ONCE, A GREAT WAR RAGED between the gods who claimed to preside over death and those who destroyed the souls of the wicked. After a thousand years of discord, the conflict came to an end when the kings of both sides were brought down. And this great loss became the opportunity to usher in a new dawn for the relationship between Soul Reapers and Quincies. But few knew the real truth that a single person had been responsible for killing both kings—one who was neither Soul Reaper nor Quincy.
The rebels who invaded the Soul Society were known as the Vandenreich, or the Invisible Empire. Their leader was defeated by a boy who served as a deputy Soul Reaper in the Thirteen Court Guard Companies. That scant bit of knowledge, along with the declaration that “the Thirteen Court Guard Companies protected the Soul King,” was the only information to be disseminated across the Soul Society.
In other words, news that the Soul King—the very foundation of the Soul Society—had died was withheld to prevent the spread of panic. Residents of the Soul Society, including rank and file Soul Reapers, still believed that the Soul King was enshrined in the Reiokyu, the royal palace. The knowledge of his death was limited to specific Soul Reaper captains, a few higher-ranked seats, and those who held important posts in the Seireitei, all of whom were not especially anxious to destroy the general peace by exposing the truth.
And so restoration of the Seireitei began. Whether the upper echelons of the Soul Society had made the right decision when they chose not to rob the people of their emotional anchor would be determined in the decades and centuries to come.
That last battle later came to be known as “The Great Soul King Protection
War.” Our story traces back to a time immediately after the end of that conflict.
≡
THE REIO GREATER PALACE, INNER SANCTUARY
There were Royal Guards bustling busily in the spot where the Reio, the Soul King, had once been enshrined. High Priest Ichibe Hyosube, part of Squad Zero and also the commander of the Royal Guards, silently gazed at the thing in the center of the palace and stroked his black beard.
An airy voice called out behind him, “Is that the new Reio, your eminence?”
Hyosube turned to see a man standing there whose right eye was covered by a patch. It was Shunsui Kyoraku. “Ah, looks like you’re up and about again, Kyoraku. Mmm, I suppose you wouldn’t be the Captain General of the Thirteen Court Guard Companies if you weren’t,” Hyosube replied with a lively smile.
He realized that Kyoraku’s gaze was directed not at him but at the center of the area where the Royal Guards were at work. He replied to Kyoraku’s earlier question, “You should already know that the concepts of old and new don’t apply to the Reio. There’s value simply in having something here to revere and call Reio.”
“So basically you’re saying power is all in the name?” Looking conflicted, Kyoraku continued in a politer tone. “In the worst-case scenario, Ichigo would have been sealed to that name.”
“Good thing he wasn’t, hmm?” Hyosube, his voice free of emotion, offhandedly all but confirmed that there really had been a chance that Ichigo might have been named the Reio. Then, teeth bared in a smile, Hyosube continued to speak of Ichigo Kurosaki. “That young lad caught my interest too. I would have been quite beside myself if he had been rendered silent.”
“And good thing too. I wouldn’t want Ichigo’s friends hating me.”
“Ah yes, you gave them soul tickets, didn’t you? Let’s make sure to keep that a secret from Central 46 and the aristocrats.”
“Good grief, nothing slips past you, your eminence.”
The Reio’s throne was far from a desirable seat, and Kyoraku thought being installed there would have been one of the worst possible endings for Ichigo Kurosaki. He looked at the thing in front of him, and the memories etched in his
mind flashed once again.
In preparation for that worst-case scenario, Kyoraku had given special spiritual tools called soul tickets to those in the world of the living who knew Ichigo Kurosaki. Soul tickets were talismans that allowed one to move freely between the mortal world and the Soul Society and were the practical result of improvements to earlier techniques that had been used to transfer still-living humans from Karakura Town to the Soul Society.
Kyoraku quietly closed his eyes and remembered warning Ichigo Kurosaki’s friends. “Depending on the type of power it is, it may affect the world of the living. If that’s the case, we can’t allow him to come back here.”
