Bleach Cfyow Read Online – CHAPTER TWO – Part 3

AT THE SAME TIME, KUKAKU SHIBA’S RESIDENCE

“So then, just when I’m thinking that suddenly the statues weren’t appearing anymore, that jerk Ichigo pops up behind us outta nowhere! And he was like ‘Sorry, I ended up going down first, so I came by to get you’! Even though Chad and me were all revved up about clearing the path for Ichigo’s way back! What’s up with him already going back down to the Seireitei?!”

They were in the underground parlor of the Shiba residence, and Ganju was complaining to Hisagi as he slugged down his drink. “And ya know what?! That Chad guy was all, ‘Ichigo can only see the path he’s on’! But I sure never thought that’d literally be true, damn it!”

“Uh-huh…well, seems like you had a tough time.”

“And that Chad guy being Chad and all! The first thing he says in that whole mood is ‘I see…so it’s over,’ and he had a smile on his face! He made me look like a shallow dingus with how I started off by just complaining—guh-huh?!”

Ganju was interrupted by a kick in the back that sent him to the floor face- first. Kukaku, the one who had kicked him, stepped on her younger brother’s back as she said, “Stop babbling like a baby! You haven’t actually got any grit anyway!”

“But, sis! That hurt and was cruel!”

“No buts! You punk… You trained yourself for years so you could battle on

the front lines till the end, so how’d you end up off the track and lost…?” “Who told you I got lost?! It must have been Ichigo, that little ow ow ow ow!

Will you please stop, sis?! You’re gonna pulverize my back! Into smithereens!” Ganju yelled as Kukaku continued to step on her younger brother with-out mercy.

Not knowing how to react to the two siblings, Hisagi seemed troubled as he sipped his drink. In the midst of that ordeal, he turned his eyes toward Ginjo, who sat on his periphery.

Hisagi had been forcibly invited into the parlor earlier by Ganju in order to “let bygones be bygones by drinking together.” But when he had tried to ask about the relationship between the Fullbringers and Ganju, just to have something to say, he had wound up in the plight of having to listen to Ganju’s drunken complaints.

Tsukishima, incidentally, wasn’t taking part in the drinking party and was instead leaning against a wall in a corner reading a book. On the way to the parlor, Giriko Kutsuzawa, the man with the eye patch, had said, “I’ll fix some snacks,” before withdrawing into the Shibas’ kitchen.

“Actually, what’s up with Tsukishima and Ginjo getting past us to Ichigo?!

Isn’t that kind of unfair?! Hey, isn’t that unfair?!”

Ganju, who had been released from under his sister’s foot, aimed his complaints at Ginjo instead. Ginjo let Ganju’s words slide past him with a cool expression as he shrugged and gracefully drank. “Yukio and Riruka transported us there directly. We were crossing a pretty dangerous bridge too, you know?”

“Yukio and Riruka?”

Ginjo turned his eyes away at Hisagi’s muttered question. Then Ginjo said, “Yeah, they were part of the group we hung out with in the world of the living. They’re still alive, unlike us, but they still came all the way here just to help out Kurosaki.”

“They came here to help him…?” As the editor of the Seireitei Bulletin, Hisagi wanted to pry for details, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do so because of the wariness he felt toward Ginjo.

Kukaku, who saw Hisagi’s hesitation, spoke out. “Don’t look so miserable while you’re drinking. I told you earlier, didn’t I? Ganju and I have accepted these freeloaders. We haven’t got any concerns about them stabbing us in the back or anything.”

“But they’re—!”

“We even ran it by Ukitake.”

“Huh…?”

As Hisagi swallowed back his protest, Kukaku continued. “Well, it’s not like we can prove that now though.”

“Wait a second. Then did Ginjo meet Ukitake too?”

When Hisagi looked at Ginjo, the Fullbringer was rolling his empty cup around in his hands. “I didn’t see him myself. To be honest, I was going out of my way not to see him here.”

“You’re saying it’s different now?”

“Who knows. Suppose we had met. It might’ve become a battle to the death.” “Why are you so intense about him…?”

What in the world had happened between Ginjo, the first deputy Soul Reaper, and Ukitake? At the very least, Hisagi couldn’t let his guard down until he knew. No—no matter what was behind the rift, nothing would change the fact that the man in front of him was an enemy and Reaper killer. But… Hisagi felt a slight hesitation—or perhaps it was fear he felt in his chest.

If they crossed swords now and he managed to kill Ginjo, could he honestly say that he was just fulfilling his duties as part of the Court Guard by killing an enemy of the Soul Reapers? Wasn’t it wrong to let emotions swing his sword when he himself had tried to stop Captain Tosen’s revenge?

