First Division — the Captain-Commander's Office.
Knock. Knock.
"Come in."
A faint mist rose from the kettle, veiling the Captain-Commander's features. His authoritative voice resonated through the room — and then the door swung open with a low, drawn-out creak.
Soifon stepped inside, dressed once more in her Captain's Haori. Without ceremony, she crossed the room and sat herself down in the chair directly across from him.
The Captain-Commander's hand paused mid-pour. His teacup hung suspended in the air. He had been fully prepared to deliver a suitably stern reprimand for such blatant impudence —
— when, in the very next instant, the teacup was smoothly plucked from his fingers. Soifon brought it to her lips without so much as a by-your-leave, took a small sip of the hot, fragrant tea, and exhaled a long, satisfied breath of white mist.
"Haaah—" She cradled the cup in both hands and leaned back against the chair, eyes half-lidded. "Delicious... it seems your tea-brewing skills have improved, Captain-Commander."
"If I recall correctly, Captain Soifon has not had the opportunity to drink my tea on more than a handful of occasions..."
The Captain-Commander swallowed the urge to shout and instead delivered the words with a pointed, faintly caustic edge.
"That's true," Soifon admitted, blowing lightly on the steaming surface of the tea. "But it was simply a pleasantry. There's no need to take it so literally."
A vein throbbed visibly on the Captain-Commander's smooth forehead. The scorching Reiatsu radiating from his body caused the kettle in his grip to glow red-hot, the water inside roiling into a furious boil.
Now that she's stopped hiding who she really is, she doesn't even bother putting on a polite face anymore? Soifon, you...
"Don't be angry, Captain-Commander." Soifon set the teacup down. "You summoned me here personally. What did you wish to discuss?"
Setting aside the rare moment of levity, the Captain-Commander lifted his eyes to the woman seated across from him, his expression hardening:
"Ichibē Hyōsube could not possibly have said nothing to you. The other day, I failed to consider the circumstances fully — but right now, there are only the two of us in this room."
"You can speak plainly now, Captain Soifon."
"What exactly are you planning? And that Quincy Power you carry — what is the story behind it?"
The questions delivered, the Captain-Commander fixed her with an unblinking, hawk-like stare.
Even if the Zero Division and the Gotei 13 were aligned on the broadest possible level, he could not afford to assume that his subordinates would not become pawns to be sacrificed when the plan was finally set in motion.
Soifon exhaled softly and raised a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, a look of genuine difficulty crossing her face.
"Ichibē Hyōsube... did reveal certain things to me."
"He said... that in the future, the position of the Soul King will undergo a change."
Crack—
The armrests of the Captain-Commander's chair began to fracture. A moment later, a pressure heavy as a mountain range surged out of him without restraint, and the temperature inside the office spiked violently.
Knock knock knock!
Almost immediately, frantic knocking erupted from outside the door, accompanied by Sasakibe Chōjirō's urgent, anxious voice: "Captain-Commander?! Are you all right?!"
"Everything is fine. Captain Soifon and I were simply exchanging a few blows just now — there is no cause for alarm."
The Captain-Commander drew a long, deliberate breath, forcing his surging Reiatsu back under control. His voice settled back into its usual, measured calm.
The sound of uncertain footsteps outside gradually receded.
His expression went completely cold. "Then... who is the candidate to become the next Soul King?"
"An old acquaintance of yours, Captain-Commander."
"I wonder if you still remember the leader of the Quincy — the one you struck down with your own hands a thousand years ago. His name was Yhwach."
With those words spoken, Soifon shifted her gaze past the Captain-Commander, looking toward the shadow pooled beneath his chair.
The darkness rippled. A subtle distortion in Spirit Particle density spread outward like the invisible currents of water stirring beneath a river's surface.
From the moment she had first stepped into this office, the Quincy Power within her had been quietly sending her a warning: something with a faint Reiatsu signature was hiding in the shadows of the room.
