He Stood Among His Ruins

Till in despair & the shadows of death, Pale, aged, breaking the bounds of immortality, He stood among his ruins.--William Blake <The Four Zoas>(1794)

Under the cover of night Seireitei was torn into countless pieces by the flames. Rain, holding Sylvan, struggled through the smoke and fire. The feathers on his right wing had become much sparser, and each flap of his wing was accompanied by a very slight tremor, with tiny sparks occasionally drifting from the edges.

Sylvan hovered in mid-air, blood still seeping from his wounds. His black sleeveless vest was mostly soaked in blood. He stared at Rain's right wing, which was still emitting blue smoke. Every flap of that wing made his heart clench.

"I'm sorry, Sylvan," Rain's voice came from above, broken and carried a weakness so different from the bird's usual calm, "I might not be able to hold on much longer."

"Rain? What's wrong?" Sylvan looked up.

"Reiatsu... Reiatsu is insufficient..." Rain stubbornly flapped his wings, but in the end, he could no longer move them. His Blue-Violet wings froze in the air for a moment, and then fell down like a kite with a broken string.

The man and the bird began to swoop down rapidly, the wind rushing into Sylvan's ears and almost completely swallowing up Rain's faint voice.

"Rain--!" Sylvan flipped in the air, holding Rain tightly in his arms. His back slammed into a tree branch, the sound of shattering leaves exploding in his ears, then a second, a third—he carried Rain through layers of tree canopy, finally crashing heavily onto the ground covered with fallen leaves.

Sylvan lay there, his bones feeling as if they had been broken apart. He looked down at Rain in his arms, Rain breathing was growing weak and whose silver pupils were slowly dilating.

"Sylvan..." Rain said weakly, "I need to sleep for a while..." Its voice grew softer and softer, and its body began to become transparent, gradually turning into countless extremely fine black particles, as if swept up by an invisible wind, drifting one by one toward the Featherlike Pattern tattoo on Sylvan's right arm.

The black particles were absorbed into the tattoo the moment they touched it, and the tattoo's lines gradually darkened before falling silent.

Sylvan felt the connection between his soul and Rain's end grow weaker and weaker, until it finally became a faint, steady pulse, like that of someone in a deep sleep.

He lay on the cold fallen leaves, covered in blood, his jet-black cane lying beside him, the fine lines on its surface still gleaming faintly.

He stared at the night sky above, fragmented by the tree canopy, his silver pupils reflecting the distant, still-burning flames.

"Having lost all my power... is this all I'm capable of?"

His voice was very soft, so soft it was almost blown away by the wind. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and his consciousness began to blur. The last thing he saw was a small patch of starry sky through the gaps in the tree canopy, and then there was darkness.

The next day, the morning sun shone on the devastated Seireitei.

Yoruichi Shihōin stood on a high wall of Seireitei, her short purple hair fluttering slightly in the morning breeze. She crossed her arms, her golden eyes sweeping over the ruins before her—the massive gate of the Hakutōmon lay askew, its engravings ripped open by countless cuts from various strikes, the stone pavement overturned, and wisps of smoke still rising from the rubble from last night's fire.

"It's truly a terrible sight."

She muttered something under her breath, then leaped down the high wall and began to traverse the Seireitei at high speed. The sights along the way gradually darkened her usually composed expression.

Everywhere there were destroyed buildings and wounded people sitting on the ground: some leaned against broken walls, pressing their torn sleeves against their still-bleeding wounds; others sat on piles of rubble, holding an Asauchi, their eyes vacant as they repeatedly stroked the spine of the blade.

There are too many wounded.

Yoruichi glanced past a young Shinigami leaning against a broken pillar, his eyes blankly fixed on his Zanpakuto. "Fighting with one's own Zanpakuto has a profound impact on Soul Reaper's psyche."

She continued forward and saw several members of the Fourth Division carrying stretchers to transport the wounded out of the ruins.

"It seems the Fourth Division is still functioning normally. Let's go check the medical duty room; maybe we can find someone who can explain the situation."

Just as she was about to pass through the dense forest beneath the Sōkyoku Hill, she suddenly sensed a faint Reiatsu —extremely faint, almost imperceptible, but the nature of that Reiatsu made her pause for a moment.

