The First Lesson

They had deliberately sent people to scatter an attractant here, luring Hollows into attacking civilians to support their absurd bill claiming that "Rukongai is too dangerous and everyone must be registered."

The deduction followed smoothly, yet Xuanxin, standing to the side, still had not relaxed his frown.

"This... is too simple."

Xuanxin looked at the vial sealed in the evidence bag, then raised his head toward Yoruichi, who stood nearby. His dark eyes were full of suspicion. "Everything that happened here was far too simple."

It was as though someone had deliberately laid out every clue and every piece of physical evidence in plain sight, neatly arranged for fear that they might fail to see or find them.

The head of the Tsunayashiro Clan, who sat at the head of the Round Table, was an old fox who had spent his life contending with Shihoin Seigen and Ginrei Kuchiki.

How could he have devised a plan so crude, so riddled with holes? It plainly did not match his abilities at all.

This kind of trick is more like... a clumsy lure. Xuanxin reached a frightening conclusion.

But looking around, he found no other clues at the scene beyond the few Hollows exhausted to the point of death and the vial that seemed to have been deliberately left behind.

"Kisuke, take what remains of the drug we found here back to your laboratory and carefully investigate its ingredients and origin," Xuanxin instructed, turning to Kisuke Urahara.

Kisuke Urahara had also put aside his usual carefree manner. He nodded. "Leave it to me. As long as this stuff was made in Soul Society, I'll uncover everything there is to know about it."

Xuanxin then turned and waved to the members of the 11th Division. "A few of you stay and help me clean up the scene. The rest of you, fall back to Seireitei."

Only after that did Xuanxin turn to Yoruichi and Kisuke Urahara, who had also stayed behind. Lowering his voice as far as he could, he revealed what he truly thought:

"I think this is just a smokescreen. The Tsunayashiro Clan deliberately let us find those attractants. Maybe he just wanted to draw all our attention to this."

Yoruichi nodded at his words, while Kisuke Urahara, the only one still in the dark, scratched his head in confusion.

Seeing him like that, Yoruichi quickly gave him a brief account of what had happened at the Golden Seal Conference.

Once he learned everything, Kisuke Urahara could naturally smell the conspiracy in it too.

"If this place is just a lure to draw attention, that means the Tsunayashiro Clan's real plan must be underway, unnoticed, in some other truly hidden corner."

Yoruichi took a deep breath, folded her arms, and said decisively:

"I understand. I'll have the Executive Militia step up surveillance immediately. I'll also send someone to inform Ginrei Kuchiki and have him pay close attention to any recent changes."

After discussing a few more details, the three each led their teams away and vanished completely into the woods.

Meanwhile, deep within Seireitei, at the Tsunayashiro Clan's main residence, which lay shrouded in shadow all year round,

the head of the Tsunayashiro Clan knelt on a cushion with his eyes closed, resting.

"My lord."

A figure dressed in black appeared silently at the door to the quiet room, knelt on one knee, and spoke respectfully.

"How are things progressing?" the clan head asked in a cold voice, without even opening his eyes.

"My lord, everything is proceeding according to plan.

"Just now, the 11th Division and the Second Division both led their members to the designated area.

"Afterward, our scouts reported that the Shihoin Clan had successfully found the empty vials we left behind, and the Kuchiki Clan had also begun investigating the Hollow attack on the refugee settlement."

A smug, cold smile appeared on the Tsunayashiro Clan head's withered face as he heard the report.

"Heh heh... well done."

The clan head slowly opened his eyes, a scheming triumph glinting in their gloomy depths.

"After seeing that conclusive physical evidence, their attention will surely be drawn to it. As long as they devote their energy to tracing the source of the attractant, our real plan will gain enough breathing room."

He picked up the cold tea before him and drained it in one gulp. Then his tone turned abruptly chilling.

"However, pass down my orders: have our people clean up after themselves and act with greater secrecy. Under no circumstances can our true target location be exposed at this critical moment."

The subordinate shuddered and immediately replied, "Yes, my lord! I understand. But, my lord, the experiment we're conducting in the other area..."

"Continue!"

The Tsunayashiro Clan head cut him off without hesitation, his eyes filled with fervor and greed.

"We went to great lengths to gather this batch of souls with special wavelengths. We absolutely cannot give up halfway. Even if we have to drain the Reiatsu from the last wandering soul, the experiment must not be interrupted!"

On the other side of Seireitei stood Shin'ō Academy, full of youthful energy and the sound of voices reading aloud.

It was dusk, and students finished their classes for the day in twos and threes, chatting on the training grounds or sparring after lessons.

"Yesterday afternoon, Teacher Shihoin didn't come to substitute for the advanced swordsmanship theory class."

Aizen walked alone along a path through the academy grounds, still turning the matter over in his mind.

In truth, Aizen had always paid close attention to the white-haired teacher, whose every lesson gave him some small sense of novelty.

As he understood it, the newly appointed Kenpachi was certainly not someone who would casually miss a class because of tedious paperwork.

Since he had not appeared, that meant something urgent must have happened in the Gotei 13, something he had no choice but to handle personally.

Coincidentally, over the past couple of days, alarming rumors about "the Rukongai area" had also inexplicably begun circulating at the academy.

At that thought, Aizen closed the book in his hands, a meaningful smile curling his lips.

His classmates, who had yet to graduate, might have believed the rumors at face value, but to Aizen, something about the matter felt deeply amiss.

A sharp glint flashed in Aizen's eyes behind his lenses.

