"Thank goodness the Twelfth Division is all right. Were you scared?"
"Mm, I'm okay~"
Jun made his way to the Twelfth Division and found that a lot of people had already gathered there. Most people who wanted to stay safe had come here. It seemed the Twelfth Division had become a refuge.
"Junjun~ Don't worry, everyone who comes here will be safe. Lingling is one of mine, so she'll be even safer."
"Thank you, Captain Hikifune."
"Ah~ This is all I can do. How are things outside?"
"There's fighting everywhere. I don't know exactly what's going on either. Why did things suddenly turn out like this!? Have you heard anything, Captain Hikifune?"
Kirio Hikifune folded her arms and thought for a long time, but unfortunately she had no news. Just then, a member of the Eighth Division hiding there spoke up.
"Shiba Mitsuo is dead."
"Huh!? When did that happen!?"
Jun was completely dumbfounded. Shiba Mitsuo was a member of one of the Shiba Branch Families, and supposedly he was the only one left in his branch. He both was and wasn't a Soul Reaper: he had a Soul Reaper's powers, but didn't serve in the Gotei 13. There were many people like that among the nobles.
So if this man had died, Jun indeed wouldn't have heard about it; they didn't move in the same circles. But the sudden death of someone with that status really couldn't have been a bigger deal.
"I don't know the details either. Supposedly he's been dead for seven or eight days."
"What was the cause?"
"I really don't know that."
Jun couldn't learn anything more, and at that moment he suddenly sensed something.
"Holy shit!"
"What is it!? Jun~ Don't scare me." Isuzu was extremely worried. Jun patted her hand to tell her not to worry.
Jun and Captain Hikifune exchanged a glance and nodded together, both looking grim.
"Just as I thought, I wasn't mistaken. Captain Yukinoshita's Reiatsu has disappeared."
"If she was fighting Yoruichi, I'm afraid..."
"He's already dead."
"More or less."
"I'm going out for a bit."
"Jun!"
Jun deposited Isuzu in Kirio Hikifune's arms. "Don't worry, I'm just going out to take a look. I'm strong enough to protect myself. I'm not afraid of anyone unless a captain comes after me personally. I'm off. I still need to find Jing."
Once he brought up his sister, Isuzu had no way to stop him. After leaving the Twelfth Division, however, Jun didn't go looking for Jing. Jun trusted his sister, and Kyōraku had already made his move over there, directly raising the safety level of Kyōraku's faction by a hundred percentage points. So Jun went to the place where Yoruichi Shihōin and Yukinoshita Hanato had just fought.
It wasn't particularly far away, and there was hardly anyone along the way. Unless they had a death wish, no one would get involved in a fight between two captains. In a few movements, Jun appeared at the edge of the battlefield. Yoruichi Shihōin was standing quietly in its center.
"What? Is Soul Society's greatest genius going to make a move against me?"
Yoruichi Shihōin looked toward Jun and simultaneously used the communication Kidō Tenteikūra.
"How would I dare? But why did you immediately put me in the Shiba Clan's camp? I'm an innocent bystander who got caught up in this~"
Jun also used Tenteikūra, and the two of them held a long-distance conversation through Kidō.
"Oh~? So you've already run into certain people?"
"Weren't they sent by you, Captain Shihoin?"
"Hehehe~~ Hahaha~" Yoruichi held her stomach as she laughed. "I sent people? My Shihoin family wouldn't dare make an enemy of the Shiba Clan~ Men of the Shiba Clan really do think highly of themselves~, huh!?"
When Yoruichi looked at Jun again, even though they were a thousand meters apart, he felt the piercing force of her gaze, sharp as a blade.
"Sorry, Captain Shihoin. I seem to have said something offensive, but I really am not your enemy. Although I might stand with the Shiba faction, I'm mostly standing on my own side. Please calm down. I'll take my leave."
Jun vanished in an instant. From his brief conversation with Yoruichi, he seemed to have learned the biggest cause of the incident.
