Golden Seal Nobles' Meeting

"What goes on in that head of yours all day?" Xuanxin tapped Yoruichi on the forehead in exasperation and changed the subject.

"You're a busy woman. Why aren't you tormenting Ōmaeda in the Second Division? What brings you all the way to Shin'ō Academy to see me?"

Yoruichi rubbed her forehead where he had tapped it and stuck out her tongue.

"Oh, it's nothing important. Remember those old classmates who joined us for Soul Burial training in the World of the Living? They heard you'd become captain of the 11th Division and wanted to get together on today's day off and celebrate over drinks."

"I figured all you do every day is train and deal with paperwork. It's time you relaxed a little, so I came to see what you thought."

At that, Xuanxin recalled the battles they had fought in the World of the Living, and a long-forgotten trace of nostalgia rose in his heart. Bonds forged between life and death were Soul Society's most precious treasures.

"Sure, let's go."

Xuanxin nodded, then took a long look at Aizen in the distance before leaving the academy side by side with Yoruichi.

The gathering was held at a rather stylish izakaya in the first district of Rukongai, Seireitei.

The mood at the table was lively.

The classmates who had faced life and death together in the World of the Living had all become Seated Officers in the Gotei 13.

They exchanged drinks and reminisced about the eventful years they had shared.

Yoruichi and Xuanxin sat together as usual. Yoruichi was as uninhibited as ever, matching drinks with their former classmates as her bright laughter rang out without pause.

Xuanxin smiled and accepted his classmates' toasts, but his thoughts kept drifting back to the figure he had seen at the academy that afternoon.

He held his cup, his gaze lowered slightly.

Xuanxin kept turning the question over in his mind. What is it? What exactly is that distinctive quality about Aizen that feels so utterly out of place?

As Xuanxin sank into thought, a male classmate across the table, already rather drunk, slammed a hand down on it.

He raised his cup and pointed at Xuanxin and Yoruichi, speaking in a slur.

"I never would have guessed! Back when we were at school, I heard there was something going on between you two. But I never thought Yoruichi would win over our school's genius so quickly! Xuanxin was a few years behind us, wasn't he?"

The teasing remark drew a burst of good-natured laughter from the others at the table. Not to be outdone, Yoruichi raised her cup, ready to resume her drinking match with the man.

The male classmate belched, shook his head, and continued as though he were drowning his sorrows.

"Hey, hey, you can't blame me!! After all, don't books always say..."

The male classmate raised his cup and bobbed his head as he summed it up.

"You know, geniuses are always lonely!"

Chapter 43: Golden Seal Nobles' Meeting

Those words exploded in the depths of Xuanxin's mind like the toll of a great bell!

"Lonely..."

Xuanxin jerked his head up, a bright light flashing through his deep black eyes.

"That's it! It's loneliness!"

The hand holding his cup froze in midair. That thoughtless remark at the table struck Xuanxin like a revelation, instantly sweeping away all the fog before his eyes.

Because Aizen stood too high above everyone else, he looked at his classmates, the teachers at the lectern, and even those lofty nobles as though they were a group of ants that had yet to fully evolve.

How could any normal person open his heart to a group of ants?

The smile perpetually on Sōsuke Aizen's face, his impeccable manners, and his willingness to help others weren't there because he truly cared about those people.

On the contrary, they were merely a mask he used to shut out the world.

He used that perfect facade to hide his true self deep within, allowing no one to touch it and disdaining to let anyone understand it.

So that's how it is...

Xuanxin murmured silently to himself, the confusion in his eyes vanishing completely, replaced by an unprecedented clarity and resolve.

Now that he had seen through that false exterior, what he needed to do next was clear.

Just as Yoruichi had said, this flower was destined to astonish Soul Society, but since there was a chance it might grow crooked in the future, he, as its teacher, had the responsibility and duty to take up his shears and gradually prune away those dangerous branches.

Having thought it all through, Xuanxin felt himself relax.

He tipped his head back and drained the sake in his cup, then turned to look at Yoruichi, who was red-faced from matching drinks with their old classmates. A gentle smile curved his lips.

Early the next morning.

Sunlight slanted through the window lattice and fell across the corridors of the Second Division barracks.

Inside the Second Division's spacious lieutenant's office, the air was still thick with the smell of ink and a suffocating sense of despair.

Behind the broad desk, Marechiyo Ōmaeda, whose figure was already quite round, lay slumped deep amid mountains of paperwork like an overboiled rice dumpling.

His once immaculately arranged topknot was disheveled, enormous circles darker than ink shadowed his eyes, and his entire being radiated intense resentment.

"Scratch, scratch, scratch..."

The frantic scratching of a brush against paper was the only sound dominating the office.

Just as Marechiyo Ōmaeda gritted his teeth and tried to sign his name to a lengthy report on security patrols in Rukongai—

"Rattle—"

The office door was gently slid open from outside.

Marechiyo Ōmaeda didn't even raise his head. His brain, nearly numb from the torment of paperwork, reflexively assumed it was another tactless squad member who had come to ask where the captain was.

"I'm only saying this one last time!"

Marechiyo Ōmaeda scribbled furiously as he shouted in a voice full of irritation and despair:

"The captain isn't here! If you need her urgently, turn right outside and look for her at the 11th Division training grounds or captain's office! Stop bothering me!"

But the person outside didn't meekly retreat like the squad members usually did.

Several seconds passed, and Marechiyo Ōmaeda didn't hear the expected sound of the door closing as the visitor left. Instead, steady, quiet footsteps entered the office at an unhurried pace and finally stopped in front of his desk.

