The Invisible Slash

That night.

Below Sōkyoku Hill, in the ravaged woodland, moonlight filtered through the flattened tree stumps, carving patches of silvery light onto the ground. The Reiatsu clashes of the day had completely dissipated, but a faint, metallic scent lingered in the air.

Three figures emerged from the shadows of the woods.

Sōsuke Aizen walked at the front, his pace unhurried, as if taking a stroll. Gin Ichimaru followed beside him, his hands tucked into his sleeves, still wearing that ever-present smiling expression. Kaname Tōsen brought up the rear.

"This is it." Yin stopped and pointed to the most severely cracked patch of ground ahead.

Aizen looked down. There were two huge pools of blood on the ground, dried to a dark brown. The two pools of blood were almost touching, and at their edges, the blood mixed together. The rubble around the pools of blood had been blown away, the ancient trees had been leveled, and the ground was covered with grooves left by the slashes and cracks caused by the Reiatsu.

Kaname Tōsen walked to one of the pools of blood, squatted down, and held his hand an inch above the pool. He tilted his head slightly, 'looking' ahead, his brows furrowed slightly.

"There's a faint residue here." His voice was soft, tinged with confusion, "Like a layer so thin it's almost imperceptible—like a cross-section, but how is that possible?"

Aizen glanced at him, then turned to Gin. "Gin, can you sense it?"

Yin squinted, stared at where Tōsen was crouching for a moment, then spread his hands and shrugged. "Completely impossible, I can't feel anything."

"In terms of perception, you are indeed inferior to Yao." Aizen's tone was very light, as if he were saying something perfectly ordinary. He walked to Tōsen's side, raised his right hand, and lightly drew a line in the air with his fingertips.

"You feel it's good. Here, there's a slash mark left."

His fingers moved slowly along that unseen path, as if tracing a solidified scar from afar. "Yexing Hu's Zanpakuto — Jiku'a Raven—has the ability of separation. To be precise, it's the separation of phenomena. That's why, even when his Reiatsu wasn't enough to tear space apart, he could slice through space with just his Shikai Zanpakuto."

Aizen paused, his fingertips hovering in mid-air. "And when his Bankai was complete, according to Gin's earlier description—"He looked at Gin, "It should be a direct enhancement type Bankai that pushes the Shikai's power to its peak."

Yin nodded without saying a word.

Aizen's finger continued to slide downwards. "This slash is the one that cut Kenpachi Zaraki in half at the waist. Don't be fooled by the fact that there's nothing here—the space itself has actually been severed."

He turned around and looked at the empty void. "However, the strike is directional. If you don't go towards it, you won't get hurt. But if—"

A night breeze swept by, swirling up the remaining fallen leaves. The leaves, caught in the wind, twirled past Aizen. Several of them, as they passed that spot, silently split in two. The cuts were as smooth as mirrors, making no sound, before gently falling to the ground.

Aizen looked at the two shattered leaves. "But if you face it head-on—this is the result."

Kaname Tōsen's brows furrowed even deeper.

"If Kenpachi Zaraki, who removed his eyepatch to seal his Reiatsu, couldn't withstand this attack," Tōsen slowly stood up, "In the current Soul Society, I'm afraid no one could take it."

"That's true," Aizen said.

Gin's smile faded slightly, and his narrowed eyes opened a crack. "Even Captain Aizen isn't allowed?"

Aizen glanced at him, a slight smile playing on his lips. "If I were to take this hit now, my fate would probably be no different from Kenpachi Zaraki's."

He paused, his tone remaining calm, as if discussing something unrelated to himself. "But I won't give him the chance to hit me."

"I will definitely end this battle before it even begins."

Yin hid his eyes again: So, in order to counter the Captain-Commander, he's going to develop a specific countermeasure? It seems Xiao Hu really can threaten him.

Aizen turned around, taking one last look at the unseen slash. "However, with power like that, we should still add an extra layer of protection."

His gaze swept over Gin, then he turned and walked out of the woods, with Gin and Tōsen following behind him. The three figures gradually disappeared into the shadows where the moonlight could not reach.

The following morning.

Sunlight filtered through the broken tree stumps left from the previous day, illuminating the ravaged battlefield. Ikkaku Madarame and Yumichika Ayasegawa with several members of the 11th Division, stood at the edge of the field, brooms, shovels, and various cleaning tools in their hands.

