"So you went looking for this kid, never expecting he had a loli hidden away in a ruined house?"
"Ahahaha, Makoto, his name is Ichimaru Gin. He's a genius. I originally only wanted to check on his condition, but things just happened to work out this way."
"So you brought him back while you were at it?"
Chiba Makoto looked at Ichimaru Gin, who was tightly holding the youthful loli version of Matsumoto Rangiku in his arms, his expression complicated.
Ichimaru Gin—the future captain of the Third Division—was a typical prodigy. For the sake of avenging his beloved and reclaiming her stolen soul, he had been willing to abandon everything and lurk at Aizen Sōsuke's side for more than a century, patiently waiting for the chance to land a fatal blow.
Yet as Chiba Makoto looked at Matsumoto Rangiku in Ichimaru Gin's arms, he felt more than a little numb.
When he had first run into Ichimaru Gin, it wasn't as though Chiba Makoto hadn't considered taking advantage of Gin's young age to find an opportunity to sneak up and stab him, make him bleed, and leave behind a seed that could remain with him for life.
But Chiba Makoto had only planned to secretly give the young Ichimaru Gin a shot if the chance arose. He had no intention of letting Gin notice him or making direct contact with him, all to avoid getting tangled up in the love-hate relationship between Aizen Sōsuke and Ichimaru Gin.
But now, with Ichimaru Gin appearing alongside the soul-deficient Matsumoto Rangiku, it all but confirmed that Aizen Sōsuke was responsible for this small-scale incident of missing souls.
More troublesome still was whether he should treat Matsumoto Rangiku.
After all, if he had a choice, Chiba Makoto truly did not want to involve himself