Aizen’s words from half a year ago came back to him. “What you have isn’t hate. All you have is sentimentality for Kaname Tosen and what he left behind after he disappeared.”

There might be some truth in that. If someone asked whether there was even a sliver of emotion in his blade, he probably wouldn’t be able to deny it. But he also couldn’t just overlook Ginjo. Losing sight of how to use his sword because he had been swayed by Aizen’s words would be an utter failing on his part.

Acknowledging his hesitation and fear allowed him to regain his composure.

He wiped the emotion from his face and, as a member of the Thirteen Court Guard Companies question-ing an enemy of the Seireitei, he turned back to Kugo Ginjo.

“You’re right that I don’t know anything. That’s exactly why I want you to tell me. What did the Soul Reapers…what did we do to you, the first deputy Soul Reaper?”

Ginjo, who had noticed Hisagi’s internal debate, lifted one eyebrow in slight surprise and put his cup on the table. “I see. So you at least have the qualities of an assistant captain.” He paused for a moment, smiling in fascination, before slowly shaking his head. “I’m grateful that you’re taking it seriously, but no

matter what I say, you’re still going to treat me as dangerous, aren’t you? How about you go and ask your Captain General about it?”

“How’s that fair? The Captain General isn’t one to lie, but I’m a journalist. I need to get everyone’s side of the story to be impartial.”

“I never thought I’d hear a Soul Reaper call himself a journalist. Besides, it’s not like all journalists are impartial.”

“I’m honoring the previous editor-in-chief’s policy of putting fairness first.”

Ginjo chuckled at his words. “You’re a weird one. At first glance, you look just like a Soul Reaper, through and through.”

“I’ll take that last bit as a compliment.”

“So? If I tell you why I became a traitor and you don’t buy it, what happens?” “You already know. When that happens—“

Kukaku, who had been silent until then, interrupted Hisagi as he readied himself to say the next words. “I’m not getting involved in a feud between the freeloaders and the Soul Reapers, but if you’re gonna fight, make sure you do it out front.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Got it. I’m not going to cause you any trouble.”

Hisagi nodded obediently as Ginjo shrugged in consent.

The tense air wavered, and after a few seconds Ginjo spoke. “This’ll mean that I wasn’t honest with Ichigo Kurosaki.”

“Huh? Oh, I kind of sensed that.”

“I had Tsukishima change my past, but…in that past, there was a half-Soul Reaper human who tried to help remove the Fullbringers’ Hollow powers… In that timeline, Tsukishima killed the half-Soul Reaper and all our friends.”

Every Fullbringer shared in common the fact that their parents had been attacked by Hollows. Hisagi had heard that it caused Hollow powers to course through them when they were born and to manifest as unique abilities called Fullbrings.

“So if you want to know what happened in that original past…there was never a half-Soul Reaper like Kurosaki. I was the only deputy Soul Reaper. So in that case, who killed my friends in my memory?”

“Wait a second. Aren’t they part of the past that Tsukishima altered…?” “Tsukishima’s ability, the Book of the End, can stick Tsukishima into other

people’s pasts. He can place memories and events relating to himself into other people’s histories, but he can’t just conjure up someone who never existed. So the person we thought was a half-Soul Reaper was actually just one of the Soul

Reapers I killed after I went into a rage.”

“It couldn’t be…” Hisagi gulped, getting a bad feeling.

In the corner of the room, Tsukishima had taken his eyes off his book and was watching Hisagi and Ginjo. Ganju must have gathered that it wasn’t the time to interject and was listening to their conversation in silence. The look on Kukaku’s face said that everything was irrelevant to her, but she quietly drank from her cup, unlike her usual self.

An unpleasant silence reigned over the parlor. Ginjo’s words were the first thing to break it as he spoke with darkened eyes. “Soul Reapers killed my friends from my other past. But I don’t even know what they looked like.”

Silence and a cold atmosphere once again tried to fill the parlor. Hisagi stood up and shook his head to keep from being swallowed by the dark mood. “Wait…Are you saying that Ukitake told them to do that?!”

“Who knows. But that was when I figured out the secret of the deputy badge.

You get what happened next without me telling you, right?” “Uh…” Hisagi recalled their earlier conversation.

“All you had to do was bring it up to Ukitake the second you discovered it.”

He hadn’t known the circumstances, but when he realized how far off his words had been, he was hit with a wave of shame. “I see… I can’t believe yet that this is the whole truth, but…sorry about earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it. It gave me a laugh.”