He recalled the boy who had at first joked around but had then looked intensely angry when Kyoraku explained that it was no joke. “You’re not joking, yet you’re telling us to say goodbye just like that?” Then Kyoraku recalled the boy with black hair whose reaction had been the opposite of the first and who had been immediately angry on Ichigo’s behalf. His serene eyes had held an intense belief in Ichigo that had never wavered. Then there had been the girl who had been more concerned for Ichigo’s family than herself and who had been deeply distressed on Ichigo’s behalf.
Ichigo is blessed when it comes to friends. Well, I suppose he attracts people like Sado and Orihime because he’s Ichigo…
Thinking about the children from the world of the living, Kyoraku was relieved that Ichigo Kurosaki was safe now after being the main player in the war’s end. Then Kyoraku opened his eyes slightly and spoke to the high priest, an odd statement slipping from his mouth. “More importantly, I’m glad you and the others didn’t kill Ichigo.”
The high priest neither denied nor confirmed as he laughed heartily and slapped his own bald head. “I’m no Yhwach, after all. I can’t see into the future. No, in actuality, Ichigo Kurosaki couldn’t have won against him. If anything, we needed him to lose.”
“High Priest Hyosube…”
“But luckily for the boy, Yhwach had all of the Reio’s power. That guaranteed that the Soul Society would escape destruction whether or not Ichigo Kurosaki won.” The high priest faced the thing at the center of the Greater Palace and clapped his hands together while he spoke.
At the clear sound of the clap, the high priest closed his eyes and prayed.
Kyoraku continued his attempt to question him. “High Priest Hyosube, is that the will of the Reio?”
“Hmm…”
“Or is it just the will of the founders of the five noble clans?”
Kyoraku, whose polite tone had slipped, received an easygoing reply from the high priest. “My my, how can you speak so disparagingly of our dignified founders? Your tone hides none of your animosity. Do you think so little of Byakuya Kuchiki and Yoruichi Shihoin?”
“They’ve given me no reason to. They’re fellow members of the Thirteen Court Guard Companies, and I consider them dear friends.” Smiling wryly, Kyoraku shook his head as he continued, tone still casual. “They aren’t responsible for the actions of their ancestors, and it’s not as if they pretend their ancestors are faultless. Isn’t that right, High Priest Hyosube?”
“I suppose you could say that. And none of the founders of the Five Great Noble Clans are still alive, anyway—” Just as the high priest spoke, an explosion echoed through the Greater Palace.
“Huh?!”Kyoraku turned toward the source of the sound, feeling a spiritual pressure markedly different from that of a Soul Reaper. A section of wall that had until moments ago been fused with a Vandenreich building had been destroyed. White smoke was rising from the rubble.
Several humanoid figures whiter by far than the smoke appeared beyond the wall. The Greater Palace Royal Guard immediately unsheathed and readied their swords, but the high priest commanded them to hold. “Oh, no need to worry, everything is fine. You can’t win against these ones anyway.”
One of the pale silhouettes had already leapt toward them and clucked his tongue as though taken aback. “Tch… What? You’re not going to fight me?”
Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, who brought to mind a wild beast, glared at the high priest and Kyoraku with sharp eyes as he landed. “I’m not standing down just because you put away your swords.”
Grimmjow’s hand went to his zanpaku-to, but a small bala hit him in the back of the head.
“Gah…?!”
The impact was like being punched in the head. When Grimmjow turned to face his attacker, Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck was standing there, left hand still aimed at him. The ram-horned Arrancar woman had arrived in the Soul Society with him and was most likely the one who had hit him with the bala.
“Nelliel, why you…!”
“Is this really the time to pick a fight? Now that the Quincy king’s gone, we’re the largest group of outsiders in the Soul Society.”
“What about it? If you’re scared, take that dead weight of yours and go back to Garganta.”
The “dead weight” was an Arrancar woman currently leaning on Nelliel’s left shoulder. She was Tier Halibel, and both she and Nelliel wore the mark of the Tercera Espada on their bodies.
Halibel had been on the front lines from the moment that the Vandenreich had launched a surprise attack on Hueco Mundo, but Yhwach’s overwhelming power had immobilized her, and she had been taken prisoner as a symbol of Hueco Mundo’s defeat.
When the Reiokyu had been recreated, Yhwach had thrown her into his own dungeons, and she had eventually come to the palace as a prisoner. Now that Yhwach was gone, no one knew whether he had kept her captive as an example to the other Arrancars or in order to remold her into a vanguard for the Quincies. The only certainty was that she was still alive and had been freed when Nelliel, Ichigo Kurosaki, and the rest of his gang had gone to see her.