The expression on Ikkaku's face looked like someone owed three months' salary.

The story begins this morning. A transfer order from Central 46 was delivered directly to the Eleventh Division Barracks:

Due to the recent need to activate the Sōkyoku Scaffold Sōkyoku Hill and its surrounding area must be kept clean. In view of the large-scale damage caused to the area by the 11th Division Captain Kenpachi Zaraki yesterday, the 11th Division Lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi has been ordered to lead a team to clean it up.

The moment Yachiru received the transfer order, he slapped the paper onto the bald man who was still sleeping in the Ikkaku, leaving behind a string of laughter before disappearing without a trace.

Ikkaku got out of bed, clutching his head. He stared at the transfer order lying on the floor, veins bulging on his forehead, but he couldn't utter a word. Everyone knew that the 11th Division Captain Kenpachi Zaraki, had two things he absolutely could not touch.

One is his chosen opponent

The other one is Yachiru Kusajishi.

He's someone you can't afford to offend.

So he's standing here now, followed by several able-bodied men he temporarily recruited from the team.

A young squad member with a tall, mohawk-like hairstyle carried a broom, looked around, and frowned. "Brother Madarame, I have something to ask you."

"Explain."

"Our 11th Division is a combat division, right? The most capable unit in the entire Seireitei, always at the forefront of every expedition to Hueco Mundo."

He got more and more excited as he spoke, slamming the broom on the ground. "Why are we all here filling in holes and sweeping? Shouldn't that kind of work be done by those sick cowards in the Fourth Division?"

Ikkaku nearly ground his back teeth to powder. He remembered the transfer order slapped on his head this morning, and the laughing figure of Yachiru running away. Now he still had to come up with an excuse to deal with his subordinates.

No, I've been using my brain too much today.

"Shut up!" Ikkaku slammed the shovel into the ground. "This is the battlefield where our captain fought! As members of the 11th Division, we should consider it an honor to clean up the battlefield where our captain fought!"

Don't you feel proud to be members of the 11th Division?! Get moving!

When he said this, he wasn't sure if he was trying to boost morale or hypnotizing Ego.

But when the team members who were initially uninterested heard the words "the battlefield where the captain fought," their eyes lit up.

The guy with the rooster-like haircut was the first to grab a broom and shout in a booming voice, "For Captain Zaraki!" The others echoed him. Yumichika stood in Ikkaku, holding a small brush in his hand, saying nothing.

As it turns out, the members of the 11th Division were indeed easy to manage, and they were very capable of working after being motivated.

The giant crater was filled in shovel by shovel, the rubble was moved away piece by piece, and the broken tree stumps were uprooted and piled up to one side. The entire battlefield became cleaned up at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The team member with the rooster-like haircut worked the hardest. He swung his broom like Zanpakuto, sweeping away the fallen leaves and dust from the outer edge of the field all the way to the center.

He saw a pile of fallen leaves that had been blown together by the wind, so he picked up a broom and swept them away.

However, the moment the broom touched the pile of fallen leaves, it instantly and silently broke in two. The cut was so clean it looked as if it had been sliced open by something extremely sharp.

"How did this broom break? The quality is really bad." He bent down to pick up the broken broom head.

A very faint, almost inaudible cracking sound came from above. He looked up and saw his hair falling down.

His rooster-motif hairstyle, which he had styled high with a whole bottle of hairspray, was neatly shaved off by something. Only an inch of it remained, unevenly standing on his scalp.

He looked at his hair scattered on the ground, then touched his shaved head, and let out a heart-wrenching scream.

Yumichika watched this scene and silently took a step back. He began to check every adornment on his body to make sure he hadn't received the same treatment.

Ikkaku frowned, walked over, squatted down in front of the rooster-haired man, and cautiously reached out his hand to probe in the air. His fingertips touched an extremely thin and sharp layer of Reishi, the sensation like a blade that had been ground to an extremely fine point. He withdrew his hand, looked at the extremely thin line of blood that had risen on his fingertip, and remained silent for a while.

"... It seems there's more to fill than just holes. Yumichika, go back and inform them." Ikkaku stood up and gathered the surrounding members of the squad.

