shino put him into a joint lock echoed through the streets of Karakura Town. Then, as though to extinguish his screams, a loudspeaker boomed from the main street.

“…and so, they were unsatisfied remaining in the present, yet humanity was left with no desire to return to the past, and those seeking a spiritual guide broke away to form a new world…“

“What’s that?” Shino scowled when she heard a voice flowing out of what seemed to be a campaign van.

Mizuiro replied, “It’s a new religious group. They formed because most of the world was in chaos after the earthquake half a year ago.”

The extended earthquake had happened during the war between the Soul

Reapers and Quincies, when the boundaries between the Soul Society, the world of the living, and Hueco Mundo had almost been destroyed at the death of the Reio.

The world of the living had been hit by a gradual and deep unease because the monumental, protracted earthquake had been caused by something outside the known geological processes and was scientifically unexplainable.

Many people had felt a foreboding, and it could even be said that they had sensed something. They had experienced an incredibly powerful force that surrounded the world, a force inexplicable by science or logic.

Although it had officially been reported as “a large-scale seismic shift that, according to all collected data, was of unprecedented magnitude, the source of which is still being investigated,” that hadn’t been enough to clear away the disquiet in people’s minds.

As a result, spiritual leaders seeking their own answers or people looking to take advantage of the fears of others had started forming new religions one after another, which gradually spread across the world in a jumbled chaos of and bad. At present, the new religions that had particular momentum had started to broadcast their doctrine using campaign vans.

To bring Mizuiro up to speed, Keigo told them what he knew with a serious look in his eye. “Apparently they’re saying that their religious leaders can actually perform miracles or something. But what’s most important is that there are rumors that a ton of the sect leaders are hot girls with wicked bods! There’s actually a world out there where one of the hotties might come to recruit me directly! I’ve been waiting half a year—gotta be patient!”

Shino looked unimpressed as she asked Mizuiro, “Hey, can I punch this guy?” “I don’t see why not.”

As Mizuiro nodded, Ryunosuke asked something he had been wondering about. “So what’s it called again? That new religious organization?”

“Right, I’m pretty sure it’s…”

≡

WORLD OF THE LIVING,

THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE OF A LARGE CORPORATION

“Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you, President

Vorarlberna.” The woman, who had been led into a simple room with a black color scheme, sat down on a sofa and respectfully nodded her head toward a boy playing a handheld game. She wore an alluring designer suit, and although her ensemble was pragmatic, anyone who saw her would notice the enigmatic sensuality about her.

But the boy, Yukio Hans Vorarlberna, gave her not even so much as a glance as he continued to fiddle with his game, saying in an uninterested tone, “You can skip the fake pleasantries. What do you want?”

The woman politely replied to the boy’s question, “My, my. There’s only one reason to meet with President Vorarlberna, spokesperson for Y-Hans Enterprises, the company destined to be the champion of the future. A young genius like you has the talent to lead the people into the future. As the guides to the righteous world that will inevitably be revealed to us, we’d like you to support our doctrine.”

Y-Hans Enterprises was a colossal company in Yukio’s portfolio that was currently vigorously expanding its undertakings. Yukio had usurped leadership from his father, and although he didn’t care much about the company itself, he had decided that one of his current life goals was to expand it. After battling Ichigo Kurosaki and the Soul Reapers, he wanted to create a foundation for the future that would welcome other stray Fullbringers like himself. Riruka Dokugamine had joined him in the endeavor, and with things moving faster than he had anticipated, Riruka was bringing Jackie Tristan in to join them.

The young company president and secret Fullbringer asked the woman he had invited into his presidential office in a cold tone, “Do I look like somebody who’d fall for that fake intro?”

“Would you rather I go right into ‘We’ll help you with your expansion if you donate to our organization’?”

“That’s a load of crap too. You—no, your organization—isn’t looking for

donations from me.”

Yukio continued speaking indifferently, in the same tone as someone muttering to themselves while reading a book. He took a hand from his game and pulled a business card out of his breast pocket before putting it on the table. Then, seeming somewhat annoyed with the woman, he said, “This caught my eye earlier, and now that you’ve come to see me, I’m certain. You don’t have any retries after this, so personally I think you should be honest.”

The business card was the one that had been passed through from the front desk when the organization had made this appointment. Staring at the name of

the organization on the card, Yukio once again asked, “What’s your aim?”

The woman’s name was written on the card in a simple script. And under it was a name Yukio could never overlook.

Aura Michibane Xcution Representative

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