Kenpachi Zaraki, Like a Demon

After glancing at the courtyard behind her, Kyōsuke Kuchiki couldn't help rubbing his brow.

"...Yoruichi, may I remind you that the Kuchiki Clan has a gate?"

"You don't have to climb over the wall every time you come looking for me."

"It's faster this way."

Yoruichi shrugged, looking utterly unconcerned.

"Hurry up and get out of bed!"

Kyōsuke Kuchiki always slept in pajamas precisely to guard against her sneaking in from time to time to play with him.

So he felt no awkwardness now. He threw back the covers and climbed out of bed.

"I'm going to get changed."

Yoruichi stared blankly as he walked out of the room.

A few seconds later, she measured something in the air with her hand, a hint of shock entering her voice.

"I didn't notice before... Has this guy gotten so tall already?"

"He can already look down at me!"

Recalling how Kyōsuke Kuchiki had picked her up with one hand and carried her away yesterday, she felt her cheeks grow slightly warm, as though she could once again feel the warmth that had reached her through his clothes.

Come to think of it...

Leaning against Kyōsuke was pretty comfortable. He didn't seem that skinny, either?

Was he the type women liked, who looked slim in clothes but had muscle underneath?

At that thought, something stirred in her heart, and she suddenly felt a different kind of interest.

When Kyōsuke Kuchiki returned after getting ready, he found Yoruichi standing motionless in the room, staring at the floor with a strange smile on her face.

"What are you smiling about? It looks kind of creepy to me."

At the sound of his voice, Yoruichi immediately came back to her senses.

"...Huh? What's creepy about it? I was just spacing out, okay?"

"Come on, come on. Big sis will give you a massage and loosen up your muscles before we leave."

Seeing the wicked grin on Yoruichi's face, Kyōsuke Kuchiki promptly used Shunpo to flash out of the room.

"Let's go. We're in a hurry."

Only his lingering voice remained in the room.

Yoruichi's interest was piqued. "Oh? You want to challenge the speed of me, Yoruichi the Flash Goddess?"

With that, she vanished in a flash.

In the courtyard, Byakuya Kuchiki only breathed a sigh of relief once the two figures had disappeared completely.

Fortunately, his little brother had shielded him from her. Otherwise, he would have been the one she pestered.

"Kyōsuke, thanks for the effort!"

As he thought this, he once again swung his sword with focus.

After a few leaps, Kyōsuke Kuchiki and Yoruichi Shihōin had crossed half of the Seireitei and were approaching the east gate.

The Seireitei and Rukongai were both located within Soul Society, and although there appeared to be nothing between them, as though passage was unobstructed,

whenever someone prepared to enter the Seireitei from Rukongai without permission, the Seireiheki, made of Sekkiseki, would immediately appear.

Not only that, a spherical protective barrier called the Shakonmaku would also form, protecting the Seireitei from every direction, from the sky to deep underground. As a result, souls with ordinary spiritual power could not break through it at all.

There were also four Seireimon on the eastern, southern, western, and northern sides of the wall, each guarded by a gatekeeper.

Of course, the gatekeepers would not stop Soul Reapers heading to Rukongai.

After leaving the Kuchiki Clan estate, Yoruichi didn't rush off. Instead, she asked directly,

"Which district are we going to?"

"East District 80, Zaraki."

Each of Rukongai's eastern, southern, western, and northern regions was divided into eighty districts, for a full total of three hundred and twenty.

The higher the number, the farther the district was from the Seireitei, and the worse its living conditions and public safety would be.

East District 80...

"A notorious crime hotspot."

As the commander-in-chief of the Stealth Force, Yoruichi was well aware of such things.

"It's gotten even more chaotic there lately. Strange riots break out every so often, and several of the Soul Reapers responsible for managing and patrolling it have lost their lives."

"But only in a place like that can we find a suitable candidate, right?"

Without another word, Kyōsuke Kuchiki used Shunpo and raced toward the east gate, with Yoruichi following lightly behind him.

"Speaking of which, Kyōsuke, what was that Shunpo you used before?"

"Want to learn it?"

"Hey, hey, I'm a woman known as the Flash Goddess!"

"Why would I learn Shunpo from some green little brat?"

"Do you want to or not?"

"...I do. What's it called?"

"I'll teach you when we get back."

"..."

Chatting along the way, the two soon reached the east gate. After greeting the gatekeeper, they left the Seireitei and officially entered Rukongai.

