"That's all for now. I still have to deal with the situation here. Captain Aizen, I'll trouble you to escort Rukia to the Twelfth Division. Make sure her safety is the top priority," Rosse looked at Rukia apologetically.
"Captain Rosse, just focus on your work. I'll be fine," Rukia hurriedly waved her hands.
She also wanted to get the thing inside her body removed as soon as possible. Who knew what it was, or whether it might turn her into a Hollow.
Even if she had to suffer a little, she was willing.
"I'll go along too."
Ichigo sighed and resigned himself to following Rukia.
He had finally managed to save her, so he didn't want anything strange to happen again.
Since he couldn't return home anyway, he might as well stay here for the time being and see if there was anything he could help with.
Fortunately, his teacher and friends were here too, so it wouldn't be unbearable.
Naturally, Aizen had no objections either. He was already eager to obtain the Hogyoku, so of course he hoped it could be extracted as soon as possible.
In fact, this trip was mostly just a formality. Even if Kurotsuchi Mayuri had no solution, he would still provide a bit of assistance at the appropriate moment.
As Aizen and the others departed, the once noisy Sokyoku Hill fell into a deathlike silence.
This earth-shattering battle, one that would undoubtedly be recorded in the history of Soul Society, had a surprisingly small scope of destruction. In terms of the area affected, it was not even comparable to an ordinary captain-level sparring match.
Counting everything, fewer than thirty people had truly stood on this battlefield.
And in the end, the ones who lay in pools of blood were only a single Captain-Commander and three vice-captains.
The number of casualties was small, but their weight was heavy enough to crush the entire sky of Soul Society.
As more and more Soul Reaper soldiers arrived from all directions, the moment they clearly saw that charred, aged corpse, an indescribable sorrow and fear descended upon everyone's hearts like a thick layer of dark clouds.
The old man who symbolized the stability of Soul Society had truly fallen.
Amid this suffocating atmosphere, a slightly staggering figure pushed through the crowd and arrived late.
It was Sasakibe Chojiro, who had originally been guarding the Great Spirit Book Corridor and was still wearing his proper Shinigami uniform.
"Vice-Captain Sasakibe, my condolences."
Rosse immediately stepped forward. His voice was low and carried just the right amount of grief as he gently patted the man's trembling shoulder.
"Captain Rosse…"
Sasakibe Chojiro raised his head. The face that always maintained a strict and rigid expression was now streaked with tears.
He only nodded mechanically toward Rosse. He didn't even have the strength to return the greeting before staggering past everyone and walking toward the figure he had followed for two thousand years.
Thud!
There was no heart-wrenching cry.
This strongest of vice-captains, who had never lost his composure in front of others, simply knelt heavily in front of Captain-Commander Yamamoto's corpse.
Even if he had been mentally prepared, even if as a Soul Reaper he had long accepted the reality of death, when he truly saw that man who had been invincible like a god fall on the battlefield, and fall through betrayal by his most trusted student, the pain of that faith collapsing was far more despairing than death itself.
'Sensei… it shouldn't have ended like this.'
Rosse didn't step forward to disturb him. He simply stood quietly in the distance, hands clasped behind his back, watching as more and more veteran Soul Reapers gathered around the Captain-Commander's body and silently wiped their tears.
"The mountain that suppressed Soul Society for a thousand years has finally collapsed."
A gentle and graceful voice, yet carrying a faint hollow quality, sounded beside Rosse.
Unohana Retsu had arrived beside him at some unknown moment. Her eyes, usually closed, opened slightly as she looked toward the distant corpse. In them appeared a rare trace of sombre nostalgia.
"Saying he suppressed it is a little too cold."
Rosse looked at the old man whose lingering authority still remained even in death and corrected softly.
"It would be more accurate to say he was the stabilizing pillar that maintained order for a thousand years, allowing Soul Society to survive until now. And today, that pillar has finally snapped."
"Oh?"
Unohana turned her head slightly, somewhat surprised.
"Captain Rosse truly thinks that? I thought that in your evaluation system, his existence was simply a stubborn rock obstructing Soul Society's evolution."
With Yamamoto's death, aside from those residing deep within the Royal Palace, she had now become the oldest remaining figure.
Although Rosse had awakened the killing nature she had suppressed for a thousand years, her long peaceful life had still changed her to some extent.
Seeing one of the few acquaintances from a thousand years ago pass away, it was natural for her to feel a trace of nostalgia.
"Whether he was a stubborn rock or a stabilizing pillar, the two aren't contradictory," Rosse's expression remained calm, as if he were stating an objective truth.
"Chaos is the ladder of evolution. When humans fight for survival or conquest, the talent and potential they unleash are something the peaceful greenhouse era can never compare with."
"But at the same time, if there were no external threats, if there were no pressure to survive, why would humans bother to develop or evolve at all?"
"That's true."
The fleeting trace of remembrance in Unohana's eyes quickly vanished, returning to the calmness of a deep ancient well.
"But when external enemies arrive, they rarely give people the kindness of time to evolve."
Over these thousand years, she had witnessed too many disappearances.
If she hadn't seen the possibility of reaching a higher dimension through Rosse, and if that long-dormant desire for killing hadn't been rekindled, she might have ended her own life out of endless boredom long ago.
This land had been peaceful for far too long.
So long that even she, the first Kenpachi, had begun to feel nauseated by the stagnant waters.
"So the death of Captain-Commander Yamamoto was an inevitability in the torrent of history."
Rosse turned away, no longer watching the scene of mourning, and slowly walked toward the direction of the Tenth Division.
"Even if it wasn't today, it would have happened ten years from now, or a hundred years from now. Eventually new Hollows, Quincy, or even things from Hell would appear to overturn everything."
"With his ideals, he was destined to become a gravekeeper of the old era, not a navigator of the new one."
This wasn't some grand revolutionary declaration.
Rosse didn't care about what was reasonable or unreasonable, nor about justice or evil.
Everything he did was simply to transform this boring world into a playground that suited his preferences.
The reason he felt this moment of reflection was simply because, the same principle applied to him as well.
If he stopped moving forward, if one day he also became stagnant, then sooner or later, when a stronger predator appeared, he and his playground would become stepping stones in someone else's story, just like Captain-Commander Yamamoto today.
And that was something he would absolutely never allow.
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