Though Nelliel had rescued Halibel, the new king of Hueco Mundo, she had mixed feelings about the current situation. They had been Aizen’s followers, and they had first come to the Reiokyu to stand before him here where he had so longed to be. Even as she dealt with her own uncertainty, Nelliel asked Grimmjow, who was hostile toward the Soul Reapers, “You’re going to pick a fight with people who’ve already been worn down by Quincies? That’s the kind of fight you like?”
“Tch. You’re so naive . You think these Soul Reapers’ll actually turn a blind eye to us? I’m not gonna let them stab us in the back on our way out.”
The good-natured, bald old man sporting a black beard answered him. “I’ll always look the other way when it comes to you. I would even be happy to escort you all the way back to Hueco Mundo.”
“Hnngh? Who’re you? You’re really underestimating us.”
The wounded Arrancars were no threat, and Grimmjow assumed that was what the high priest meant. A murderous urge radiated from his whole body as he glared at the bald old man.
“The opposite, the opposite! You’re much, much more powerful than any old Hollow. If we carelessly purify or eradicate you the way things currently stand, the balance between the three worlds would collapse.”
Grimmjow was briefly silent but soon tsked as though reaching some internal understanding and held back his animosity. He probably preferred to settle
things with Ichigo Kurosaki as soon as possible rather than waste time fooling around here.
Nelliel guessed his priorities and considered springing a surprise attack on him at the right moment in order to shut him up so she could drag him back to Hueco Mundo. But Halibel, who was borrowing her shoulder, suddenly spoke up. “Is that what you’re calling the Reio?”
Her words were a whisper, almost as though she were speaking to herself. Her gaze was focused beyond the Soul Reapers at the thing enshrined at the center of the palace. “Is that the foundation of the Soul Society?”
“Hm. So Miss Arrancar, do you object to it too?” the bald man asked while stroking his beard.
Halibel slowly shook her head. “I’m just a defeated soldier right now. I have no right to comment. But I understand why our late king hated that thing.”
Halibel removed herself from Nelliel’s shoulder and turned her back on the Soul Reapers. “We’ve caused trouble for you. We will repay our debt.”
“Oh, no worries. The best way for you to repay us is by staying in Hueco Mundo and not causing any more problems. And if you’re going to thank anyone, you should thank Ichigo Kurosaki,” Kyoraku said as he started to escort the Arrancars out. The women turned to leave the palace.
Grimmjow had interpreted Halibel’s comment about debt differently. “Oh, right…! I need to repay that Kurosaki guy.”
“You want to finish things with Ichigo while he’s wounded?” Nelliel accused.
The two continued bickering and squabbling as they left, just as they had been when they arrived.
“Ah well, everyone seems to want a piece of Ichigo— Oh?” Kyoraku noticed that the high priest, who had been standing next to him, was heading out of the Greater Palace.
“Where are you going, your eminence?”
“Just going to give Squad Zero a wake-up call.”
Squad Zero. The five members, including the high priest, were said to be as powerful as the entire Thirteen Court Guard Companies put together. They were the elite special royal guard. Each member of Squad Zero was a pioneer who had developed something fundamental to Soul Reaper operations, such as zanpaku-to or shihakusho. They were paragons who had, fittingly, nurtured Soul Reaper history from its starting point of zero.
But Kyoraku had heard that Yhwach and his subordinates had killed all of Squad Zero, minus the high priest, before he made his way to the palace, and so
the phrase “wake-up call” left him puzzled. The high priest immediately offered an answer to his confusion.
“We didn’t convert our bones to Ôken for the fun of it. Our spiritual powers have more or less fused with the spiritual pulse flowing from our Zero Riden. As long as one of us survives, the others will revive enough to at least walk when they are called for.”
“So you would have been in quite a dire situation if Ichigo hadn’t won, your eminence?”
Yhwach had at one point remade the Reiokyu into the Wahr Welt—the castle of the true world. Had Yhwach now been alive and well, even the vestiges of the Reiokyu would have vanished and the entire Squad Zero, minus the high priest, would have perished.