The concealed Reiatsu lurking in those shadows had not gone unnoticed by Soifon alone — the Captain-Commander seated across from her had also detected the anomaly.
It seemed whoever was hidden in that shadow was either far too impatient, or far too confident in themselves — bold enough to eavesdrop on a private meeting between her and the Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13.
"Yhwach...?"
The Captain-Commander's pupils contracted sharply. The shock was real — but even as it hit him, his sharp gaze caught something else: when Soifon had spoken, her eyes had not been fixed entirely on him.
And behind him — a bizarre fluctuation in Reiatsu.
He did not move from his seat. He did not shift a single muscle. And yet, in the very next instant, Ryūjin Jakka reverted to its blade in his grip — and without a word of warning, he swept it behind him in a single blazing arc of fire.
BOOM—
Everything the slash passed through — the wooden flooring, the tatami mats, and even the thick stone wall beyond — was split violently in two.
A scorching shockwave hurled shattered debris outward through the opening, exposing the wide sky and streets of Seireitei beyond the ruined wall. The Captain-Commander's white Haori whipped and billowed in the searing heat.
The tremendous impact brought every Shinigami below to a standstill. They craned their necks upward in stunned disbelief, staring at the massive gap scorched into the building — and at the Captain-Commander standing tall with blade in hand amid the flames.
And before him, a white figure was slowly rising from the darkness below — Quilge.
He glanced down at the sniper rifle in his hands. The barrel bore a clean, precise cut straight through it, the severed face faintly dark-red from the heat that had melted it.
"As expected of the Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13."
"To have detected me while I was concealed within the shadows... and moreover — to have forced me to open my left eye even once."
He spoke with a flat, unhurried appreciation. He raised one hand, ran his fingers across the sheared break in the rifle barrel — and the severed portion simply grew back, the weapon restored as though it had never been damaged.
Soifon observed the newly revealed Sternritter with undisguised interest.
Quilge actually reacted in time to that slash — and managed to open his left eye successfully?
At this point in the timeline, Quilge should not have been anywhere near this powerful. Could it be that Yhwach had already redistributed his power allocations?
Was it those words I just said — had they drawn Yhwach's direct attention?
She hadn't expected that throwing out a vague statement of truth would set Yhwach himself into motion. He really did jump at the slightest provocation.
Wait — Yhwach doesn't actually believe the monk intends to make him the Soul King, does he? Or perhaps the two of them have a different understanding of what 'Soul King' even means.
Meanwhile, the Captain-Commander had already stepped forward, blade leveled, and fixed Quilge with a hard stare: "Who are you? What is your purpose in infiltrating Seireitei?"
That last slash had given him a deeply unsettling feeling. Ryūjin Jakka's strike had landed — he was certain of it — and yet this man had evaded the blow by some method he had never seen before.
Quilge did not answer immediately. He reached up and adjusted the pure white hooded cloak he wore, its hem embroidered with the refined crest of the Sternritter.
"Does it not look familiar to you? Aged Captain-Commander."
He reached up and pulled back the hood, his question carrying a faint edge of mockery.
The Captain-Commander's pupils snapped shut. A thousand-year-old tide of broken memories crashed over him.
Countless Quincy. White military uniforms. And standing atop a mountain of corpses — the King of the Quincy, whom he had personally killed. Yhwach.
"Quincy..."
The Captain-Commander enunciated the word one syllable at a time.
"Correct."
"I am Quilge — member of the Sternritter, and Captain of His Majesty's personal guard."
Quilge gave a single measured nod, looking thoroughly satisfied by the reaction he had provoked. He raised his chin with an air of cool arrogance and introduced himself.
Then, his face turned toward Soifon — who had remained seated in her chair throughout all of this — and he extended one hand in an unmistakable gesture of invitation:
"Powerful Quincy, adrift from your people — return now to His Majesty's embrace."
"Two years from now, His Majesty will reign over the Three Worlds."
"His Majesty dispatched me — his own guard captain — to extend this invitation in person."
