That Really Was Rotten to the Core

"No, no, no, this isn't some kind of test..."

Ross chuckled softly, tightened his arm, and pulled Kurosaki Masaki's tall, voluptuous body directly into his embrace, letting her sit on his lap like an obedient big cat.

His fingers gently traced the flawless contours of her cheek, his tone filled with lazy possessiveness.

"This is merely an open and honest chat. Nothing more."

When he recalled first seeing this body, she had already looked like a somewhat ordinary mature woman, even bearing traces of age. She had only been a few steps away from fading completely into obscurity.

But fate was strange like that.

Because of Yhwach's Saint's Selection, and because Ross had intervened and reshaped her in time, this body seemed to have turned back the clock. Not only had it regained astonishing vitality, but under his nurturing, both her charm and radiance now far surpassed any peak she had reached in her life.

Of course, that did not come without a price.

The price of being reborn was that she had long since lost her soul. This peerless beauty and splendor belonged solely to Ross, his private possession.

"I don't have any particular thoughts."

Kurosaki Masaki obediently leaned against the man's chest, paying no attention at all to Inoue Orihime's hollow gaze in the corner as she accurately voiced Ross's thoughts.

"If things continue according to your current script, then after this purge, the Gotei 13 will inevitably have more than two vacant Captain positions. You intend to have those two fill them, don't you?"

Though she had lost her soul and sense of self, that did not mean she had lost the ability to think.

As someone who had always stood at Ross's side and could overlook the entire situation from within, the truth she saw was