“Squad Zero won’t die so easily. I won’t allow it. That’s their fate. And I need Oh-Eetsu and the others to get back to work.” The high priest had spoken in an aloof manner just as Kyoraku normally did, but he paused for a moment to stroke his beard several times while looking up at the sky above the palace.
“That whippersnapper has been up to no good while we’ve been fighting.”
≡
THE REIOKYU HOOHDEN (PHOENIX PALACE), HALF AN HOUR LATER
“Oh, this has got me beat.” Oh-Etsu Nimaiya had just been brought back from the edge of life and death by the high priest Hyosube. He was holding his head, slumped at the bottom of an ocean even deeper than the subterranean level of the Hoohden—or at least, he was where the ocean would normally have extended across his Zero Riden.
Through the lenses of his glasses, he observed a demolished iron door and the wreckage of sacred ropes and shredded fabric cords. A very specific zanpaku-to was usually sealed away behind that door. But the seal had been ruthlessly destroyed, and there was no sign of said zanpaku-to anywhere.
Taking in the destruction from where she stood next to Oh-Etsu, Mera Hiuchigashima, a zanpaku-to and part of Nimaiya’s elite guard, heaved a long sigh. “That’s what happens when you let yourself get beat without thinking it through, sir. Seriously.”
Normally the sword storehouse rested far from reach deep below the ocean waves, but making Ichigo Kurosaki’s zanpaku-to had caused massive evaporation, exposing a significant stretch of the seabed.
“I know it was an emergency, but this sitch went sideways in all the wrong ways,” Oh-Etsu said, looking around as he righted his glasses.
Tokie Tonokawa and Nonomi Nomino, also part of Oh-Etsu’s guard, were tending to the numerous injured men collapsed all around who had been guarding the sword storehouse.
“That bone-dry ocean was like an open invite to walk right in. Plus me and Sayafushi were out.” Oh-Etsu narrowed his eyes, the quiet rage shimmering in them a far different emotion than what had shone forth when he had faced Yhwach. “But what really gets me is that some sleazebag looters showed up during a bona fide Soul Society emergency!”
There was something odd about the wounds the zanpaku-to had suffered.
These were among the strongest of the humanized zanpaku-to, and yet areas of their bodies had been frozen, and some were burned or were twitching as though they had been electrocuted, while others seemed to have been poisoned or riddled with holes. A few of their limbs even seemed to have been crushed by blunt weapons.
Mera tsked at the many unique wounds, each distinctive to a different zanpaku-to. “Seriously, how many people were involved here? If they had that many fighters, they could have at least pitched in during the war.”
One of the zanpaku-to who had regained consciousness shook his head at Mera’s words. “It wasn’t…”
“Hey, are you all right? It wasn’t what?”
“It was just one person… The surprise attack… It was all one person…”
Mera was even more bewildered at the other zanpaku-to’s words. That wasn’t possible, not with all the varied wounds they had.
Oh-Etsu’s reaction, however, was entirely different. He narrowed his eyes behind his tinted glasses and spread his hands wide, nodding as though convinced of something. “I see, I see. Well, well, well. Yup, I get it, so that’s how it is!”
“You’re weirding me out in a whole lotta ways, so could you stop talking to yourself, sir?”
“That’s harsh, Mera. Well, that heart-to-heart just helped me pin down the culprit.”
Oh-Etsu remained in silent thought as he plucked a shred of binding cloth
from the scraps that littered the ground. The cloth looked as if it had been bitten through, and it brought to mind a very specific person. “I wouldn’t let a nobody handle one of my swords, but Ikomikidomoe isn’t a sword that can be handled by a nobody in the first place.”
As he muttered the name of the missing zanpaku-to, Oh-Etsu looked into the empty air with the heartache and outrage of an offended swordsmith but also with a good deal of wariness. “So who are you going to get to wield that sword for you, aristo?”
≡
Then, just as the great battle ended, the Reiokyu’s borders were once again sealed. The deadened air resonated with the echoes of combat and the unchanging authority imposed by the Reio, and a great many warnings signaling disaster remained in the atmosphere. Or rather, countless sins continuously suggesting the dawn of a new age in the Soul Society drifted among the pronounced reishi.
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