You Are Human!

The boy's figure was not tall, yet it seemed rimmed with a faint golden glow. Together with the light, he pierced through the thick clouds blanketing the sky of Soul Society.

The instant Musashi Kasa saw the boy appear, he froze. Then, he felt a surge of fear rise from the depths of his heart—a trembling on the level of the soul!

He wanted to run, but to his horror, he discovered that his legs had gone completely weak at some point. He could not move at all.

He wanted to shout, but his throat was dry, and he could not utter a single word.

Asano Kiyoshi walked toward him expressionlessly. With every step he took, thick, foul-smelling blood continued to drip from the grotesquely bloody handbag in his hand.

The blood fell to the ground, splashing against Musashi Kasa's heart.

Musashi Kasa looked at the familiar faces on the handbag...

Yamano Mirō, the Second Squad Leader, who had been carved into a human stump... Yūtakadai Sei, the Fifth Squad Leader, whose head was fastened together with those of several elite members...

Those familiar faces had once belonged to people he could only look up to. Yet now, their heads were strung together without dignity like the heads of wild boars butchered by a roadside slaughterer, no different from dead stray dogs.

Looking at the boy before him, perhaps driven by the instinct to survive that rose from the depths of his soul, Musashi Kasa began to resist.

He waved the Asauchi in his hand in a wildly disordered manner. His face twisted, and he screamed hysterically:

"Don't come closer! Don't come closer! You monster! Don't come any closer! Get lost!"

As he flailed his blade, he actually began to cry. A foul stench of urine came from his lower abdomen, and the color of the cloth around his crotch gradually darkened.

Asano Kiyoshi looked at the man who had lost all dignity and revealed a trace of disgust and vindictive satisfaction. He raised the handbag slightly and said to Musashi Kasa:

"You're fairly lucky. There aren't many people here yet, so you can choose a good spot for your head."

Hearing Asano Kiyoshi's words, Musashi Kasa's mental defenses completely collapsed. Like a madman, he hurled the Asauchi in his hand at Asano Kiyoshi. Then, without caring whether it worked, he turned and ran. He even fell because he was running too fast, scrambling away on all fours in utter misery.

Asano Kiyoshi casually caught the long blade Musashi Kasa had thrown. The moment it entered his hand, he felt the blade tremble faintly. Then, an indescribable sorrow came from it. Asano Kiyoshi knew that the Zanpakuto was crying.

So he said to the Zanpakuto in his hand:

"It's all right. I'll help you get him back right away. Bear with it for a little while. It'll be over soon."

After saying that, Asano Kiyoshi looked at Musashi Kasa fleeing away. He turned his palm and hurled Musashi Kasa's Zanpakuto like a javelin, saying to him:

"A Zanpakuto is half of its owner's soul. It isn't something you can just throw away. Can't you hear it? That piercing wail!"

As he spoke, the Zanpakuto traced a desolate, beautiful arc through the air and plunged straight into Musashi Kasa's lower abdomen, pinning him to the ground.

Asano Kiyoshi strolled over to his side and casually chopped off his limbs before saying:

"You like tormenting people, don't you? You made those wounds on that old man's body, didn't you? Then when you committed evil, you should have been prepared to be treated the same way, right?!"

Musashi Kasa said nothing in response. He only continued to howl miserably. The pain was so intense that his eyelids had begun to roll upward.

Seeing Musashi Kasa like this, Asano Kiyoshi no longer had any interest in tangling with him. All he needed to do was cut off his head. But Asano Kiyoshi believed that merely doing so could not save the utterly rotten Rukongai.

As long as the residents of Rukongai remained this numb, no matter how many people like Musashi Kasa he killed, it would be useless!

He could only resolve conflicts and contradictions for a time. That was not true salvation.

True salvation lay in the awakening of their own hearts, in whether they dared to raise their blades against evil!

Thus, Asano Kiyoshi stood up. Carrying the half-dead Musashi Kasa, he came to the household whose occupants had just been slashed by him. Looking at the girl who was currently crying while holding her father, Asano Kiyoshi's face carried a trace of pity and tenderness, but also an indescribable resolve:

"Stop crying. I'll save your father. This is the person who intended to violate you. I've already caught him. How you deal with him is up to you."

With that, Asano Kiyoshi threw Musashi Kasa's body before the girl. Seeing the mangled, bloody body, she instinctively let out a scream. Asano Kiyoshi said nothing. He merely walked over to the old man who had already fainted and slowly peeled back the tattered clothing fused to the flesh and blood on the old man's back.

Asano Kiyoshi said nothing. He simply treated the old man's wounds in silence. He neither urged the girl nor guided her. He merely let her struggle where she stood.

The girl's expression slowly changed from fear to disgust. After seeing the wounds on the old man's body, her eyes became filled with utter, absolute hatred!

The girl walked slowly yet firmly toward the Zanpakuto that had fallen to the ground. With her slender, frail arms, she picked it up. Her body trembled slightly. Then, she looked at her father's bloody, mangled back, and a desperate roar against fate seemed to be forced from her throat.

As the cry rang out, the girl raised the Zanpakuto and slashed it directly across Musashi Kasa's face!

However, because the girl had too little strength, even with all her might, she only left a wound on Musashi Kasa's face about as thick as a large finger.

But that one slash caused the listless Musashi Kasa to suddenly wake up!

Looking at the girl holding the blade, perhaps because his mind had not caught up yet and he had not realized why he was lying here, he instead shouted at her:

"Ah! You damn bitch! You actually dared to hit me! I'll skin you alive! I'll chop off your limbs! I'll even..."

The girl ignored him. She merely raised the Zanpakuto in her hand once more and continued chopping at Musashi Kasa!

Each strike was fiercer than the last!

It was the resistance of the weak against fate!

It was a roar at the sight of light beyond the window of an iron house!

Asano Kiyoshi watched the girl, and a faint smile appeared in his eyes. Then he stood and shouted at the residents cautiously peering from outside the house:

"Remember! You are human! Not livestock raised in pens by others! You are human! Living, breathing human beings! Human beings no different from me!"