After that little burst of humor, Ginjo continued. “I meant to meet Ukitake that day in the Reiokyu when I paid back my debt to Kurosaki. I wanted to know how much of it had been his orders. I didn’t care that he hadn’t trusted me from the start or that he tried to kill me, but I wanted to know why he’d killed my Fullbringer friends. It’s all laughable now. I was prepared for the worst as I searched for Ukitake. I thought we’d die on each other’s swords. But he couldn’t even talk anymore.”

“That’s…” Hisagi tried to say something, but the words just wouldn’t come out.

He thought of the moment Aizen had killed Tosen. Tosen had certainly been able to talk to Hisagi in the end. But Aizen had butchered Tosen before Hisagi could see whether their paths would meet again, and Hisagi had forever lost his chance to hear from Tosen again.

Ginjo clucked his tongue at the expression the memory brought to Hisagi’s face and sighed. “Tch… I’ve said too much. I guess I let the alcohol get to me.”

“Wait a second. If that’s true then—” The ring of the soul pager in his pocket

interrupted him in the middle of his sentence. He saw a familiar summons notification when he pulled it out to check.

“Sorry. I’ve been summoned by First Company.”

“Speak of the devil. I wonder if the top brass is watching you too.”

Hisagi replied to Ginjo’s biting sarcasm. “I might believe that if it were coming from Captain Kurotsuchi instead of the Captain General. But whether or not they’re watching me, I’m going to finish my work.”

Hisagi stood and told Ginjo, “I can’t just take your word on this. I’m a Soul Reaper too. I don’t want to believe that my colleagues massacred people in the world of the living for no reason. I’ll look into what’s going on behind the scenes in the Court Guard. Even though I’m a Soul Reaper, I’m still the Seireitei Bulletin editor-in-chief. You can trust me.”

“…”

“Anyway, the conversation is still just beginning. And Ganju, I want to talk to you again. Next round is on me.” Hisagi bowed to Kukaku and left the Shiba residence.

As the sound of the motorbike engine echoed off into the distance, Tsukishima, who had been quiet until that moment, turned his eyes back to his book and spoke. “How unusual. I wouldn’t have expected you to bring that up to a Soul Reaper yourself, Ginjo.”

“Yeah. Guess I’m losing my edge.” After playing it off as a joke, Ginjo looked into the air with a serious look. “Well, he seems like an honest Soul Reaper. Like he’s really meant to be in the Court Guard. I didn’t know if he’d listen to what I had to say, but… Well, maybe I just wanted someone to listen to me in Ukitake’s place, since the guy kicked the bucket.”

Giriko appeared with some plates and said, “Oh? I just finished making snacks. Did the Soul Reaper go home already?”

“Yeah, looks like he’s the punctual type. He was in a hurry.”

“I see, how exceptional. The flow of time is an absolute law whether we are in the world of the living, the Rukongai, or the Seireitei. Even gods of death like the Soul Reapers follow it naturally.”

Ignoring the Fullbringers and their conversation, Ganju turned to his unusually silent sister who was still drinking. “Hey, sis, what did you actually think of that?”

“How should I know? I told you, didn’t I? This isn’t the time for us to butt in when we’re not Soul Reapers.”

“I wonder if our brother knew something about it.” He meant Kaien Shiba,

who had been Ukitake’s adjutant before the fall of the Shiba household. The circumstances of his death and the disappearance of Isshin Shiba, who had been part of a branch family, had led to the Shiba family being driven out of their noble station. But Ganju still thought of his older brother as the pride of the Shiba household.

Recalling the face of her no longer present brother, Kukaku dropped her eyes to her cup. “Who knows. Soul Reapers always look outward in order to protect the Seireitei. They might just be dense when it comes to villains the Seireitei creates itself. Look at that Aizen idiot.”

≡

HALF AN HOUR LATER,

FIRST COMPANY COMMAND ROOM

“Yo, you’re late, Shuhei. How far out did you go?”

“Sorry, Captain. I went to get an interview with Ms. Kukaku Shiba in West Rukongai.”

“Kukaku…? Oh, you mean Kaien’s younger sister.”

The Ninth Company captain Kensei Muguruma was already there when Hisagi entered the command room, and Kyoraku was peeking his head out of the door across the way.

“Ah, you two are here. Sorry for calling you in while you’re busy.”

Muguruma watched Captain General Kyoraku raise his hand in his usual manner “So? What’s up, Shunsui? Did you have a particular reason for bringing in just the two of us from the Ninth?”