The strike that Aizen had sketched from afar, that the leaves blown down by the night wind had verified, and that a member with a rooster-comb hairstyle had now personally witnessed, still remained there, flashing slightly in the pre-noon sunlight.

It was afternoon.

The woodland had been completely cleared: the rubble had been removed, the craters filled in, and even the broken ancient trees had been dragged away whole, leaving the ground as smooth as if there had never been a battle.

However, the center of the area was surrounded by a fence with the words "Department of Research and Development" and the Twelfth Division's insignia on it. Inside the fence, a bunch of equipment was humming and running.

A massive sensor panel was mounted on either side of the invisible slash in the void, with Reishi detectors arranged in a circle around it like a fence. Several probes extending from the analyzer were aimed at the same position, and the indicator lights on them flashed on and off, emitting a regular buzzing sound.

Mayuri Kurotsuchi stood in the center of the equipment cluster, his fingers flying across the touchscreen interface. Beside him stood Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryūsai, leaning on the cane formed from the Ryūjin Jakka, silently gazing at the empty space surrounded by the equipment.

"Captain-Commander, this is roughly how the slash occurred." Mayuri Kurotsuchi pointed to the data flashing on the control panel and the newly generated 3D model of the slash.

"The Reishi that constituted the slash have all dissipated. What remains here now is not residual Reiatsu, but a wound that existed in this space itself."

"Like casting a mold, the shape of the slash is left in space."

Its thickness is so thin that it is almost impossible to observe, but its structure is extremely tough. However, relying on the natural healing power of space, it is currently estimated that it will take at least three to four days to fully close up. This is the most optimistic time given after taking into account the concentration of spiritual veins under the Sōkyoku Hills.

"If it were opened on the densely Seireitei, the Captain-Commander would probably know the consequences better than I do."

Captain-Commander Yamamoto did not speak immediately.

He reached out, his fingers slowly probing into the void. His fingertips touched the crack. He felt an extremely faint sensation, like being gently grazed by an extremely thin blade.

He withdrew his finger, leaving a very thin white mark on the tip.

He lowered his eyelids and looked down at the white mark:

A mark left by a young man who had been cultivating for less than half a year hung quietly in the air. The most convenient way to repair it was to ask me, the Captain-Commander, to come and use my Reiatsu to knead it together.

He withdrew his hand, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes. His ancient eyes held an unfathomable expression.

After gathering intense Reiatsu in his hand and completely erasing the crack, Yamamoto nodded.

He turned around, his voice low. "Pass down the order. From now on, without the permission of any captain other than Kenpachi Zaraki, Yexing Hu is strictly prohibited from using Bankai anywhere within the Seireitei."

Yamamoto, leaning on his cane, walked out of the woods. The wind blew through the flattened tree stumps, making a very soft, faint whistle.

In the World of the Living, the Underground Training Ground of Urahara Shop.

The Senkaimon had lit up. A halo of light swirled around the portal frame, bathing the entire training ground in a grayish-blue hue that was somewhere between day and night. Kisuke Urahara stood by the portal, holding Benihime in his hand, his hat pulled low over his shoulders.

"Kurosaki-kun, the world beyond the gate isn't peaceful. Let me make this clear from the start: to Soul Society, you are intruders. Once you're in, you won't have anyone to pick you up like World of the Living here in the human world. What happens after you get there is up to you."

Ichigo stood Senkaimon, looking at the general store owner he had fought countless times over the past few days, and smiled. "Thank you for taking care of me these past few days, Mr. Urahara. And your arm, I'm sorry."

Urahara tapped his shoulder with his fan, a sliver of his mouth peeking out from under his hat brim. "Don't worry about your arm; it's been reattached anyway."

Urahara's inner thoughts: What's wrong with young people these days? They all have such bad tempers. My arm, which was just reattached, got cut up again.

Yoruichi onto Ichigo's shoulder

"Kisuke, let's go."

Ichigo nodded to everyone present, turned around, and took a step forward. Yasutora Sado behind, then Uryū Ishida. Orihime Inoue stepped in last, turned around, and waved to the training ground.

The Senkaimon shone brightly, engulfing several figures before closing behind them. After the light faded, the Underground Training Ground fell silent.