"What?!"
Soken Ishida exclaimed in shock, "Quincy Final Form?!"
"You don't know? It's an ability that causes you to lose all your Spiritual Power after using it. It's the Quincies' last and strongest trump card."
Gaoyu smiled bitterly. "Anyway, it's an incredibly powerful ability, but using it means losing your Quincy powers."
"How could I not know that?" Soken Ishida quickly replied. "I'm just surprised that someone actually used that power."
Quincy Final Form was considered a secret among the Quincies. At the very least, it wasn't something an ordinary Quincy would know about.
But while others might not know, there was no way Soken Ishida didn't. He had been exiled from the Wandenreich to the Human World precisely because he stood by the power of Quincy Final Form!
The Wandenreich...
It was a force made up of the Quincies who had survived the great war a thousand years ago, hidden in the shadows of the Seireitei.
Throughout the thousand years that followed, the Quincies had constantly yearned for revenge.
When an entire people was consumed by the desire for revenge, their methods of war multiplied dramatically.
The Quincies of the Wandenreich had modified Quincy Final Form into a new power called "Schrift."
One of the reasons Soken Ishida had been driven out of the Wandenreich was that he refused to accept this new power, Schrift.
So how could he not know about Quincy Final Form?
Still, hearing someone suddenly bring it up in front of him left him somewhat shocked.
As for what Gaoyu had said...
How should he put it? He was about sixty percent inclined to believe it.
That was because Gaoyu had started by revealing three relatively secret things about the Quincies.
One was the Quincy surname Kurosaki. Another was Quincy Final Form. And the third...
He knew about the Wandenreich and knew Soken had been exiled.
That was enough to prove that Gaoyu was also a Quincy, because at this point in time, only Quincies knew the Wandenreich existed.
The Soul Reapers only knew that the Quincies hadn't been wiped out completely. They didn't know about the empire or Soken's exile.
Taking everything into account, Soken was fairly convinced that Gaoyu was a Quincy.
He carefully examined Gaoyu's reiatsu and found that he was only giving off a faint trace of Spiritual Power.
It couldn't be helped. The gigai made by Kisuke Urahara was so well-made that once you put it on, it was practically indistinguishable from a real body.
And Gaoyu also knew that Soken was a pure-blood Quincy...
Soken asked curiously, "What happened to you... that made you use a power like Quincy Final Form?"
"..." Gaoyu fell silent.
Soken quickly added, "If you don't want to talk about it, I won't press you. I'm just curious why you showed up at my house."
"Nothing much. I just got into an argument with someone."
Gaoyu smiled wryly. "Those guys came up with Schrift, didn't they?"
"They think it's a power that surpasses Final Form. I disagree, so I challenged one of them."
Soken's eyes widened!
In that moment, he even felt as though he'd found someone who shared his convictions!
He also believed they shouldn't use a power like Schrift!
Still, he couldn't help asking in shock, "You were willing to lose your powers over something like that?"
Schrift was a modified version of Final Form, and its greatest advantage was that using it didn't cost you your powers.
So even if Gaoyu had won that contest, as long as his opponent was still alive, that alone would count as a victory.
"Actually... it's no big deal." Gaoyu smiled. "Even if I still had my powers, I'd just end up as cannon fodder a few decades from now. To be honest... I have no interest in that whole grand revenge crusade."
"..."
By this point, Soken was almost certain that Gaoyu really was a Quincy. Not only that, he was one of their own.
Only Quincies knew about the things Gaoyu had mentioned.
And even among the Quincies, only those with a certain standing would know.
"As for why I came here, honestly, I'm not really sure either."
"After leaving the empire, I wandered around the Human World. I fell asleep in a tree just now, and only realized this was your house when I fell out of it."
Gaoyu continued, "Maybe this is fate? Heh..."
"Fate is indeed unpredictable," Soken said, nodding in agreement.
"But I'm curious, Kurosaki... why did you reject Schrift?"
Without hesitation, Gaoyu replied, "I don't want someone else controlling whether I live or die."
"Schrift may be a modified version of Final Form, but I can't shake the feeling that once you use it, even your soul stops belonging to you."
At that, Gaoyu grew serious again.
"You know about this, don't you? The sleeping Quincy King will take nine hundred years to regain his heartbeat, ninety years to regain his consciousness, and nine years to regain his power..."
"...The legendary 'Saint Cantus' of the Quincies," Soken said gravely.
"Yeah. Our leader... possesses the power of 'Auswählen.' But we pure-bloods can avoid having our power reclaimed by it."
Gaoyu grew just as serious. "Still, I can't help feeling that if we use Schrift, we'll lose that 'special' quality. The more we rely on Yhwach's power, the harder it'll be to escape his control."
"..." Soken didn't answer right away. He watched Gaoyu intently for a while, then nodded in agreement.
"Actually, I've had the same thought, which is why I've steadfastly opposed using Schrift." Soken smiled bitterly. "It's just that people like us are bound to be rejected by everyone else."
"Don't let it get to you. Everyone has their own convictions." Gaoyu shook his head. "That's why I think the way I am now is pretty good. Spend a few decades in the Human World, then die of old age. That's how life ends for everyone, and that's not so bad, is it?"
"Heh, you make a good point."
At that moment, Gaoyu saw that Soken's favorability toward him had reached sixty-five.
Good. It seemed his choice had been the right one.
The character setup he'd invented for "Gaoyu Kouun" was exactly the kind most likely to earn Soken's approval.
Soken was someone exiled from the Wandenreich, someone who didn't hold much of a grudge against the Soul Reapers, and someone who had rejected Schrift.
And Gaoyu was also someone who had left the Wandenreich, someone who didn't think much of the Soul Reapers, and someone who had rejected Schrift.
Having never met someone who shared his convictions, Soken would probably accept him as a fellow Quincy before long.
Before you continue