The light in the safe house suddenly dimmed for an instant.
The Reishi tubes overhead buzzed with electricity, casting flickering light over Tokinada's face and its twisted smile.
Yan Si stood where he was, his pupils trembling ever so slightly.
He had actually considered this question long ago.
For a long time, he had found the way this world worked strange.
When humans died, they became souls. A small number dissipated outright, some reached the Soul Society, and others fell and became Hollows.
There seemed to be nothing wrong with that, but coupled with the supposed balance of the Three Realms, it made very little sense.
Viewed as a cycle of reincarnation, the total number of souls kept decreasing. None were being created.
That was without even accounting for the Hollows slain by Shinigami or annihilated by Quincies.
If the total number of souls really was constantly declining...
Then the human population in the Human World could only shrink-because there were fewer souls to reincarnate.
But what had actually happened? As the modern era arrived and productive capacity expanded, the human population had exploded!
Which raised a question.
The number of Wandering Souls and Shinigami in the Soul Society kept increasing.
The number of Hollows in Hueco Mundo was increasing too.
How could the human population also increase?
Viewed that way, the supposed balance of souls across the Three Realms became deeply suspicious.
Where had all those souls come from?
Never mind those departed Captain-level figures-their spiritual bodies were all in Hell.
However he calculated it, the number of souls was actually increasing!
And those departed captains, those powerful beings who had lived for centuries or millennia before choosing to end their own lives-their spiritual bodies were all in Hell.
Hell was not part of the equation governing the balance