Kūkaku Shiba

The shopkeeper's face turned white in an instant.

"No, how could I? I was just about to give you..." The shopkeeper rambled incoherently, his mind a complete blank. By the end, even he no longer knew what he was saying.

Dōsan Hanyū let out a soft breath. Truth be told, he had suspected as much before.

Back then, Dōsan Hanyū had made a decision.

If the shopkeeper really had been deceiving him, he would kill the man and return to District 11.

But now, his suspicion had become fact.

Now that Dōsan truly knew the truth, he no longer felt the anger he had once imagined he would.

"I hate people who throw their weight around more than anything," Isshin declared like a judge. "Your big brother here won't stand for it."

Why had the Shiba Main Family moved to Rukongai? Wasn't it because they had grown sick of noble formalities and those baffling class distinctions?

Big brother?

Dōsan fought the urge to turn and look at Isshin's "weathered young" face.

Was he taking advantage of me?

To the shopkeeper, Isshin's lazy voice was like a thunderclap out of a clear sky, leaving him dizzy.

"I'll pay! Here's three thousand—no, five thousand kan. That's your wages, Dōsan." The shopkeeper ran a business in Junrinan, after all. However much it pained him, he acted decisively.

Dōsan snatched the banknotes in a flash. He first glanced at Isshin, and only after seeing that Uncle Isshin wasn't interested did he carefully fold the notes and tuck them into the inner pocket of his tattered clothes. Then he looked at the bald boss.

The bald boss bared his teeth in a grin, his head shining. "Hey, Mr. Shopkeeper, you kept my residence permit from me. Shouldn't you have something to say about that?"

The shopkeeper glanced guiltily at Isshin and sensed the captain's displeasure. "I'll get it! I'll get it for you right away!"

"Me too! I only made a small mistake before, but you docked several months of my wages."

"I broke my leg at the shop before and ended up owing a lot of money."

"Before..."

The dozen or so people in the shop all began speaking at once.

The shopkeeper's face went white. By the time Dōsan and Isshin left the shop, he was kneeling on the floor, drenched in sweat and pale as a sheet.

He did have backing, but at a time like this, precisely because he had backing, he didn't dare give the employees too little compensation, much less abandon the shop and run.

Watching the employees close in around him, the shopkeeper raised his hand and slapped himself hard. How had he been so greedy?

Dōsan followed behind Isshin Shiba. The Captain-level members of the Thirteen Divisions were beings who could shake Soul Society with a turn of their hands. Dōsan had never imagined that Captain Isshin would be so "approachable."

Isshin Shiba was, how to put it, very talkative.

Though this was their first meeting, the man had talked to Dōsan the whole way.

From Dōsan's experiences and preferences to eighteen generations of his ancestors, Isshin Shiba had dug into everything.

Dōsan also learned a great deal about Soul Reapers from Isshin Shiba.

Before they knew it, they had reached the outskirts, a no-man's-land on the border between District 1 and District 2.

The area was deserted, with only the wind blowing quietly around them.

The silence made Dōsan Hanyū uneasy for no apparent reason. Staring at Isshin's back, he drew his white brows together and slowed his pace without realizing it.

Much of what the man who called himself Isshin Shiba, captain of the Tenth Division, had told him was, so far, based solely on his own word.

As they kept talking, Dōsan Hanyū had let his guard down without noticing.

He couldn't forget that nine Soul Reapers had tried to abduct him just yesterday.

Once the seed of suspicion had sprouted, the more Dōsan thought about it, the more something felt wrong.

Isshin Shiba had told him they were going to the Shiba Clan residence.

But would a Soul Reaper captain's residence really be out in such a desolate place?

Looking at it rationally, it made no sense at all!

Dōsan couldn't help feeling a chill in his heart. He immediately slowed down, while the hand behind his back released Spiritual Pressure as discreetly as possible.

It wasn't that he was overestimating himself.

If the man really was in league with those nine Soul Reapers, then he wouldn't be Captain-level.

Dōsan still had a chance.

Dōsan fell another half step behind. From this position, Isshin couldn't see him without turning around.

"Captain Isshin..."

Dōsan tried to speak, making one last probe, but Isshin Shiba interrupted him.

"Little Kūkaku always likes to move, but she's quite easy to find every time. We're almost there." Isshin seemed not to have noticed Dōsan's subtle movements and remained as relaxed as ever.

Before his thoughts could wander any further, Dōsan Hanyū followed Isshin's gaze and saw a building in the distance.

A ten-meter-tall smokestack loomed faintly into view.

A factory?

After walking a little farther, Dōsan finally got a clear look at the building.

How could he put it? It was a dazzling oddity in the history of architecture.

On either side of the smokestack stood a clay sculpture with all the hallmarks of performance art.

They were a pair of blue clay arms, posed like a bodybuilder flexing his muscles. Both fists were raised, holding up a banner bearing five large characters.

"The Shiba welcome you."

Only when they reached the front door did he see a relatively respectable clay-tiled house. Though it had no windows, it was at least something a normal person might consider art.

What is this?

Dōsan Hanyū had initially guessed that it was a Soul Reaper slaughterhouse, then a factory. Now that he had come closer, could it be a circus?

Dōsan Hanyū ridiculed it furiously in his mind.

"The Shin'ō Academy of Spiritual Arts starts in a month. I'm sorry, but you'll need to stay here for that month."

"Sorry for the trouble, Captain Isshin." Dōsan Hanyū had no objections, and he felt a little sorry for his earlier suspicions.

Just as Dōsan Hanyū answered, two figures landed beside him in a flash.

"Welcome, Lord Isshin."

Dōsan Hanyū raised a white eyebrow in surprise.

He could faintly make out the paths the two had taken.

The two men, both over two meters tall, should have been inside the house just a moment ago. They had reached them in a single instant.

With speed like that, the two men, whose clothes and appearance were both quite "artistic," seemed less comical.

"Yo, Kin-chan, Gin-chan, is little Kūkaku here?"

"Lady Kūkaku is resting in her room."

They followed a long underground staircase to a fairly spacious area. Led by the two men, Dōsan Hanyū and Isshin came to a door.

"Lady Kūkaku..."

"Come in, Koganehiko. I've already sensed you. Uncle Isshin, it's been a long time."

A somewhat androgynous female voice came from the room, clear and bright as a spring. Koganehiko opened the door, and the scent of fine tobacco, tinged with a faint fragrance, met their noses.

The young woman reclined against a woolen blanket, a slender metal pipe between her lips. She wore clothes as red as flames, with white silk wrapped around her hair and feet, and a short blade on her back. Much of her body was exposed, and her two fair arms bore ink tattoos of the character "空."

"It's been a long time, Kūkaku." Isshin gave a hearty laugh.

This beauty is Uncle Isshin's niece?

Dōsan was profoundly shocked, marveling at the creator's wonder and favoritism.

Looking at that pair of breasts, he saw they were just like Auntie Rangiku's. Could this be a trait all female Soul Reapers had?

I don't know, but I'm profoundly shocked.

A face ravaged by the years and a face as flawless as fine jade, and you're telling me they're blood relatives?

The only thing they might have had in common was the downward tilt at the corners of their eyes.