Chapter 46
Volume one: 030, chAngE
Tap.
Byakuya hurried over to Haruto with a Shunpo... though the possibility that he was simply showing off couldn't be ruled out.
"When did you master Dankū?"
"When did you come in?"
The two spoke almost at the same time.
"..."
"Just now." ×2
"...You go first."
Haruto raised a hand, gesturing for him to speak.
Meanwhile, Byakuya began looking Haruto's bare upper body up and down:
Compared to his skinny physique before the break, Haruto now had clearly defined muscles. A scar several shades darker ran from his collarbone to his lower abdomen—Kaidō could heal injuries, but it was essentially a way of using Reiatsu to accelerate the body's healing, and it was generally incapable of regenerating severed limbs or internal organs.
A scar that prominent had clearly been left by an intense battle.
"You just learned it?"
"Yeah."
Haruto handed the Kidō Orb to Byakuya.
"A Kidō Orb..."
Byakuya took it and examined it from all angles.
"I wouldn't say it's useless, but it's too troublesome to use. There's even a risk of turning someone into an idiot."
Byakuya handed the Kidō Orb back to Haruto.
"And Kidō mastered through a Kidō Orb bears a very obvious personal imprint from its creator. If you want to modify it in the future, it'll be much harder than modifying Kidō you've mastered through your own understanding after learning its secret teachings."
Byakuya shared his understanding with Haruto.
To sum it up:
A Kidō Orb essentially used a method similar to imparting a cultivation technique to pass all of its creator's relevant Kidō experience on to the learner.
"That's easy."
Haruto didn't seem concerned.
"As long as my future achievements in Kidō surpass the creator of this Kidō Orb, won't I be able to erase his influence?"
"...True."
Haruto was a Kidō genius, and Byakuya had never doubted it.
"Besides,"
Haruto continued:
"As the most practical defensive Bakudō among all the numbered Kidō, Dankū's secret teachings aren't easy to get hold of."
"I know your family must have them."
"But your old man probably wouldn't be easy to convince to teach Dankū to a Sixth-Class Spiritual Pressure Soul Reaper who can't even use Shikai, would he?"
"That's true..."
"Wait!"
As soon as Byakuya finished speaking, he suddenly noticed something he'd missed in Haruto's words.
"When did you reach Sixth-Class Spiritual Pressure?"
"Three days ago."
Haruto held up his fingers to indicate the number.
"My Reiatsu was already hovering near the upper limit of Seventh Class. If I hadn't taken the Heavenly Bedding Pill, I should have reached Sixth-Class Spiritual Pressure when I left the Seireitei."
"..."
"Was the Heavenly Bedding Pill's effect on you that weak?"
Looking puzzled, Byakuya took a few more glances at the muscles on Haruto's upper body. His chest and abs weren't especially prominent, but every part of them showed a powerful strength.
"Quite the opposite."
Haruto shook his head.
"Though the medicine's effects were a little slow, or perhaps because my body is unusual, my Reiatsu only dropped noticeably when I first took it. After that, my Reiatsu grew no slower than before, and my physical condition improved at the same time."
As the one who had provided the Heavenly Bedding Pill, Haruto hid nothing from Byakuya.
"...All right. It looks like the effects vary from person to person. According to my father, it had no effect at all after Captain Ukitake took it."
Byakuya sighed, then immediately perked up. He gave Haruto a gentle elbow in the side—he'd meant to nudge his shoulder, but although Byakuya was growing fast, he was still young, and the height difference between them was a little hard to make up for.
"At this rate, you should reach Fifth-Class Reii soon, right?"
"You're dreaming of peaches."
"?"
Haruto didn't explain to Byakuya what dreaming of peaches meant.
After spending so much time together, Byakuya was used to Haruto suddenly coming out with incomprehensible expressions anyway.
"Will you be reaching Captain-level soon, then going to old man Ginrei and telling him you'll take his place as Sixth Division Captain?"
"Are captains and lieutenants even the same thing?"
Byakuya curled his lip.
