The First Day of School...

I want to laugh, but I don't dare. What should I do?

The dozens of students below gripped their own thighs tightly, leaning forward with their heads down and shoulders trembling.

Dōsan, sitting in the back row, could tell that something was off, but he had never read the Seireitei Communication. How could he know they had already stripped him bare?

Come to think of it, could this be the school bullying Brother Ganju had talked about?

Dōsan lowered his head and walked straight toward a seat by the window in the back row.

That was where Rizukihime Kasumiōji sat.

Seeing where Dōsan was headed, Rizukihime Kasumiōji elegantly raised a slender finger and brushed back her golden hair, tilting her head up proudly at an exaggerated angle. If her back had been flexible enough, Rizukihime would have tipped her face all the way over to her back.

At least you're not blind, you guy.

Then Rizukihime kicked the bowl-cut Hikaru, signaling him to hurry to the back.

The only empty seat had been taken by Bowl Cut before Dōsan could sit down.

Now Dōsan had to choose someone to sit beside.

Dōsan raised an eyebrow, stepped past Rizukihime's row, and leaned down to ask Hikaru quietly, "Can you let me in?"

Without raising his head or his backside, Hikaru pushed against the desk and slid to the inside of the bench.

What a joke. Among all those standard red-and-white robes, there's one white robe.

According to Brother Ganju, an outfit that stood out like that meant she was the biggest school bully of them all.

There was no way Dōsan would sit next to her.

As the head assassin among the Soul Reapers, Soi Fon was skilled at controlling her emotions. She quickly composed herself and continued her lesson on flower arranging.

Soi Fon wasn't completely ignorant about flower arranging.

While serving as that person's personal guard, she had been forced to sit through many flower-arranging lessons. Even if the lessons had gone in one ear and out the other, she still remembered quite a bit.

With her bearing as a captain, she could bluff her way through with a few more remarks.

Even so, the students who had attended her lessons before would occasionally give her strange looks.

Soi Fon understood. After all, most of the students here were nobles, and they might know more about flower arranging than she did.

But now, their inexplicably strange expressions seemed different to Soi Fon. Her snake braid tilted upward slightly, her face stayed red, and steam rose from the top of her head from time to time, like a pot lid over boiling water.

Down below, Dōsan knew nothing about the things these nobles occupied themselves with, and the lesson went right over his head. But out of support and respect for his friend, he stared at Soi Fon without blinking. No student in the class was paying closer attention than he was.

Under his stare, Soi Fon's thoughts became hopelessly tangled and her mind went blank. What she said grew increasingly disjointed.

"Smack!"

Soi Fon struck the desk hard enough to make the whole tabletop shake, startling the entire class into a shudder. Then she stiffly started walking, leaving them with the words, "I still have an execution to carry out!"

Then Soi Fon lowered her head and hurried out like a defeated soldier.

She was... gone?

Dōsan wondered what was wrong with the young captain.

The students, however, understood.

It wasn't strange for the captains of the Thirteenth Division to be a little strange, the students felt.

After Soi Fon left, Dōsan sensed that the atmosphere in the classroom was becoming inexplicable.

It was quiet. Exceptionally quiet.

In that silence, dozens of students had their heads down, doing who knew what.

But Dōsan's keen Spiritual Pressure could sense that their lowered eyes seemed to be watching him.

There was another reason he felt something was wrong: ever since Soi Fon had left, the blonde in the front row had kept her head turned around, her forehead almost touching him.

Dōsan kept his head down and pretended not to see.

School bullying. This has to be school bullying, right? What should I do?

I forgot to review The Art of Language that Brother Ganju gave me. Damn it, I studied all of this.

What now? Sister Kūkaku said to beat anyone who bullies me to a pulp.

It's decided. If they start a fight, I'll definitely give them a Raikōhō.

The atmosphere grew more oppressive. Dōsan kept his head down, his white eyebrows twitching. He could even hear the blonde breathing.

"Gulp."

Someone swallowed, and it was like the starting gun for a race.

In an instant, the whole class crowded around Dōsan as if scrambling for relief rations. Even the blonde, who had held the advantageous position, was somehow pushed aside.

"That's amazing! Are you Dōsan Hanyū? I'm Sōji Sanjō. My mother is a Soul Reaper in the Third Division. She told me to get along with you."

"Dōsan, Dōsan, what's your relationship with Captain Soi Fon?"

"Dōsan, is Nemu Number Seven strong? What does it look like? Does it have a blue face and fangs, like they say?"

This doesn't seem quite like what Brother Ganju said!

