Chapter 25

"They look a little familiar."

He didn't know them, but he seemed to have seen them somewhere before.

"If I'm not mistaken, they should be students from Shin'ō Academy... There might even be a lower noble among them. Otherwise, they probably couldn't have invited a Seated Officer from the 11th Division."

Among the nobles Haruto was friendly with at Shin'ō Academy, even the lowest-ranked was a middle noble. As for the status of lower noble...

In his view, it was merely a way for the noble class to recruit talented people.

If the head of a lower noble house died, or if the family no longer had any exceptional talents to show off, their value would plummet. Even those who had only recently risen to that rank and were still on their way up weren't qualified to attend the Noble Assembly—

That alone said a great deal.

There were at least ten guests in the room. Although almost everyone was drunk, the fearless elites who got down to business on the spot were a minority.

Haruto didn't stop, but someone inside still noticed him passing by. Before the people in the room could focus their attention on him, he looked away and continued walking.

Given his reputation at Shin'ō Academy, he could probably have saved himself some money this way. Unfortunately, their tastes differed, and Haruto truly couldn't appreciate what he saw. Besides, he had little interest in a free-for-all.

Soon,

Haruto finally reached the room he had booked for the night, nearly opposite the other room across the second-floor corridor, just beside the stairs leading to the third floor.

"Was there anything else you wanted, sir?"

The man bowed at the door as he asked.

"Would that cost extra?"

"Uh, that depends on whether your request falls within the scope of our services."

"Just make sure she doesn't have makeup and styling like the ones back there..."

Recalling what he had just seen, Haruto blurted out his heartfelt thoughts.

"And it would be even better if she were young."

Things changed slowly in Soul Society, so the state of the pleasure district now probably wasn't much different from before Haruto enrolled at Shin'ō Academy.

Generally speaking,

Neither new customers nor regulars were likely to choose night workers close to their own age, which was why Haruto had specifically mentioned it.

Otherwise, having an obasan-level old auntie show up without makeup would be rather stimu... frightening for Haruto.

"We guarantee you'll be satisfied!"

The man didn't mention an extra charge. Clearly, Haruto's request wasn't difficult to fulfill.

In fact,

Haruto didn't wait long in the room. He had only just set his luggage aside when he heard a faint knock outside the door. Compared with the spartan surroundings on the first floor, the soundproofing and comfort here were more than twice as good. If the large room in the middle hadn't been so noisy, this really would have been a good place to spend the night.

"Come in."

Haruto sat very formally on his knees at one side of the room, both hands pressed firmly against the top of the room, and called out toward the sliding door.

It had been a long time since he had visited a place like this, and his unfamiliarity before the battle made him a little nervous.

Then—

"Swish."

As the sliding door opened all the way,

A girl wearing a light-blue short-sleeved furisode that was translucent everywhere except its patterns, with its hem ending twenty centimeters above her knees and fabric of a different color faintly visible beneath it...

Walked in with bare legs and feet.

Volume one: 016, Nia

Nice.

Very nice!

With a quick glance, Haruto took in everything he should and shouldn't have seen. In a pleasure-district establishment, there was naturally no custom of averting one's eyes from indecency.

Compared with the heavily made-up "black-and-white ladies" he had glimpsed in the large room, the girl before him radiated youth from head to toe.

Her skin was a few shades darker than wheat, and her thighs were springy without being overly plump. Both were right in Haruto's strike zone.

But the most important part was her outfit:

A suggestive half-covering was always more appealing than laying everything bare. This translucent furisode kimono, clearly designed specifically for "beep," was obviously not an outfit that belonged in Soul Society. If Haruto hadn't been so familiar with the World of the Living, he might have been won over by it at first sight.

Haruto hadn't expected much and had genuinely intended to make do with a night's sleep at this establishment.

But now...

The girl slowly pulled loose the sash around her slender waist with one hand as she moved to sit in Haruto's lap, while he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead.

His right hand, the one he normally held his sword with, also followed his heart and reached out without hesitation to "support" the springiest spot where her hip met her thigh.

Then, the next second—

"!!"

"Thud!"

Heavy footsteps sounded on the tatami.

From his kneeling position, Haruto sprang two steps backward almost as if launched, instantly putting distance between himself and the girl.

At the same time, his right hand even had time to swiftly draw his Zanpakuto from the middle of his rolled-up luggage.

"Sir...?"

A puzzled expression appeared on the girl's face.

However,

What she was curious about wasn't Haruto's swift movement, but the Zanpakuto in his hand. Though her shifting gaze was extremely discreet, Haruto still caught that detail.

"—"

"Filthy thing."

