"The larger and stronger the current world becomes, the weaker the Soul King gets. As the only converter, its effectiveness naturally keeps declining, and flaws start to appear along with it."
As a top-tier developer who once created the Gikon technology, Hikifune Kirio grasped these theories extremely quickly.
Just from reading a few core research reports, she had already pinpointed the essence of the problem with surgical precision.
Given the current situation, it would be very difficult to realize Kurotsuchi Mayuri's idea.
It wasn't that there was no way to make reishi and kishi combine into a stable state. She was confident she could find a method to fuse them.
That had always been her research direction.
Back when she studied artificial bodies, the essence was the fusion of a Shinigami's reishi body with a kishi shell.
Transforming inorganic matter was far simpler than working with organic material.
But there was a core issue.
"There isn't enough kishi. There simply isn't enough to fuse with the Soul Society," Hikifune Kirio stated the key problem.
To completely transform the Soul Society, even throwing in all of the Soul King's remaining body wouldn't be enough. There just wasn't enough to convert that much kishi.
"Exactly. As expected of the old hag who used to stand above me."
Kurotsuchi Mayuri didn't get angry at being interrupted. Instead, he let out a shrill laugh and snapped his fingers, "But what if… we change our way of thinking?"
His voice suddenly dropped, and what he said next made one's skin crawl, "What if we shatter and refine all the kishi in the World of the Living, then merge it into the reishi of the Soul Society? Wouldn't that be enough? Because of Hueco Mundo, the World of the Living is far larger than the Soul Society. The refined kishi would be enough to turn the Soul Society into a new world that's half kishi, half reishi."
"Are you insane?"
Hikifune Kirio suddenly raised her head and stared at the madman in disbelief.
"If you do that, the World of the Living will completely collapse. All humans there will die. And Hueco Mundo will also head toward destruction without kishi."
She took a deep breath, then turned to look at Rosse, who had been silently smiling the whole time, her eyes filled with complicated emotions.
"This is your idea too? Captain-Commander Rosse… does he know your real identity?"
To be honest, she was genuinely curious.
Did Mayuri really not know that the man standing in front of him, this Captain-Commander, was actually the king from Hueco Mundo?
Could this so-called Hollow King really agree to such a plan that would destroy both the World of the Living and Hueco Mundo?
"Does it make any difference whether he knows or not?", Rosse simply smiled faintly.
He met Hikifune Kirio's gaze calmly. There wasn't the slightest trace of scheming or calculation in his eyes, only pure rationality.
"I provide him with unprecedented ideas. He uses his talent to develop solutions. Since our goals are aligned, isn't our relationship quite pure?"
"Geh! Heh! Heh! That's right!"
Mayuri burst into laughter without a care, his cackling echoing through the empty laboratory.
"I don't care what the Captain-Commander's identity really is. Compared to that stubborn old fossil Yamamoto, and that bastard Urahara who clearly saw long ago that this system had problems but did nothing except play dumb…"
When he looked at Rosse, there was even a trace of near-fanatical admiration in his eyes.
"Captain-Commander Rosse is exactly to my taste."
For a scientist as extreme as him, morality, stance, identity, all of it was worthless trash.
If anything, having a superior like Rosse, someone with no taboos who dared to think and act, was the paradise he had always dreamed of.
Only here could he truly unleash his talent and touch those so-called forbidden fields.
He knew very well that, even if he refused to admit it, in certain aspects he really couldn't compare to that guy Urahara Kisuke.
That huge gap wasn't in technical skill, but in insight into the fundamental nature of the world.
But with Rosse as his superior, that problem was perfectly solved.
He didn't need to rack his brain to uncover the flaws of the world, nor struggle to search for higher-level problems.
Rosse would feed him those top-tier, most insane research topics one by one, like spoon-feeding him.
And what he, Kurotsuchi Mayuri, needed to do was simply unleash his talent and turn those crazy ideas into reality.
He loved this state.
This was what you called a perfect match.
As for whether Rosse was some outsider from another world, or some Hollow King, in his eyes it didn't matter at all.
As long as he could do research, forget a Hollow King, even if the ruler of hell showed up, he'd still call him Captain-Commander without hesitation.