"This is the measure of His Majesty's sincerity."
Quilge's hand hung suspended in mid-air.
In the very next instant, a crimson blade swept through the air and sliced cleanly toward his wrist.
But the blade missed again.
Or, to be more precise — it passed through Quilge's body entirely, leaving nothing behind but a shimmering twist of heat haze in its wake.
"I see."
"When his left eye is open, his body becomes intangible to all attacks. In that case..."
"How do you intend to handle a relentless, unbroken chain of slashes?"
The Captain-Commander drew Ryūjin Jakka back into its sheath. His right foot stepped forward. His knees dipped slightly. His right hand settled over the hilt; his left hovered at the scabbard. He settled into the opening stance of Iaido.
Shiiing — shiiing — shiiing —
For a full second, a continuous curtain of crimson blade-light filled the air. And yet — Quilge's left eye stayed open. Impossibly, it held. Every single one of the Captain-Commander's slashes missed.
In a place the Captain-Commander could not see, a cold sweat had broken out across Quilge's back.
That was dangerously close. Another half-second and he'd have lost control of it entirely.
Once the reality of what had nearly happened sank in, Quilge's embarrassment curdled into fury. He abandoned any pretense of formal address.
"It's useless, Yamamoto—"
The words died in his mouth.
Soifon — who had been sitting calmly to the side this entire time — erupted.
A torrent of golden Reiatsu crashed down over Quilge like a collapsing sky, shattering straight through the roof of the First Division barracks and driving him flat against the ground with a weight that bent the air.
It could not harm him. But it could humiliate him — and it did so thoroughly.
[She's pinning me — someone enhanced directly by His Majesty — with pure Reiatsu alone...]
[No... that can't be right. She has Reiatsu this immense?!]
Pressed into the floor, Quilge stared up with eyes that had gone wide with disbelief and something very close to fear.
Soifon raised one hand. A bolt of white lightning ignited at her fingertip and drove straight through Quilge's body — passing clean through without leaving a single mark.
"I see. While his left eye is open, his body phases through all physical attacks — but it cannot phase through Reiatsu."
"That brings me to a question, Captain of the personal guard..."
She propped her chin on her hand and began her performance of "analytical deliberation" with a perfectly measured air of detached curiosity.
"...What is your question..."
Pinned beneath Soifon's Reiatsu, Quilge's face was a mask of humiliated fury — but with the knowledge that she was the Quincy His Majesty had expressly come to invite, he forced himself to swallow it.
"If you keep holding your eye open like that... doesn't it dry out?" Soifon asked, with the slyness of someone who had already worked out the answer. "I can keep this Reiatsu pressure on you indefinitely. The moment you blink, I'll execute you on the spot."
The instant the words landed, Quilge's silhouette was swallowed by dense, impenetrable shadow. Without giving Soifon so much as an opening to follow up, he dove face-first into the darkness below and vanished.
As ignominious an exit as it was, Quilge's sixth sense had delivered its verdict with absolute clarity: if he stayed, he would die.
"You'll come back to our side eventually, Soifon."
"Because you are a Quincy."
"We will wait for you. Return to His Majesty's embrace."
His voice echoed around the ruined room, and then his presence dissolved completely into the shadow below — as though he had never existed at all.
What remained was nothing but rubble, broken walls, and an office that reeked of scorched wood — the only proof that he had ever been there.
Silence fell over the office. Then, a moment later, the sound of urgent, rushing footsteps thundered from outside the door.
"Who's there?!"
"Protect the Captain-Commander!"
Sasakibe Chōjirō burst into the devastated office with several Seated Officers behind him, every Shinigami in the group with their Zanpakutō drawn, every face taut with alarm.
Someone attacked Captain Soifon? No — the direction of the slash was behind the desk. And Captain Soifon is still seated calmly in her chair.
The baffling scene left Sasakibe Chōjirō momentarily at a complete loss.
