Don't Lock Me Up

"Hey! Aunt! Wait for me!"

Ichigo was startled. He hurriedly pulled the Substitute Soul Reaper badge from his pocket and pressed it to his chest. His soul burst out of his body, transforming into a Soul Reaper as he chased after her, leaving only Kon pinned beneath his fallen body, struggling to crawl out while shouting.

"Damn it! Don't suddenly leave me behind!"

Below the river embankment, in the shadow beneath the bridge.

A woman in a leather jacket, with long hair and side-swept bangs, sat on a concrete block. She gently waved someone over, her lips slightly parted as her singing drifted into the distance.

Her name was Soma Yoshino, and she was one of the Bavent.

Before her, an office worker in a suit walked toward her step by step with vacant eyes, like a puppet whose strings were being pulled after its soul had been drained away.

The office worker stopped in front of her. Soma Yoshino rose and affectionately cupped his head in her hands. Then she parted her lips and slowly moved her teeth toward his neck.

"What a strange race. You possess bodies capable of storing spirit particles, yet you can't use spirit particles directly." Just as Yoshino's teeth were about to pierce the skin of his neck, a cool voice rang out nearby.

"Do you fight by using that strange fingernail cover as a medium?"

Yoshino's pupils suddenly contracted. Almost instinctively, she shoved the man in front of her away and warily looked toward the source of the voice behind her.

She turned her head and saw that someone was sitting on the concrete block where she had just been seated. It was a man in casual clothes, his wine-red hair spilling down like a waterfall and glimmering faintly beneath the moonlight.