Shiba Mitsuo seemed to have wanted to become Yoruichi's man, and Yoruichi certainly hadn't agreed. What had happened in the ensuing conflict was unknown. Yoruichi wouldn't have gone so far as to kill Shiba Mitsuo, but the head of that Shiba Branch Family had died anyway, and then someone had exploited the matter.
But this wasn't something just anyone could exploit—or rather, many people were fishing in troubled waters. The three who had ganged up on Jun earlier were probably doing the same. Seventh Seat Sasebo seemed to be jealous of Jun, so he had planned to use this opportunity to cripple him.
So who was exploiting the matter? Jun's own thoughts had already made the answer fairly clear: the retainers!
The Five Great Noble Clans had dwindled to fewer than ten members apiece, yet each still had twenty or thirty retainer families, give or take. The most formidable of them, the Shihoin family, actually had over a hundred retainer families. Could these people really all be completely loyal to their main family?
Who didn't want to climb higher? There was no opportunity for an underling to overthrow a superior in the open, but a moment like this was the perfect chance.
So Yoruichi later left Soul Society, and Soi Fon became captain of the Second Division. Maybe Soi Fon was still loyal to Yoruichi, but the same might not be true of Soi Fon's family or the Shihoin family's many retainers.
And they didn't really need someone utterly opposed to Yoruichi to go against her. As long as Yoruichi was no longer in control of the Second Division and the Punishment Force, Soi Fon's Fon Clan could have the first captain, and the other families could have the second and third. As long as it wasn't the Shihoin family, that was enough.
So, judging by what happened in the original story, was the Shihoin family actually the biggest loser this time? Or rather, Yoruichi alone. What a pitiful woman, keeping up the title of one of the so-called Five Great Noble Clans all by herself. Who could understand the difficulties involved?
But this is still just speculation. I need to find someone and learn what happened.
Jun was already approaching the Ise Clan. And now, in the Gotei 13, aside from those who had gone into hiding, those who had fled to the Twelfth Division, and some old men in the First Division watching the show, everyone else was either fighting or already dead. After this, Soul Society would undergo a massive change in personnel, not a massive hemorrhage!
The First Division? That old bastard Yamamoto really is something. All he has to do this time is sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. The nobles' losses are the Gotei 13's gains. He's calculated it well~!
As for ordinary Soul Reapers, aren't expendables available in unlimited supply? Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryūsai, are you really the pillar holding everything steady? You can sit back and ignore even something like this?
"Uncle Rikudō~ Is Jing home?"
"Jun~ You came from outside!? Jing's home. Did you run into any trouble?"
Jun arrived at the Ise Clan's home, where Jing's adoptive father, Ise Rikudō, was standing at the entrance to the main hall. He had been keeping an eye on the battle between Shunsui Kyōraku and Nambu Nobuyasu.
But unlike the situation with Yoruichi, those two were still at the stage of intimidating each other with their Reiatsu and didn't seem inclined to fight.
"Brother~" Sensing Jun's arrival, Jing hurried out from the back hall, accompanied by a woman.
"Auntie Miyabi~"
"Jun's here. That's wonderful~" The woman was Ise Rikudō's wife and Jing's adoptive mother.
"Brother, did you run into any trouble?"
"Uh, it's already been dealt with." Jun still chose not to lie to his sister, because he wanted more information now.
Sure enough, Ise Rikudō asked, "Who came after you? This whole affair shouldn't have had anything to do with either of you in the first place."
"Seventh Seat Sasebo from my division. I met the head of the Shihoin family and exchanged some information with her. I know I'm not a key player, so I think he probably wanted to take the opportunity to get rid of me."
"My heavens!" Ise Rikudō had no particular reaction when Jun mentioned Sasebo, but when he spoke of Yoruichi, Rikudō was so frightened that he wiped away cold sweat. "You actually dared to go see the head of the Shihoin family. You really are..."
"I only realized something was wrong after I got there. So what exactly is going on? You know some of the facts, right, Uncle Rikudō?"
"Ah~"
From Ise Rikudō, Jun learned what had set the incident in motion. Just as Jun had guessed, it was only a prelude.