Haruto narrowed his eyes solemnly, the pupils that had still been slightly visible becoming nothing more than curved slits.

"?"

"You haven't even tried me yet, sir. How can you say something so heartless?"

The girl's pitiful expression could almost have melted a man's heart of stone, yet there was not a trace of pity on Haruto's face.

He was like a completely different person from moments ago.

"Cockroaches and maggots..."

Haruto gave a cold laugh.

"You don't call that filthy?"

"..."

The air in the room froze in an instant, along with the smile on the "girl's" face.

Heavy breathing rose and fell faintly beyond the closed door, mixed with a few barely audible screams.

None of it had the slightest effect on the chill in the room.

After who knew how many ticks of the second hand in the hall—

"Oh my."

A smile blossomed on the girl's face again.

But compared with her earlier seductive air, both her voice, which sounded like cast iron grinding together, and her gradually melting face were filled with a grating eeriness.

"I didn't expect that. I truly didn't."

Only her eyes remained fixed on Haruto.

Before long, however, even those bright, expressive eyes gradually turned hollow.

"You're not even a Soul Reaper, yet you can see through this illusion..."

A young man carrying a Zanpakuto but not wearing a Soul Reaper's uniform, at a time that happened to coincide with Shin'ō Academy's vacation.

Putting those two facts together, it was easy enough to guess his identity.

"Young man."

Following the changes to her face, her entire body began to melt.

"If you don't mind, why not come upstairs and have a chat with me?"

After leaving those words, the "girl" collapsed to the floor. She was a worn burlap sack with its five appendages sewn shut, barely recognizable as "a humanoid shape like a snowman piled together by a child." A crawling, wriggling "tide of insects" poured continuously from within.

More than twenty kinds of insects that inspired revulsion from the bottom of one's heart were mixed together, though there was no way they could coexist harmoniously.

Haruto fought the urge to burn them all to ashes, trying his best to turn his attention elsewhere:

"Looks like there aren't many cockroaches in the shop. Otherwise, they wouldn't have had to put together this ragtag army."

Thoughts like that quickly helped Haruto recover his composure, and the phantom pain in his lower body finally faded completely.

After the insects had all left through the gaps,

"..."

"Phew."

Haruto let out a long breath, loosening his right hand's grip on the sword hilt.

"That was one powerful illusion."

"Until I touched her, I didn't notice anything wrong at all. Whoever it was, they're at least a high-ranking Seated Officer specializing in illusions."

"And most likely at the level of Sixth-Class Spiritual Pressure."

Although the strength of Seated Officers varied considerably between divisions, a high-ranking Seated Officer whose Reiatsu reached that level had to be a Third Seat in one division or another.

Haruto felt a little sorry for some of the customers in the shop.

Even he had only noticed the problem at the critical moment. Those ordinary people probably wouldn't see anything wrong from beginning to end.

Of course,

Since the shop was operating in the Yoshiwara District, its offerings couldn't all be fake. As the man who had led him here had said, customer turnover in the pleasure district was a little high today, making it difficult to find a suitable girl for a customer with special requirements like Haruto.

That was probably why this had happened.

"I just don't know whether that was a self-created Kidō or a Zanpakuto's ability."

Neither possibility was good news for Haruto.

Haruto didn't think he could handle a Third Seat skilled in illusions who could create their own Kidō at his current level. Against a Third Seat who could release their Zanpakuto, he stood even less of a chance, and had no plans beyond shouting "Nigero da yo" and running.

But.

"What a way to say 'if you don't mind'..."

Haruto glanced up at the ceiling.

"If I just leave like this, the shop might send people to kill me by whatever means they can, to keep its secrets from getting out."

He was certain his somewhat excessive reaction just now had put him in their sights.

But he couldn't have helped it. There was no way Haruto could send his little brother into a nest of insects. What was more, the sudden shock had instantly changed him from his awakened form to his sage form. As far as Haruto was concerned, his reaction had been quite calm.

"A Zanpakuto that ended up in the Yoshiwara District."

Haruto pulled the Zanpakuto and its sheath from his luggage, then tugged at a strip of cloth and secured it tightly to the sash at his waist.

"Is it a Soul Reaper who defected from the Gotei 13, or a noble who was expelled from the Seireitei...?"

Pretending nothing had happened and leaving immediately was far from the best option. Both possibilities were more dangerous than the pleasure district's "secrets."

"Let's see what you've got."

Since the other party was willing to talk instead of attacking him outright, whatever the reason—whether they weren't completely confident they could take him down, or worried a fight would affect the shop's business—Haruto thought he should go upstairs and see.

But before that.