"This Reiatsu is... no, that's not right. Although it's similar, it's still somewhat different."

For a moment, she thought she had caught a glimpse of Amber's aura. Upon closer inspection, although there were some differences, the aura, like a starry night sky, did indeed share a certain origin with Amber's.

Curious, Yoruichi slightly changed direction and rushed towards the direction from which the Reiatsu was coming.

When she landed on the clearing covered with fallen leaves, she saw a thin young man lying face up among the leaves, covered in blood. His black sleeveless vest was soaked in blood, and the texture of some tattoos could be vaguely seen through the dried blood on his right arm.

His face was covered in mud and blood, and his breathing was so shallow that it was almost imperceptible. His jet-black cane lay beside him, also covered in blood.

Yoruichi crouched down and checked on him. "This guy's in bad shape."

Her gaze fell on the collar of his vest—where a circle of extremely fine silver ripples was embroidered, appearing and disappearing in the morning light. She parted the fabric of his collar and saw the Fon Clan Crest pattern hidden beneath the ripples.

"Is this the Fon Clan Crest?" Her brow furrowed slightly. "Is he a retainer of the Fon Clan?"

She bent down and carried the young man on her back. His weight was so light that it made her heart skip a beat—he was so thin that he was practically just skin and bones, and his body was clearly operating at the expense of its last remaining energy.

She carried the young man on her back and rushed towards the Fourth Division.

In the Fourth Division's ambulance duty room, the air was filled with the stench of blood and the pungent smell of various medicines. Stretchers lined the corridor, and the Fourth Division's soldiers knelt between them, treating the wounded.

Yoruichi carried the young man into the duty room. "There's a wounded soldier here who needs emergency treatment! Quickly prepare an operating room!"

The duty room fell silent for a moment. All the team members looked up at her, then exchanged glances, sighed, and continued to attend to the patients at hand.

"Hey, what's wrong with you guys?" Yoruichi, completely puzzled.

At that moment, a veteran soldier who was stitching up a wounded soldier explained to Yoruichi with his head down, "The operating rooms are all full. They haven't stopped operating since last night. The Seated Officers who can handle this kind of injury are all treating other wounded soldiers. We can only wait."

Yoruichi truly hadn't expected that the Fourth Division, the core of Seireitei's medical care, would be unable to find an operating room. Just then, a calm female voice came from the other end of the corridor.

"Yoruichi, bring him with me." It was Retsu Unohana who had sensed Yoruichi's Reiatsu and stepped forward. She clasped her hands in front of her. "It just so happens that Ukitake and Kyōraku are here with me too. You can get the information you want."

Yoruichi carried the young man on her back and quickly followed, passing through the corridor and turning several corners. Unohana pushed open the door to the inner room of her office.

This is a room specifically for the Fourth Division Captain to conduct medical experiments. The shelves on the four walls are filled with various medicinal herbs and surgical instruments. Jūshirō Ukitake and Shunsui Kyōraku are standing by the window, talking in hushed tones.

Unohana walked to the operating table in the center of the room and gestured for Yoruichi to put the young man down.

Yoruichi carefully laid the young man on the operating table. Unohana put on gloves, placed her fingers on the side of his neck, and began her examination...

After a while,

After listening to Kyōraku and Ukitake's explanation of last night's events, Yoruichi leaned against the wall. "So, after the enemies wreaked havoc last night, they suddenly disappeared without a trace, is that right?"

"That's how it is." Ukitake sighed. "The Seireitei with wounded."

"Led by the First Division, numerous buildings were burned down, resulting in extremely heavy losses." Kyōraku unusually restrained his usual frivolousness.

"Currently, only the Fourth Division, the Second Division, and the Twelfth Division have relatively intact building complexes that are still functioning properly."

Ukitake added, "Captain Soi Fon has already set off with the Stealth Force to chase after the vanished Zanpakuto, and Captain Kurotsuchi seems to have started investigating why this phenomenon occurred—speaking of which, his luck is really bad; he finally managed to repair his Zanpakuto, only to have it betray him on the very day it was repaired."

"For now, let's use the Fourth Division as our base for intelligence gathering, and find some highly skilled individuals among Soul Reaper Shinigami who escaped death to strengthen our vigilance, shall we?" Kyōraku looked at Unohana.