“Well, I suppose. It’s just something that relates to the Seireitei Bulletin.” “Huh? Then why do you need me?” Though Muguruma was the captain of the

Ninth, he was in no way involved in the editing of the periodical. He had also been in recovery until just the other day after being treated for his zombified flesh and wasn’t even aware of the Seireitei Bulletin’s recent activities.

“So, about that. The higher-ups have something they want announced directly in the Bulletin. I thought I’d at least tell you about it, since you’re the captain.”

“They want something announced? By ‘higher-ups,’ do you mean Squad Zero?”

“No, the Central 46. Or the aristocrats behind the scenes, to be exact.”

Kyoraku turned to Hisagi for just a moment before he continued. “Actually, the head of one of the Four Great Noble Clans is changing. It’s already been brought up with the government, and he’s formally the head now. But he’s demanding that news of his installment be broadcast extensively across the Soul Society.”

“What? So it’s just the aristocracy being pigheaded as usual?” Muguruma said, peeved.

Muguruma was fully aware that he didn’t get along with the nobles, Yoruichi Shihoin excepted, and because they were talking about the Seireitei Bulletin, he quickly lost interest in the conversation.

Hisagi, on the other hand, acted as if he hadn’t noticed anything. “Huh… How much of a page will it take up? We aren’t planning on publishing the first issue until next month, and we’re starting with a special Great Soul King Protection War retrospective, so it will have to balance with that…”

“Apparently they want you to publish a special edition. And they want you to distribute it all the way out to the Rukongai.”

“A-a special edition?! Even if I can get the whole publishing system up and running right now, we really don’t have that kind of budget…”

A new head of house being installed was big news, but putting out a full issue for just Four Great Noble Clan celebrations or funerals was rare because the Soul King was the highest position in the Soul Society.

This was sudden and would require funds he hadn’t accounted for. If he had to distribute it all the way to the Rukongai, there was a chance it would blow through his entire year’s budget.

Hisagi groaned as he tried to think of how to scrape by on budget with additional manufacturing costs, but Kyoraku smiled and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. The noble family said they will take on all expenses.”

“Really?!” In that case, Hisagi could use the special edition as a pretext to spread word of the Bulletin’s return and increase subscription numbers. Hisagi started to calculate costs in his mind with a much different aim than he had a few moments before.

But—

As though to pull him back to reality, Kyoraku’s smile clouded. “And about that new head of house…”

“Huh? Is something wrong, Captain General?”

“If I told you it was Tokinada Tsunayashiro, you’d recognize the name, wouldn’t you?”

Thunk. Every vessel in Hisagi’s body pulsed intensely. “Tokinada…Tsunayoshiro.”

Hisagi did know that name. In order to bring Kaname Tosen back from the wrong path he had wandered down, Hisagi had tried to look into the former captain and learn even a little bit more about him. Details of the murder of Tosen’s closest friend had been appalling, particularly the fact that the husband hadn’t been imprisoned or properly punished and was now living his life unencumbered.

“Wait a second. Wasn’t he a member of the furthest branch of the family…?” “He’s risen in the world. Aizen slaughtered the Central 46, and we were in a

mess after the war. And then the head of the Tsunayashiro family and those closest to him were assassinated one after another last week.”

“Captain.” Nanao, who had been quiet until then, spoke.

The assassination of the Tsunayashiro household had been put under a gag order, so although Hisagi was an assistant captain, she wasn’t sure if they were allowed to tell him about it so casually.

Kyoraku stopped Nanao with his hand and continued. “I won’t conjecture, but Tokinada Tsunayashiro single-handedly killed all the assassins and was promoted from the branch family in light of his accomplishment. In other words, there conveniently isn’t anyone else in the main family now.”

Contrary to his preface, Kyoraku had phrased his words so that anyone could figure out who he was implying to be behind the assassination and what that person’s goal had been. Hisagi was no exception, and he steadily scowled as the conversation progressed.

“I know about him. I think you know this already, but he’s the type to do that without batting an eye.”

Hisagi wasn’t the only one to be astonished at those words. Nanao and Muguruma also reacted with some surprise. Genshiro Okikiba also seemed to agree with Kyoraku, based on his deep-rooted silence.

Hisagi and Nanao were surprised because they couldn’t believe those words had come from Kyoraku, who rarely spoke ill of others.

As though he had noticed their surprise, a smile full of self-derision made its way to Kyoraku’s face. “I’m not a saint. There are people who even rub me the wrong way.”

Then Kyoraku’s smile disappeared again, and he questioned Hisagi with an earnest gaze. “So you see that I need to confer with you about Tokinada Tsunayashiro’s instructions to release a special edition celebrating his

installment. Hisagi… Can you do it?”

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