Just look, just look!
Look at that!
I saved his life, too!
After I saved his little sister, his favorability toward me shot up from single digits to over seventy!
Now look at you two old guys. One of you has been at it forever and still hasn't even hit sixty, while the other owes me his life and only made it into the sixties.
Heh. The old folks these days are so hard to please.
But even though Byakuya Kuchiki's favorability toward him had reached seventy-two, he still wore his usual icy expression. He didn't even say a word to Gaoyu, simply walking past him as if nothing had happened.
Tch.
Gaoyu didn't say anything, either. After all, the most tangible benefit—the favorability—was already in the bag.
Gaoyu pursed his lips, then headed to Rukia's room.
Rukia was still unconscious.
"Yamada."
Just as Gaoyu was about to go in, he saw Yamada Katarō approaching from the other end of the corridor.
He greeted him and asked, "How's Rukia doing?"
He'd first met Katarō when he came to the Fourth Division to see Shūhei. He'd been back several times since, so the two of them were fairly familiar with each other.
Otherwise, Katarō's favorability toward him wouldn't have climbed above sixty.
And Katarō's favorability was fairly easy to raise. Gaoyu hadn't visited the Fourth Division all that often, and he'd spent little time with Katarō, yet he'd still managed to raise it.
"Miss Kuchiki..."
Katarō still seemed a little nervous around Gaoyu. "It's strange. There's nothing physically wrong with her, but she still hasn't woken up. The Captain says she may have suffered some kind of mental shock or trauma."
"It was probably her first time seeing such a brutal battle," Gaoyu offered as an explanation for Rukia's condition.
"That's