"You're both insane! I… I must be insane too!"
Hikifune Kirio pressed a hand to her forehead in pain and let out a helpless sigh.
She felt like a certain line she had upheld her entire life was collapsing under the joint assault of these two lunatics.
"Geh! Heh! Heh! Old lady, don't act like you're some compassionate saint. Back when you worked on artificial bodies, plenty of people died too."
Mayuri mercilessly tore through her pretense. Back then, it was Hikifune Kirio who gave him his scientific enlightenment, but she was also the one who personally locked him up.
What she had done in private was even worse than him.
From that moment on, he swore to climb step by step to the top, to become the captain of the Twelfth Division.
No one would ever imprison him again. He would freely unleash his talent.
And now, he had done it.
"Old lady, if you've got the ability, then come up with a method that can both save the world and satisfy everything without sacrifice. Show me. If you can't, then shut up," Mayuri sneered.
"If I had that kind of ability, I would've already foreseen the world's collapse back then. Would it still be your turn to point fingers here?"
Hikifune Kirio shot them an annoyed glare, then spread her hands helplessly.
"And then? Even if we really do as you say, blow up the World of the Living and forcibly integrate kishi into the Soul Society, it would only temporarily maintain the stability of the current Soul Society region, right?"
She quickly got into the role and began picking apart the idea from a professional standpoint.
"After that, the evolution of this world would completely stagnate. The original reishi cycle would be forcibly interrupted. If a new cycle system isn't established, the consumption of living beings will still exist, and sooner or later everything will head toward extinction."
"If we had already solved everything, why would we need you to join in?"
Mayuri let out another strange laugh and directly tossed a set of incomplete experimental data in front of Hikifune Kirio.
"This is only the preliminary concept stage. We're still a long, long way from full completion. Stop wasting time, old lady. Join me and start this crazy experiment!"
"I must be crazy to go crazy with you!"
Hikifune Kirio rolled her eyes dramatically, but she knew what Mayuri said was true.
When it came to saving the world, a task that had to be done, everything else was pushed aside.
She gritted her teeth. Even as she complained, her body moved honestly as she threw herself into it.
She began mobilizing everything she had learned in her life, starting from scratch with Mayuri, researching the feasibility of "reishi solidification" and "reishi–kishi fusion."
Rosse stood to the side, watching the two busy figures working with burning intensity, a meaningful smile curling at the corner of his lips.
The fusion of reishi and matter, even with the power of another world, was something he couldn't achieve perfectly.
Although he could rely on the will of the world to forcibly merge a reishi world like Hueco Mundo into his own world, that connection wasn't tight. It was like forcibly mixing oil and water, not a true, perfect fusion.
But in his vision, in the future, his world itself would become the Human World, composed purely of matter.
Then, he would create a Hollow realm made purely of reishi, to house the dead and Hollows.
And above those two, he would create yet another realm, a heaven where kishi and reishi were perfectly fused.
That place would be where he and those close to him would reside, an eternal land beyond the boundary of matter and soul.
Even if Mayuri and Hikifune eventually achieved results, they might never be able to realize them within the Soul Society.
But this precious research data would become the foundation of Rosse's future act of creation, perfectly applied within his own world.
That was the true meaning behind his full support of the Twelfth Division's experiment.
Of course, there was also a bit of his own twisted amusement mixed in.
———
Once the experiment began, for those two scientists immersed in fanaticism, time seemed to lose all meaning.
But for Kirinji Tenjiro, who was completely kept in the dark, this calm before the storm was especially agonizing.
These past three days had not been easy for him.
Although he wasn't turned away at the Fourth Division, his old friend Unohana Retsu treated him exactly as he expected, polite, yet distant.
That woman who had once killed countless people and was known as the first Kenpachi now truly seemed like a gentle, virtuous lady.
Aside from basic courtesy, she didn't even exchange a single extra word of reminiscence. In the end, she even used the clumsy excuse that it was getting late, smiling as she politely saw him out of the Fourth Division.
Kirinji, having gotten nowhere, could only return gloomily to the First Division, spending day and night alongside Sasakibe Chojiro dealing with the mountain of tedious administrative work.