Unlike the Seireitei, with its beautiful scenery and well-maintained buildings and facilities,

Rukongai was mostly made up of low, dilapidated single-story houses. Most people's clothes were simple to the point of plainness, and covered in patches.

There were shops, but their wares were pitifully monotonous, hardly enough to stir any desire to shop.

And this was East District 1, the closest district to the Seireitei's east gate.

As they used Shunpo to cross street after street, the district numbers gradually rose, and the scenery along the way grew increasingly desolate.

Thatched huts on the verge of collapse were everywhere, and every so often, they spotted the charred remains of a house or two.

The people they saw all carried weapons and wore fierce, menacing expressions.

But the Soul Reaper uniforms the two wore still had a deterrent effect. Those people looked ready to make a move, but didn't actually act.

Only when they reached Zaraki District in East District 80 did things change.

This was the very edge of Rukongai, and one of its most dangerous areas.

Seeing the number, Kyōsuke Kuchiki slowed his pace slightly.

"We're here. The person I'm looking for is here."

The scene before them was one of utter decay.

Countless thatched huts were draped in cobwebs, and the air smelled so foul and stagnant that it seemed a single breath could make one sick.

There was hardly anyone to be seen on the streets, yet Kyōsuke Kuchiki and Yoruichi could feel many eyes on them.

They belonged to civilians hiding in the thatched huts, the people at the very bottom of Rukongai.

They could neither fight those thugs and hoodlums nor enter the Seireitei to become Soul Reapers.

They could only cling to a miserable existence.

But Kyōsuke Kuchiki wasn't looking at them. He gazed quietly into the distance.

His keen nose caught a lingering smell of blood in the air.

When someone died in Soul Society, nothing was left behind; even their clothes vanished with them.

For such a strong smell to linger in the air meant that a great many people really had died here.

And it happened every day.

Vast patches of dried blood stained the streets red in the distance, and battered weapons had been discarded all over the ground.

Corpses... No, given how badly mutilated they were, they should have been called remains.

At least dozens of remains lay scattered by the roadside. Some had even died at their own doorsteps, their severed limbs flung onto rooftops, a sight both comical and horrifying.

And the farther ahead they looked, the more densely the remains were piled, turning the street into a veritable mass grave!

The unusually foul smell in the air was coming from there as well.

"What... happened here?"

At the sight, Yoruichi Shihōin froze.

No matter how chaotic the outskirts of Rukongai were, Soul Reapers were still in charge of them.

She could understand small-scale armed fights, and she could understand casualties.

But what lay before her...

Clearly, an armed fight was no longer enough to describe it!

A massacre!

Only that terrifying word could accurately describe the scene before them.

Chapter 53: Kenpachi Zaraki, Like a Demon

"Where are the Soul Reapers responsible for this area?"

Yoruichi frowned, immediately sensing that something was wrong.

The traces of Reiatsu left on these corpses... Aren't they far too immense?

This was not a level of Reiatsu that should have appeared in Rukongai at all!

If someone told her that several captains had just slaughtered everyone here, she wouldn't have found it strange in the slightest.

Clack!

Before she could say another word, the loud sound of a door slamming shut suddenly rang out.

The civilians of Rukongai, who had seemed utterly numb just moments ago, appeared to have been jolted into action. They darted to their doorways and forcefully shut their battered doors.

Clack, clack, clack!

A series of doors slammed shut, sounding like the tolling of an eerie death knell.

Those who didn't even have doors went further, simply blocking their entrances with all manner of shabby objects, looking as though they would hide even if it meant burying themselves alive.

The strange sight made Yoruichi's unease grow even stronger.

"Kyōsuke, let's go back first."

"Something's very wrong here—"

"Shh."

Kyōsuke Kuchiki suddenly made a gesture for silence and motioned for her to look ahead.

"Someone's coming."

"..."

Her nerves unusually taut, Yoruichi silently grasped the short blade at the back of her waist.

Her amber eyes were filled with a sharp gaze.

But in the next second, what entered her sight was a Soul Reaper.

He had lost an arm, and gushing blood had soaked his clothes through. Every use of Shunpo scattered a shower of blood, leaving him in an utterly miserable state.

Noticing Kyōsuke Kuchiki and Yoruichi, he immediately perked up a little and rushed over.

"A-are you reinforcements?"

The one-armed Soul Reaper glanced nervously behind him, his voice unusually urgent.