Unohana's fingers were slowly pressing along the edge of the wound below the young man's collarbone, as if she hadn't heard Kyōraku's words at all.

"I never imagined such a thing could happen in the world," she suddenly said, her voice carrying a very faint, almost bewildered tone.

Ukitake paused for a moment. "The Zanpakuto's rebellion was indeed unexpected, but—"

"Captain Ukitake, I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about this person in front of you," Unohana interrupted him, raising her head and stepping aside slightly to show Sylvan on the operating table to the three of them, "Didn't you feel a sense of familiarity when you first sensed his Reiatsu?"

Ukitake took a few steps forward, looking at the gaunt face on the operating table—a face that had been covered in blood and dirt but was now cleaned by Unohana —and frowned slightly. "Indeed, both the Reiatsu and the face feel familiar. Perhaps I've encountered it somewhere in Seireitei before."

"Something's not right." Kyōraku walked to the other side of the operating table, his gaze from under his hat falling on the young man's face. "This young man's Reiatsu is more peculiar; it does seem somewhat familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it—"

"Captain Unohana." Yoruichi knew what Unohana meant by "familiar," and interrupted Kyōraku's thoughts, asking cautiously, "This person... is she related to Amber in some way?"

Kyōraku and Ukitake both looked at Yoruichi, and then at Unohana.

"It's more than just a connection; this body belongs to Yexing Hu." Unohana pointed to the emaciated body and the huge scar that ran from the shoulder blade all the way to the waist.

"I was right there when Isane stitched up this wound." Her fingers slowly traced the edge of the scar, her fingertips lingering for a moment on the fine stitches. "I know her stitching habits better than anyone; there's absolutely no mistake."

Ukitake's pupils contracted slightly. "So that means... he's Yexing Hu? But his face is still a bit different from what I saw on Sōkyoku Hill."

"There's no difference in his bone structure." Unohana looked at the young man's face, which bore a slight resemblance to Amber's but was even thinner. "This face is a distortion of his own Reiatsu in his subconscious; it's not a normal appearance. And his soul—" she paused, "Is in a strangely fragmented state."

She raised her hands, and Reiatsu surged from her fingertips, slowly condensing into a projection above the operating table. It was an almost transparent sphere, but it was empty—or rather, almost empty, with only about two-fifths of it filled with liquid at the bottom.

Even the two-fifths of the liquid was clearly divided into two colors: one was a deep purple, so still it was almost solidified; the other was a deep blue, like the aurora borealis slowly flowing on the surface of water.

"This is the current state of his soul," Unohana said.

She lowered her left hand and raised her right hand alone. Another projection appeared in her palm—a complete sphere filled with soft green light. Reiatsu flowed evenly inside the sphere, without any breaks from the core to the edge.

"This is the normal state a soul should be in." Unohana lowered her hand, and the two projections vanished simultaneously. She turned back to Sylvan on the operating table. "His soul is like a container that has been almost emptied, while his Reiatsu is like something that was emptied and then recovered, but for some reason, the recovered part has not fully integrated."

Kyōraku was silent for a moment, then pulled his straw hat down further. "Could it be... the result of his Zanpakuto that day?"

"That's very likely."

Unohana picked up the surgical instruments again and continued the surgery on Sylvan. "We'll have to wait until he wakes up to find out the specifics."

Regarding Captain Kyōraku's suggestion earlier—we have no objections. The Second Division and Twelfth Divisions, due to the special nature of their duties, don't seem like suitable locations for headquarters. The Fourth Division's location and facilities are more reasonable. I have no problem with that."

Yoruichi looked at the gaunt face on the operating table, the black cane with fine lines on its shaft lying beside the table, and the Featherlike Patterns on Sylvan's right arm that would have glowed faintly even in his unconscious state.

"I'll go back to the World of the Living first." She turned and walked towards the door. "I also need to hear Urahara's opinion regarding the Zanpakuto rebellion and Amber's current state."

Unohana looked up. "So, he's started investigating now too?"

"That's how it is." Yoruichi pushed open the door, and the morning light shone through the crack, falling on the curve of her lips. The door closed behind her, and the sound of footsteps gradually faded away down the corridor.