Shiba Mitsuo's pursuit of Yoruichi was not much different from what Jun had predicted. In Soul Society, something like that was perfectly normal, but this time, something abnormal had happened.
Noble circles weren't really all that different from those of ordinary people. The Five Great Noble Clans still got together occasionally, and some ordinary nobles would also attend. At this gathering, Yoruichi had once again become the target of everyone's teasing. There was nothing really wrong with that; it was a regular feature of every gathering.
But what was different this time? In the past, the only one close to Yoruichi in both generation and age had been Shiba Mitsuo of the Shiba Clan. He was a generation above Isshin, and so was Yoruichi.
Speaking of generations, Yoruichi was of the same generation as Kuchiki Ginrei—that is, Byakuya's grandmother's generation. Others of that generation included Katsukoma Shiba, Shiba Kazato, Shiba Mitsuo, Shinjūrō Teru, Kōda Tachikawa, and Tachikawa Zan.
These were all members of the older generation, but this time one more had suddenly appeared: the "Kaien Shiba" Jun had seen at the graduation assessment. However, this man wasn't Kaien Shiba, but Kinjun Shiba, probably Kaien's father.
Although Kinjun was young, he was of the same generation as Yoruichi, and the youngest of them. He was also the youngest son of the Shiba Clan's deceased old patriarch. His older brother, Katsukoma Shiba, was still the head of the main family, and barring any surprises, Kinjun would have to establish a branch family.
So everyone could more or less guess how he had grown up: he was a thoroughly arrogant young wastrel. And at this gathering, he had declared that he wanted to marry Yoruichi.
Yoruichi had naturally taken it as a joke, and everyone else had laughed it off. More or less everyone in their generation had pursued Yoruichi, but not one had succeeded. Politically, there was nothing wrong with intermarriage among the Five Great Noble Clans, but the Shihoin family had only one woman. She certainly couldn't marry a man from another of the five, and a man from another of the five couldn't marry into the Shihoin family either. It was simply impossible.
But here was the problem: did people think the young Kinjun Shiba was the only wastrel in the Shiba Clan? No, Mitsuo was one too.
Then Shiba Mitsuo did something unimaginably idiotic. After the banquet, he found an excuse to visit the Shihoin family, and actually tried to force himself on Yoruichi!
"What!!?"
Jun was dumbstruck.
"Ahem, it's just what you heard."
Ise Rikudō was also at a loss for words. Anyone with even a slightly normal brain wouldn't do something like that. Was Yoruichi the Flash Goddess a joke? She'd earned that title through fighting!
"And then that guy got beaten and chased off."
"That's right."
"Then how did he die?"
Ise Rikudō shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe someone in the Shiba Clan knows, but outsiders don't."
"What about Kinjun Shiba?"
"I'm not sure. With things as they are now, nobody knows what's happening in the Shiba Clan."
Jun scratched his head, racking his brains. "Someone in the Shiba Clan used this as an excuse to pressure the Shihoin family?"
"Yes, someone did do that."
"The Shihoin family's retainers struck back in the name of defending their main family from humiliation?"
"That's right."
"So it really was underlings overthrowing their superiors~" Jun looked outside. "The head of the Shihoin family—I didn't expect this. I only just spoke to her. Underlings overthrowing their superiors!"
"Ah~~" Ise Rikudō had nothing to say either. There was no helping it; the Ise Clan were retainers too. What could he say about it?
Jun really had nothing to say. "Uncle Rikudō~ Do you think any of those people could have foreseen what's happening today?"
"Probably. With this sort of thing, if they want to climb higher, the more chaos the better."
"Animals!"
Jun clenched his fists. Although he knew Soul Society was like this—Jun's analysis of Soul Society's current state had been mentioned earlier—
What he imagined and what he saw in reality were ultimately not the same thing. Jun found that he still couldn't remain indifferent to casualties on such a scale. As for the people who had set these events in motion for the sake of so-called status, Jun found that he could do nothing about them. What kind of helplessness was this?
"Animals!!"