After glancing at the location sent by the Twelfth Division on the Communication Device, Ailin slipped it into the pocket inside his robes and vanished from midair in an instant...
"This is the place?"
Even with a seal restricting his spiritual pressure placed on him, Ailin was far faster than an ordinary captain.
In less than three minutes, Ailin had arrived at the location where the Substitute Shinigami Badge had last disappeared, as sent by the Twelfth Division.
It was an exceptionally luxurious villa, but what surprised Ailin was that there seemed to be no one in the villa to clean it or tend to the grounds.
"It's faint, but Ginjo's spiritual pressure definitely remains here."
After entering the villa, Ailin followed the lingering spiritual pressure left behind by Ginjo Kugo deeper inside, finally stopping in a hall.
Ginjo Kugo's spiritual pressure had vanished here.
He surveyed his surroundings, and before long, Ailin noticed something off about the hall.
Rather than a hall meant for receiving guests, this one felt more like a funeral hall to Ailin.
At the very center of the hall stood a raised platform covered in countless white chrysanthemums. At its center were two rectangular marks.
If Ailin was right, those marks were where two coffins had originally been placed. That was why the white chrysanthemum platform had those two empty impressions of identical shape and size.
Further ahead, three photographs rested on a table at the front of the hall. The two on either side were black-and-white portraits of a man and a woman, while the color photograph in the middle showed a family of three.
Ailin did not recognize the man or woman.
But he remembered the child between them.
Yukio Hans Vorarlberna.
The moment he saw Yukio's photograph, Ailin understood why Soul Society