Weren't they supposed to bully me, the transfer student?

Dōsan smacked his lips, wondering what had gone wrong.

Could it be that Sister Kūkaku and Brother Ganju never went to school at all?

Although he didn't know how to answer the other questions yet, he had heard the last one and was quite eager to answer it.

"Nemu Number Seven is ugly, very ugly. She has a blue face and fangs, and she curses all the time. Most importantly, she eats souls..."

This...

Among the recent big stories in the Seireitei was the gossip about Dōsan Hanyū and Soi Fon, but what really concerned these students was the Artificial Soul experiment.

As the pinnacle of Modified Soul technology, the artificial soul Nemu Number Seven had also attracted the interest of many ambitious students.

An artificial soul eating people was entirely outside the students' knowledge.

Could this be a dark side of the Soul Reapers that had never been exposed? Young people were all curious about the bizarre, and even Rizukihime, who had been sulking after feeling ignored, pricked up her ears.

Dōsan earnestly explained "Nemu Number Seven" to everyone, racking his brains for every negative word he knew, but still felt he was running short.

"Bang, bang, bang."

A rapid, forceful pounding sounded against a desk.

"Listen, you old fart, I want to be the academy head. Approve it already."

With a pipe in her mouth, Kūkaku sat on Ōunabara Gen'ogorō's desk, puffing out clouds of smoke and slapping the tabletop.

Ōuna's already stiff face now looked as cold as steel.

"I'm only a deputy academy head. How can I make you the academy head?"

"I don't care. I want to be the academy head, and I want to move my Shiba Hut to the Shin'ō Academy of Spiritual Arts!"

"That hut of yours is absolutely out of the question."

Ōuna had never seen Kūkaku's Shiba Hut, but he knew all too well the Shiba Clan's artistic talent, passed down through generations.

"Absolutely not. Little Brother Dōsan won't be used to living here. And I want to be a deputy academy head too, and teach classes." Ganju craned his neck until he was face-to-face with Ōuna.

"What can you teach?"

"We can teach a fireworks class!"

"Whew..." Ōuna's face, unchanged for a hundred years, nearly twitched with anger. So now, to become a Soul Reaper, you had to learn how to set off fireworks too?

"Just settle it for me right away. If you can't, I'll go to Central 46."

There was nothing he could do.

The authority of the Five Great Noble Clans.

The Kuchiki Clan governed the Seireitei's noble Sixth District, making them the equivalent of a prime minister in a state within a state.

The Tsunayashiro Clan controlled the Great Spirit Book Gallery, giving them control over Soul Society's history.

What the Shiba Clan controlled was the Shin'ō Academy of Spiritual Arts. Only later had Kaien and Kūkaku's father, the late previous head of the Shiba Clan, transferred authority over the Academy of Spiritual Arts to the Thirteenth Division of the Soul Reapers.

Back then, even a genius like Dōsan Hanyū could never have been granted the right to study at the Shin'ō Academy of Spiritual Arts.

It was a place for nobles to train, and was not open to commoners at all.

Even now, the Shin'ō Academy of Spiritual Arts was still nominally under the Shiba Clan's management. If Kūkaku really took the matter to Central 46, those old men would probably vote unanimously in favor of protecting the Shiba Clan and the rights of the nobility.

"I'll allow it. As for the positions, we'll still need to wait for Captain-Commander Yamamoto's approval."

"Oh, right. Dōsan has to make our three meals every day. Come to think of it, he'll only have time for one class a day."

Ōunabara Gen'ogorō let out a long breath. "Captain Shiba previously suggested that Dōsan Hanyū attend school for only one year before taking up a Seated Officer position in the Tenth Division. Now, with one class a day, do you want him to become a Soul Reaper after completing only a month's worth of classes?"

"It's all a formality anyway." Kūkaku waved a hand. "And what about my classes?"

"You can teach the sixth-years, whatever you like."

Ganju planted his hands on his hips and grinned. "Such a senior class? You finally acknowledge our teaching ability!"

"I'm worried you'll teach the junior students to death."

His tone wasn't very nice, but the result was good, and that was enough.

The two were immensely pleased with themselves, like a pair of victorious roosters beside the dejected Ōuna, who kept pinching the spot beneath his nose.

"Oh, right, this Shin'ō Academy of Spiritual Arts is really ugly. How about I help renovate it?"

"Crack!"

With a sharp sound, Ōuna split the desk in front of him in two with a single punch. Having endured for so long, Ōuna now had a deep, murderous look in his eyes, his face twisted and dark enough to drip water.

"That alone is not allowed!"