All those messy issues hidden beneath the surface of apparent harmony, like the Eleventh Division getting drunk and smashing shops in the Rukongai under the First Division's jurisdiction, he handled at least a hundred such incidents in these three days.
These trivial matters were driving him crazy, to the point he almost flipped the table on the spot.
It wasn't until the evening of the third day, when Kirinji had finally gotten used to life in the First Division, that he suddenly realized something.
Since the day they separated at the First Division barracks, that woman Kirio had not shown up for three whole days.
If it were before, he might not have cared too much.
After all, he wasn't particularly close with her, and it wasn't unusual for her to lock herself away in the palace for years for research.
But now things were different.
This was territory controlled by the Hollow King. A den of dragons and tigers.
What made his heart pound even harder was that from Sasakibe, he learned not only that Hikifune Kirio had never left the Twelfth Division, but Rosse, and even the equally dangerous Aizen, had also entered the Twelfth Division that day and hadn't shown themselves for three days.
These three—
One was the nominal ruler of the Soul Society, the true mastermind behind the scenes.
One was a schemer with the ability to control the five senses, unfathomable in his own right.
One was a fellow member of the Zero Division who should have been on his side.
The three of them had all disappeared in the same place for three days and nights, while he, also a Zero Division member, was kept completely in the dark like an idiot.
A strong sense of unease surged up instantly.
'Could it be that Hikifune has already been dealt with?'
'Or… did she defect?'
'Or worse, is she undergoing some kind of brainwashing modification?'
"Damn it!"
Kirinji could no longer sit still. Without any hesitation, carrying a killing intent so dense it almost took form, he charged straight toward the Twelfth Division.
———
The gates of the Twelfth Division were tightly shut. Standing at the entrance was a short-haired young woman in a Shinigami uniform with a well-proportioned figure.
She was the vice-captain of the Twelfth Division, Kurotsuchi Nemu.
"Move aside. I'm entering the Twelfth Division!"
Kirinji's voice was terrifyingly low, like a tiger about to erupt.
"My apologies, Lord Kirinji."
Kurotsuchi Nemu stood expressionlessly in front of the gate, her tone respectful yet firm.
"Without special authorization from Captain Kurotsuchi, or written permission personally signed by Captain-Commander Rosse, I do not have the authority to allow you into the core area of the Twelfth Division."
"Move! I'm going in now!"
Kirinji had completely lost his patience. His eyes turned cold, and a violent surge of spiritual pressure burst out instantly.
"Don't force me to act against a little girl like you at a time like this!"
A mere vice-captain with only third-class spiritual power dared to block a member of the Zero Division?
She was courting death.
He was already eighty percent certain that Hikifune Kirio had met with misfortune, or was in extreme danger.
"Kurotsuchi Nemu, let him in! Geh! Heh! Heh!"
Just as Kirinji was about to make his move, a harsh and familiar cackling voice suddenly came from Nemu's modified arm.
Without hesitation, Nemu stepped aside and respectfully made a gesture of invitation.
"Hmph!"
Kirinji snorted coldly. He didn't even spare her a glance, nor did he care whether there were traps inside the Twelfth Division. He strode straight in.
As the reishi barrier was torn open, the scene before his eyes made him pause for a few seconds.
Those liquid reishi structures filled with a sci-fi feel, the holographic data walls floating in midair, and the atmosphere completely different from the traditional Soul Society, this futuristic sight even made this well-traveled veteran feel a moment of surprise.
But he quickly snapped out of it. These flashy things couldn't stop him from seeking the truth.
His gaze sharpened. Without slowing down, he headed straight toward the deepest core area of the Twelfth Division.
There, he could clearly sense Hikifune Kirio's spiritual pressure.
But something was very wrong with it.
Unlike her usual gentle and restrained presence, her spiritual pressure was now almost completely in a state of near-uncontrolled release, fluctuating violently every moment.
It felt as if she were confronting some incompatible enemy.
"Damn it! Something really did happen!"
Kirinji's heart sank to the bottom. The blade in his hand had already quietly slid halfway out of its sheath.
'I knew it. These bastards are up to no good!'
'Hikifune Kirio, you better hold on!'
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