Standing Step by Step in the Position of Captain-General

Seven days later.

The unbroken rain that had lasted three full days finally ceased, as though even the skies of Soul Society had finished their final mourning for that old man's passing.

When the first ray of dawn pierced the heavy clouds and fell upon the freshly turned earth of the Hill of Punishment, an unprecedentedly grand funeral finally came to a solemn close.

There were no elaborate eulogies, nor any hypocritical wailing.

Tens of thousands of Shinigami, dressed in the most solemn black mourning robes, spread across the streets of the Seireitei like a black tide, all the way to the foot of that barren hill.

They stood in silence, merely lowering their heads in unison toward that direction to offer their highest respect.

The Strongest Shinigami named Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni, who had suppressed Soul Society for two thousand years and founded the Gotei 13, finally became nothing more than a cold line of text in the pages of history that morning.

Ross had specifically arranged for his tomb to be placed at the very summit of the Hill of Punishment.

It was one of the highest places in the Seireitei, and also where Captain-General Yamamoto had burned away the last spark of his life.

The terrain here had once been completely vitrified by that extreme heat, but it had now been restored to its original barren hill under the reconstruction of Ross and the others using Spirit Particles.

Only the enormous Sokyoku execution scaffold was gone. In its place stood a massive obsidian tombstone, uncarved and retaining only the rough texture of raw stone.

Only one name remained on the stele, with no further inscription.

Captain-General Yamamoto rested here in silence, sleeping forever at the highest point of Soul Society.

In life, he had been an unapproachable blazing