Soul Society. Seireitei.
The Captain-Commander had been standing with his head tilted back for quite some time, watching the golden passage fade slowly from the sky above. The white shockwave Soifon had punched through on her way up still lingered high in the air, stubbornly refusing to dissipate.
He had just been about to turn and leave when something caught his eye—a tiny black speck, barely visible against the heavens, growing rapidly larger with every passing second.
Oh? So someone really did fall back down after failing to make it to the top?
Hands clasped behind his back, the Captain-Commander watched the speck with the serene, unruffled patience of a man who had been waiting for exactly this outcome—and with more than a little schadenfreude.
Then the figure came close enough to make out clearly, and he saw that the one plummeting from the Royal Palace was not Soifon at all.
It was Sōsuke Aizen.
BOOM—
Even with his butterfly wings deployed behind him to cushion the landing, Aizen's impact with the ground still produced a tremendous crash—reducing the stone-paved road that had only just been painstakingly repaired after the Zanpakutō Rebellion Incident back into rubble.
"Aizen..."
The Captain-Commander swept the dust aside with a pulse of his Reiatsu, and the sight that greeted him gave him a genuine start.
Aizen's Zanpakutō and one entire side of his body had been painted jet black. His Spiritual Pressure had collapsed to a fraction of what it once was. Had Ichibē Hyōsube actually thrown him out?
"Captain Soifon will likely be some time yet before she returns."
"Farewell, Captain-Commander."
With those parting words, Sōsuke Aizen opened a Garganta—and vanished into it without a backward glance.
"..."
That decisive.
The Captain-Commander stood in silence for a moment, turning Aizen's words over in his mind. Then, quietly, he recalled Ryūjin Jakka.
"Have Soifon's wanted order revoked."
He spoke to Sasakibe, who had hurried over to his side.
If all of this had been arranged by that person... then everything made sense.
---
The Royal Palace.
"Ha—?" Tenjirō Kirinji gaped, jaw dropping. "If she's not a member of the Zero Division, then why did you call her up here in the first place?"
Oh—wait, he caught himself. It had actually been Soifon who broke through the seals and came up on her own. It was only the monk's deliberately ambiguous attitude that had given the rest of them the wrong idea.
"Well, that's a relief."
"To be perfectly honest, if you'd told me I had to join the Zero Division, I would have had quite the headache."
Soifon pressed a hand to her chest with a small, exhaled breath of relief.
"You little—!" Senjumaru Shutara flicked Soifon on the forehead with one of her mechanical arms. "Do you have any idea what an honor it is to be invited into the Zero Division?!"
Out of consideration for the fact that Senjumaru seemed to be an old acquaintance of Yoruichi Shihōin's, Soifon accepted the forehead flick without arguing back.
"All right, all right—the rest of you head back to your palace islands. I need a word with Soifon."
The monk's easy, genial smile cut through the chatter, and the four Zero Division members dispersed without another word—each making their way back toward their own island without the slightest fuss.
"Since we're here, let's speak plainly."
The monk grinned at Soifon and simply sat down on the spot.
"As it happens, I have something I'd like to ask of you as well."
Soifon watched the Zero Division members' retreating figures, a glint passing through her eyes. She'd come all this way—it would be a crying shame to leave without squeezing something out of it.
"Fine. Though personally, I'd say only Tenjirō Kirinji and Senjumaru Shutara would be of any real use to me."
The monk slapped his knee—he'd caught on immediately—and agreed without hesitation.
"True enough, but..." A cunning smile curled at the corner of Soifon's mouth. "Even if they're no use to me, they'd surely be of some use to my students and friends, wouldn't they?"
"..."
The monk rubbed his smooth scalp, then put on an elaborate performance of pained reluctance—teeth bared, long suffering sighs, the whole theatrical production.
"Too difficult, you say? Then how about I—"
Soifon let out a cold snort, and made a show of lifting her foot, clearly about to follow Aizen's example and step right off the edge of the floating island.
"Wait!" The monk folded his arms, deliberated for a moment, and then reluctantly relented. "...Fine. This old man will grant your request."
Soifon stopped in her tracks and turned back, smiling at the monk. Both of them were equally convinced they'd just gotten the better of the other.
Soifon had won. The monk had won. So who, exactly, had lost?
At that same moment, back on their respective palace islands, both Tenjirō Kirinji and Senjumaru Shutara sneezed simultaneously.
The monk drew out Ichimonji and swept it once across the ground in front of him, clearing away the dust that the earlier battle had kicked up. Then he made a gesture that said please, sit.
Once Soifon had settled across from him, the monk spoke:
"I know what you've been working toward all these years. But the time to kill Yhwach has not yet come."
"Now, if that Aizen you brought up here had been qualified—whether Yhwach lives or dies right now would hardly matter."
"But that Ichigo Kurosaki, on the other hand..."
Soifon raised an eyebrow. It seemed the monk hadn't yet grasped her true objective—he seemed to think she had simply glimpsed the truth that Yhwach hadn't died, and was trying to eliminate him before he could become a threat.
When the monk mentioned Ichigo, Soifon cut him off: "Ichigo is off the table. Let's talk about Yhwach instead."
Her reaction was exactly what he'd expected. The monk took it in stride.
"Perhaps you also received guidance from His Majesty the Soul King at some point—discovered that Yhwach poses a true threat to this world—and that is why you've been pushing yourself so desperately hard to grow stronger."
"Even so, I imagine you also now know... that His Majesty the Soul King willingly allowed himself to be made into what he is, all to maintain the balance of the Three Worlds."
"And now, a method to free His Majesty and allow him to be reincarnated lies right before us..."
As the Soul King's attendant and oldest friend, the monk had no desire to watch him remain imprisoned in that cage forever. And frankly, he had never had any patience for that brat Yhwach either.
"I have no objection to that," Soifon said.
"But if Yhwach simply takes the Soul King's place as the one holding everything together—doesn't that mean the Three Worlds' fundamental problem still goes unsolved?"
"The mightiest souls, those with overwhelming Spiritual Pressure—they eventually die, and because their Spirit Bodies are too powerful to disperse naturally, they fall into Hell..."
Soifon nodded in agreement, and then raised a question that had the monk scratching his head as well.
No—it was a question that had even the Soul King himself scratching his head.
The flame nears extinction, yet no king appears to take the throne.
Even if His Majesty the Soul King succeeded in going through reincarnation as he wished, the problem of Hell would remain unsolved.
"In any case..."
"...Let's free His Majesty the Soul King first, deal with that rebellious child Yhwach, and then worry about Hell afterward."
The monk lowered his hand and let out a quiet sigh. In the end, he couldn't give Soifon an answer to her question.
The Three Worlds—the World of the Living, Hueco Mundo, and Soul Society—held together under the Soul King's stewardship were like a mountain of legacy code barely kept running with patch after patch. All the monk could do was keep slapping on more fixes. A complete rebuild was simply not an option.
And there was one more thing the monk had not told Soifon.
The Soul King had long since seen the future.
As for what Soifon called 'Hell'...
Even His Majesty the Soul King's prophecy spoke of it only in vague, uncertain terms.
With no answer to give, the monk rose to his feet, stepped around Soifon, and turned his back to her:
"Well... all of that is business for two years from now, in any case. For the moment, let me take you over to Senjumaru Shutara and get you properly outfitted."
"I've also already had a word with Tenjirō Kirinji—she should be in Gatonden right now, preparing a meal. I rather think her cooking will do something for your strength as well."
"Clothes handcrafted by the Grand Weave Guard, and a meal from the Grain King?" Soifon stood and smoothed out the hem of her Shihakushō. "I'm looking forward to it."
____
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