"Didn't I tell you? The captain isn't..."

Marechiyo Ōmaeda impatiently threw down his brush and jerked his head up, ready to give this blind subordinate a proper scolding.

But when he saw the tall, straight figure standing before his desk and that distinctive long silver-white hair, his voice caught in his throat.

"Cap... lieutenant... no! It's Xuanxin... no, no, no! Lord Kenpachi?!"

Marechiyo Ōmaeda's bloodshot eyes went wide, and his lips trembled as he stumbled over what to call Xuanxin.

After a brief moment of shock, an immense, indescribable sense of grievance burst forth like a flood through a broken dam, instantly overwhelming the new lieutenant's defenses.

"Waaah—Lord Xuanxin!! You're finally back!!"

Marechiyo Ōmaeda sprang from his chair, his massive body moving with a speed completely at odds with its size.

He lunged like a ravenous dog, leaping straight over the desk and clinging to Xuanxin's thigh in a comical, utterly undignified pose.

"Please do something about the captain! She hasn't shown her face in the Second Division for an entire week! This isn't making me a lieutenant, it's treating me like a beast of burden! Boo-hoo-hoo, if you hadn't come back soon, I'd have died under all this paperwork!"

The sight of a huge, burly man clinging to his thigh and weeping with tears and snot streaming down his face was so striking that even Xuanxin's usually impassive expression gave way to shock and resignation.

Xuanxin sighed and was just about to say something to comfort this poor "tool."

"Rattle—!"

The office's sliding door was yanked open again.

A lithe figure in a Captain's Haori appeared in the doorway like a ghost. It was Yoruichi Shihōin, who had just wandered back from the 11th Division and was looking for Xuanxin.

As soon as Yoruichi entered, she saw the comical sight of Marechiyo Ōmaeda clinging to Xuanxin's thigh and sobbing out his complaints.

"Marechiyo Ōmaeda!"

Yoruichi narrowed her eyes slightly, a dangerous chill flashing through her golden pupils.

She took a sharp step forward and folded her arms, looking down coldly at the mountain of flesh on the floor. Her voice carried an imposing pressure even without anger.

"What was that? Were you just complaining to someone about your captain? It seems I haven't given you enough paperwork if you still have the leisure to sit here crying about it."

At the familiar voice that seemed to come from hell itself, the fat on Marechiyo Ōmaeda's entire body quivered.

Like a mouse facing a cat, he was scared out of his wits. The hands clinging tightly to Xuanxin's thigh released him as though shocked.

He scrambled back two steps on all fours. Though he no longer dared cling to Xuanxin's thigh, his bloodshot eyes still looked at him pitifully and pleadingly, as though he were gazing at his last lifeline.

Looking at Ōmaeda's utterly hopeless expression, Xuanxin couldn't help feeling a trace of sympathy. After all, more than half the mess filling this office had been caused by his own indulgence of Yoruichi in the past.

"All right, Yoruichi, stop scaring him."

Xuanxin shook his head helplessly, then stepped forward and gently patted Marechiyo Ōmaeda on his broad shoulder.

Under Ōmaeda's hopeful gaze, Xuanxin glanced back at Yoruichi and finally delivered a few cold, merciless words in a sincere tone:

"You... keep up the hard work."

At those words, the light in Marechiyo Ōmaeda's eyes went out completely.

Ignoring Ōmaeda, who had turned completely to stone on the spot, Xuanxin turned and gave Yoruichi a look.

Yoruichi immediately understood and followed Xuanxin out of the resentment-filled office, heading toward the secret archives deep within the Second Division.

"What brings you to the Second Division today? I didn't see you at the 11th Division just now." Walking through the cool corridor, Yoruichi rested her hands behind her head and asked with some curiosity.

"The 11th Division squad members are all well behaved now, and they can handle their basic training on their own. I came today because I want to use the Stealth Force's authority to look up a file," Xuanxin said, lowering his voice.

"A file? On whom?"

"A Shin'ō Academy student, Sōsuke Aizen." Xuanxin's gaze was profound.

Yoruichi raised an eyebrow at the name. She naturally remembered how Xuanxin had watched that student for a long time at the academy yesterday, and how, even after the evening's gathering, he had spent a long while alone in thought under the moon.

"Looks like you really have taken an interest in this kid." Yoruichi smiled and asked no further questions.

As commander-in-chief of the Stealth Force, she knew Xuanxin's character well. Unless he had noticed something important, he would never use the Stealth Force's resources to investigate an ordinary student.

With Yoruichi leading the way, the two passed through numerous checkpoints without difficulty and arrived at the top-secret archives in the deepest underground level of the Second Division.

Detailed records were kept here on Shinigami and wandering souls with a certain level of Reiatsu potential throughout Soul Society, including all of Rukongai.

The Stealth Force's intelligence network covered all of Soul Society. No rising genius could escape its notice.

Xuanxin knew that the Second Division would certainly have compiled a detailed monitoring file on a super genius like Aizen, who had perfect scores in every subject.

Before rows of towering shelves of files, Yoruichi searched skillfully for a while, then quickly pulled out an encrypted dossier bearing a red seal and handed it to Xuanxin.

Xuanxin took the dossier, walked over to a lamppost, and carefully leafed through it.

The information in the file was exceptionally detailed.

Everything was on record, from the district of Rukongai where Sōsuke Aizen came from, to his admission to Shin'ō Academy after he displayed Reiatsu potential, to his specific assessment results for every year at the academy, and even his routine personality evaluations and records of his social interactions.

Xuanxin read line after line, and the more he read, the stronger his certainty became.

This file was too perfect.