Karakura Town
Late at night, the streets were utterly deserted.
The city had fallen into silence, leaving the empty roads cold and vaguely eerie. Aside from the occasional bark of a distant dog, there was hardly a sound.
Then a brilliant light suddenly tore through the darkness.
A Senkaimon appeared without warning in the middle of the street.
A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped through.
The strange part was that he was wearing nothing but something resembling a captain's haori.
Beneath it, he was completely naked.
Not even pants.
Kazuma was about to hurry home when he noticed a drunk slumped against the curb nearby.
The man was clutching a bottle and seemed entirely absorbed in drinking himself senseless.
Perhaps the alcohol had somehow sharpened his senses.
Or perhaps it was simply terrible luck.
The instant Kazuma appeared, the barely conscious drunk suddenly raised his head and looked directly at him.
Their eyes met.
"G-GHOST!!!"
The drunk's pupils shrank as his face twisted with terror, and a shrill scream tore through the silent street.
Ordinarily, a normal human shouldn't have been able to perceive Kazuma at all.
This man, however, appeared to possess a degree of spiritual awareness that let him see beings invisible to ordinary people — Hollows, Shinigami, and the like.
Because of that, everyone around him had always treated him as some kind of lunatic.
After years of strange looks, mockery, and people calling him insane, even the man himself had gradually started wondering whether something was genuinely wrong with his head.
So he drank.
And drank.
He'd hoped alcohol would numb his misery, but somehow it had only made everything worse!
"Holy shit!"
The sudden scream hit Kazuma like a thunderclap and made his entire body jerk.
He was a Shinigami powerful enough to terrify monsters, yet some random drunk had managed to scare him.
How humiliating.
Thud!
Embarrassment immediately turned into anger.
Kazuma shot forward like lightning and appeared in front of the drunk in an instant.
One sharp chop struck the back of the man's neck before he could react.
The drunk grunted and collapsed unconscious onto the pavement.
Problem solved.
Kazuma wasted no more time and hurried toward the estate.
The night wind cut straight through him, making him shiver violently.
At that moment, he had only one desire — to get inside, crawl beneath a warm blanket, and sleep.
Although Kazuma deliberately kept his presence quiet when he returned, his arrival still disturbed Shihōin Chika, who hadn't yet fallen into a deep sleep.
The moment Kazuma entered the house, Chika's eyes opened.
He shifted slightly, preparing to get up and investigate, but once he recognized Kazuma's familiar reiatsu, he relaxed and lay back down.
A moment later, he was asleep again.
Meanwhile, in another room, Batsu'unsai turned over in the middle of a pleasant dream.
Still half asleep, she reached toward the space beside her.
Her hand touched someone and her eyes immediately opened.
All traces of sleep vanished.
Kazuma had somehow squeezed himself underneath her blanket.
"Pervert!"
Batsu'unsai's face instantly turned crimson.
Even the pale skin along her neck flushed as she lowered her head in embarrassment, muttering insults while trying to push Kazuma away.
"Heh. We've practically been an old married couple forever. Why are you still getting embarrassed?"
Kazuma refused to move, instead wearing a shameless grin as though he were extremely pleased with himself.
"Shameless! Who's an old married couple with you?!"
Batsu'unsai snapped her head up and glared at him.
Yet despite her words, her body unconsciously moved closer instead of farther away.
Then, after several moments of hesitation, she seemed to gather every bit of courage she possessed.
"I… I want us to have a baby."
Kazuma froze.
The words struck him like a lightning bolt.
Of all the things he'd expected Batsu'unsai to say tonight, that hadn't even made the list.
For several seconds, he genuinely had no idea how to respond.
Batsu'unsai herself immediately regretted having said it so directly.
Her face became so red that she wanted to disappear into the floor. Instead, she pulled the blanket over her head and hid like an ostrich.
But the desire behind those words was real.
That was precisely why she'd finally forced herself to say them.
"Heh…"
Kazuma's surprise gradually turned into a grin.
"Then let's have one."
Seeing Batsu'unsai curled up beneath the blanket in embarrassment sent a wave of heat through him.
He immediately pounced towards her.
...
"Master's wife! Time to wake up! The sun's practically roasting your butt!"
The following morning, sunlight poured through the windows.
Batsu'unsai's room, however, remained completely silent.
Morning slowly crept toward noon, yet there was still no sign of her getting up.
Rukia waited outside for quite a while before she finally began wondering whether Batsu'unsai had overslept.
Eventually, impatience won.
Without thinking too much about it, Rukia pushed open the door and walked straight inside.
Then she froze.
There were two people in the bed.
Kazuma and Batsu'unsai were asleep in each other's arms.
Rukia's eyes went wide.
Her face turned scarlet.
"AAAAAH!"
Her high-pitched scream exploded through the room like thunder.
Kazuma and Batsu'unsai jolted awake at the same time.
Still half asleep, neither of them understood what had happened before they saw Rukia turn around with a bright-red face and flee like a frightened rabbit.
"This is all your fault!"
Batsu'unsai buried herself beneath the blanket in mortification and punched Kazuma lightly in the chest.
The two of them had stayed awake almost the entire night and had only gone to sleep near dawn.
Even now, Batsu'unsai barely felt capable of getting out of bed.
Kazuma, however, felt deeply wronged.
He knew for a fact that he hadn't been the one who started things last night.
Sure, circumstances had eventually changed and he'd gone from passive participation to taking the initiative, but Batsu'unsai had been the one who lit the fuse in the first place.
"Hmph. Now you know how to be embarrassed?"
Kazuma's skin was apparently thicker than the walls of the Seireitei.
He looked down at the flustered woman in his arms with a wicked smile.
"You were pretty bold last night. I seem to remember someone loudly declaring that she was going to make sure I couldn't get out of bed."
"Shameless!"
Batsu'unsai immediately realized from Kazuma's movements what he was planning.
Her face became even redder as she protested, but her resistance lacked any real strength.
And this time, Kazuma was definitely the one who started it.
After all, a man ought to take the initiative once in a while.