This was probably no accident. There must be an unseen hand manipulating everything.

An emotion called "curiosity" quietly arose in Aizen's bored heart.

He was curious what kind of matter could have brought the current Kenpachi out in person, even making him set aside a class he had never missed before.

With that thought, he turned decisively, changed direction, and headed for the academy's back gate.

Let me see what interesting tricks those high-and-mighty "adults" are playing.

Chapter 46: The First Lesson

As night slowly blanketed all of Seireitei, Soul Society, bustling throughout the day, gradually grew quiet.

But what undercurrents churned beneath that seemingly peaceful surface remained unknown.

At Shin'ō Academy, most of the dormitory lights had already gone out, leaving only a few streetlamps casting a faint glow.

For these fledglings whose feathers had yet to grow in, a regular routine was part of their training.

Yet in the quiet of the night, a slender figure silently detached itself from the academy's shadows, like a ghost blending into the darkness.

Sōsuke Aizen pushed up the black-framed glasses on his nose. His usually gentle eyes flashed sharply in the reflected moonlight.

Now then, let me see just what kind of spectacle is playing out in Soul Society.

Aizen whispered the words silently to himself, then lightly pushed off with his foot.

Almost without making a sound in the darkness, he easily cleared the Spiritual Arts Academy's towering wall.

After leaving the academy, Aizen did not wander aimlessly. Instead, he headed straight for the "remote area" the students had been talking about during the day, moving stealthily.

All the way there, Aizen kept his Reiatsu suppressed to a faint level, like the most inconspicuous weed by the roadside.

As he gradually moved away from the heart of Seireitei and approached the middle and outer districts of Rukongai, his keen senses soon detected something unusual about his surroundings.

In a remote area like Rukongai, the Gotei 13's patrol defenses had always been very lax. Usually, only a few low-ranking members formed a loose patrol squad and made a perfunctory round.

But tonight, things had changed drastically.

Aizen lay concealed on the roof of a dilapidated house, looking down at the scene below.

Not only were there more patrols in the streets, but their formations were tighter.

The Shinigami leading them were all Seated Officers. Every one of them looked tense, and the Zanpakuto at their waists were kept ready to draw at any moment.

Aizen also keenly noticed that these patrols were not wandering aimlessly. Their routes formed an interwoven network, each supporting the others.

Unlike the rough arrangements of the past, there's an artistry to it called strategy.

Aizen narrowed his eyes slightly on the roof, a meaningful smile curling his lips.

Looking at the tight patrol network below, he felt no anxiety. Instead, he became even more convinced of the guess he had made during the day.

It seems something extraordinary really has happened in Rukongai.

Moreover, the matter's impact was already great enough that the Gotei 13's upper ranks had devoted considerable effort to it, making it necessary to strengthen Seireitei's defenses.

Aizen wasted no time on the ordinary patrols. He slipped through the gaps between their routes, quickly approaching the scene of the incident rumored to have occurred during the day.

After about an hour, the woods ahead gradually grew more desolate, the intervals between patrols widened, and a faint, murky Reiatsu began to permeate the air.

But when he was still several hundred meters from the scene, Aizen abruptly stopped in his tracks without warning.

He immediately concealed himself completely in the dense canopy of a towering tree and calmly examined the darkness below through gaps in the leaves.

His senses told him that more than a dozen faint yet unusually cold Reiatsu signatures lay hidden around the seemingly deserted scene ahead.

The owners of those Reiatsu signatures had clearly received professional concealment training. Their breathing and heartbeats had blended almost perfectly with the fluctuations of Reishi in their surroundings.

Uniform concealment techniques, killing intent reined in like a venomous snake... it seems this is the work of the Second Division's Stealth Force.

Aizen soon reached an accurate conclusion.

In all of Soul Society, there was no other assassination and surveillance force with such professional expertise besides the Executive Militia under the Shihoin Clan's command.

Having confirmed their identity, however, Aizen frowned slightly as a major question arose in his mind.

But why lie in wait here?

Aizen looked at the motionless Stealth Force members hidden in the darkness, a trace of mockery flashing in his eyes.

By his reasoning, if this was a carefully orchestrated conspiracy, its mastermind would surely have moved quickly away from the scene after achieving his objective.

Do these important people think every criminal has the foolish habit of returning to the scene to savor their handiwork?

Aizen sneered inwardly.

In his view, deploying so many personnel at a stage that had already been abandoned was simply a meaningless waste of resources.

But it also happened to suggest one thing: perhaps Teacher Shihoin, usually so unfathomable, was not here at the moment. From what Aizen understood of that Kenpachi, he clearly would not have made such a deployment.

With that thought, Aizen hesitated no longer.

He slowly closed his eyes and mapped out the positions of all the Stealth Force members around him and the blind spots in their fields of vision.

Then he suppressed his already restrained Reiatsu even further, until he reached the limit of what he could manage.

Aizen then glided lightly down from the canopy like a dead leaf falling on the wind.

He moved with a peculiar gait, his figure flickering through the moonlit shadows.

Every movement Aizen made was timed precisely to the blind spots where the Stealth Force members' lines of sight overlapped and the moments when their senses grew fatigued.

Sure enough, just as he had calculated,

Aizen easily avoided the tight patrol cordon on the perimeter. Like a ghost, he slipped unharmed through the Stealth Force's hidden encirclement and successfully entered the center of the scene.

But when Aizen finally reached the place where the battle had been fought that day, he found precious few clues left behind.