However, before Uryu Ishida and Orihime Inoue could get very far, they were blocked in an alley.
Under the night sky, the white haori made both Uryu Ishida and Orihime Inoue's hearts skip a beat.
They had been inside the Seireitei for nearly a day now, and Uryu Ishida and Orihime Inoue had learned that the Shinigami within the Seireitei wore only two kinds of attire.
One was the black Shinigami uniform.
Every Shinigami wore this outfit, Ichigo included.
Aside from that, there was another type of Shinigami attire: a white haori worn over the Shinigami uniform.
Even within the Seireitei, few people were qualified to wear this white haori.
Yet every Shinigami who wore one was an important figure in the Seireitei.
They were the thirteen captains who stood at the pinnacle of the Gotei 13.
And now, standing in Uryu Ishida and Orihime Inoue's path was one such captain wearing a Captain's Haori.
Under the night sky, Uryu Ishida saw the number on the back of that white haori.
Twelve!
The instant Uryu Ishida saw that number, his expression darkened at once.
Twelve years ago, Uryu Ishida had not yet reached the age of five.
That day, on his way to find his grandfather, he saw his grandfather being besieged by countless monsters.
Behind those monsters, many Shinigami dressed in black Shinigami uniforms lay in ambush.
If an even stronger Shinigami had not appeared in the end, his grandfather would probably have been killed by those monsters that day.
"Is it him?"
After recognizing the man before him, Uryu Ishida looked toward the man's right hand.
He remembered that the Shinigami who had appeared later seemed to have torn off this man's right arm.
Yet to Uryu Ishida's surprise, the man before him, draped in the Twelfth Division