"Besides, never mind the basic requirement of at least Third-Class Reii for Captain-level. Meeting the Bankai requirement alone isn't that easy."
"It'd be one thing if you said I'd advance to Fourth-Class Spiritual Pressure. The two aren't even comparable."
Haruto replied with equal disdain:
"Glad you know that. There's a hurdle between Fourth-Class and Third-Class, but isn't there one between Sixth-Class and Fifth-Class too?"
He told Byakuya what he had in mind:
"I plan to hone myself some more at Sixth-Class Spiritual Pressure."
"You don't need to worry about how fast I'm progressing. Once I've achieved Shikai... it might not be impossible for a Sixth-Class to fight a Fifth-Class."
Hearing that, Byakuya was immediately displeased:
"What's wrong with you? You just advanced and you're already looking down on me? Who was it that just said there was a hurdle between the two?"
"Geniuses are different, of course."
"As if I'm not a genius too?"
"...Blah, blah, blah."
The two resumed their usual bickering.
A quarter of an hour later.
The two, who had nearly come to blows, finally abandoned their hopes of persuading each other, as they always did.
"Speaking of which."
Byakuya pulled open the collar of his shirt.
The enclosed training ground was good in every respect except that it had no Kidō with air-conditioning properties, so it was only a little cooler than outside. If it hadn't been built underground, no one would have trained in this shelter.
"What happened to the injury on your chest?"
"A Hollow gnawed on me."
Haruto answered truthfully.
"A Menos Grande?"
Byakuya probably knew Haruto's strength better than anyone else in the entire Seireitei. A Hollow below Gillian level was no match for him at all—
Especially after Haruto had shown him Dankū.
"It's not easy to describe..."
"I suppose it was a rather unusual Giant Hollow. Its Reiatsu wasn't at Menos Grande level, and it couldn't fire a genuine Cero, but it was no less troublesome than a Menos Grande."
Since Byakuya had asked, Haruto didn't hide anything.
He told Byakuya everything that had happened after he left the Seireitei, especially the circumstances of his encounter with Seigen Kyōshiba and his sister.
"The Fifth Division Captain, huh..."
"I heard my grandfather mention, when he was talking about the captains before, that the Kyōshiba Family used to be one of the Seireitei's high-ranking noble families too."
Byakuya spoke as he recalled what he'd heard.
The kid might not act like a top student, but thanks to the noble education he'd received in the Kuchiki Clan, he knew quite a lot.
Every now and then, Haruto heard secrets of the nobility from him.
"I don't know why they were exiled, but it seems our family helped them quite a bit when they returned to the Seireitei."
"Come to think of it..."
"Seigen Kyōshiba's Zanpakuto is lightning-type. It must have helped you a lot, right?"
Mutsuki Shōkaku was more or less Byakuya's homeroom teacher, so he naturally knew about her, including the Fifth Division's style of doing things.
"It did."
Haruto nodded.
"Kidō experience is important, of course, but a Zanpakuto of the same attribute helped me a lot with opening up a blue ocean and breaking into a new track."
"What nonsense are you spouting now?"
Byakuya rolled his eyes in annoyance—the kind where you couldn't see the chakra flowing.
"I mean... it helped a lot."
"Couldn't you have just said that?"
Byakuya patted his backside and stood up from the floor.
"I haven't heard of that Ichihara Clan. I can check the books at home when I get back. There might be a record of them."
Haruto had naturally told him where the Kidō Orb came from as well.
"Of course,"
"Since they were exiled nobles and don't seem to have any plans to return to the Seireitei for now, it's also possible they changed their name."
"Don't get your hopes up too high."
"I know."
Haruto nodded.
Byakuya wasn't yet old enough to be interested in that sort of thing. Haruto had clearly told him so much about the pleasure district just to see the kid blush, but not only had he failed, he'd gotten this heartfelt response instead...
He had lost.
"One more thing."
Byakuya added:
"Although our family stopped using these things a long time ago, that doesn't mean they have no value."
"That Dankū Kidō Orb you have is valuable enough to be passed down as an heirloom, even for a high-ranking noble family."
"Since you've already learned it anyway..."