The Captain-Commander slid Ryūjin Jakka — half-drawn — back into its sheath, rose from his seat, and addressed Sasakibe directly: "Alert every member of the Gotei 13 to exercise vigilance around shadows. Report any irregularities immediately."
He paid no further mind to the bewildered expression on his lieutenant's face — a single measured glance was sufficient. Sasakibe came to attention, rendered a precise salute, and departed to carry out the order.
The Captain-Commander pulled up a chair and settled himself directly in front of Soifon. His eyes swept over her with the methodical intensity of a scanner.
"Do you have anything you'd like to explain?"
"Why did a Quincy just emerge from the shadows of my office?"
Throughout everything, Soifon had been entirely too composed — she hadn't once moved to explain herself or distance herself from what had happened.
"No explanation needed. I did awaken Quincy abilities several decades ago, Captain-Commander. That much is true."
Soifon raised her hand. Between her fingers, a massive Heilig Pfeil materialized — she held it flat across the space between them.
"As for the shadows..."
She crushed the Heilig Pfeil in her grip. "A very long time ago, Yhwach concealed the Quincy's headquarters — the Wandenreich — inside the shadow of Seireitei itself."
Hidden in the shadow of Seireitei itself?
That meant Seireitei had been living under the Wandenreich's surveillance for all these years without ever knowing it.
It was as though Soifon had read his mind. She shook her head, pre-empting his conclusion:
"Surveillance too overt would have been detected by any Captain-level Reiatsu sensor."
"So for the most part, they could only observe from a distance. Much of the core intelligence they simply could not reach."
But even so —
"Hmph! Even so, they will have gathered more than enough intelligence already."
The Captain-Commander brought his staff down with a heavy crack, his brow furrowing deeply.
His immense Reiatsu fanned outward in every direction, sweeping across every shadow in the vicinity — and found nothing. Not the faintest trace of an anomaly.
Nothing. Only the wind rolling through the ruined office, carrying with it the smell of ash and scorched wood.
"These secrets... Ichibē Hyōsube told all of this to you?"
After a long pause, the Captain-Commander spoke again, his voice slow and deliberate.
Soifon gave a small nod — and then shook her head. In truth, the monk had told her none of this directly.
"Some of it, yes."
"The rest... I learned through the Quincy family I was involved with in the World of the Living."
"Captain-Commander, you are no doubt aware that while Yhwach is the progenitor of all Quincy, that does not mean every Quincy is content to accept his rule — his power to grant life and to take it away."
Taking advantage of the moment, Soifon proceeded to walk the Captain-Commander through the structure of Yhwach's power system — so that when the day came and he found himself face-to-face with that bearded man, he would not be caught entirely off guard.
Auswählen. Altar of Usurpation. Schrift. Kaiser Gesang. The Soul King's left hand...
So the opponent he had fought before was only a half-finished version of Yhwach?
The thought that the ancient enemy he had gone to war with a thousand years ago had been fighting him with his powers sealed away by the monk — that his greatest rival had never even been operating at full capacity — sat poorly in his chest.
Even so, a thousand years had not left him standing still. A "mere" Yhwach posed him less pressure than the woman seated in front of him right now.
One thought of the Reiatsu she had unleashed just moments ago was enough to send a chill down the Captain-Commander's spine. He, the strongest Shinigami of the past millennium — it seemed he and this woman were no longer operating in the same dimension.
"Given that the blood of every Quincy ultimately flows from Yhwach..."
"Then... Captain Soifon, whose side are you truly on?"
He steered the conversation back to her.
"I stand on the side of my own blood, naturally, Captain-Commander."
The Captain-Commander's spine went cold in an instant. He was already reaching for his blade, already shifting into a fighting stance — when Soifon's next words followed immediately:
"But my blood does not come from Yhwach."
— It comes from the System.
"Captain Soifon — you know, in all my years, the one thing I have never been able to tolerate is a person who speaks only in half-truths."
____
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